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Give up on Thiel 3.6 or try another amp again ?

These speakers sound amazing sometimes, especially on small-scale, well recorded material (regardless of genre).

I tried a PS Audio HCA-2 and an Aragon 8002, neither of which sounded particularly good. I'm now driving them with a pair of 90 wpc Quicksilver mono tube amps. I know this is against conventional wisdom, but I like them more than the previous amps as long as I keep the volume moderate.

The problem is that the speakers don't open up and bloom as I turn them up for either large-scale classical or rock music, but rather get hard sounding. It could be the small room overloading, but I suspect it's the amps running out of steam.

Ideally, I would have an unlimited budget to power these speakers with a huge, clean solid state amp. Sadly, I have pretty much no budget at all, so I'd have to sell the Quicksilvers to finance a new amp. This would leave me with $1200 or so for a good, high current, high wattage amp.

I was thinking a used Parasound A21 might fit the bill, but there aren't a whole lot of other options in this price range that seem optimum.

Truthfully, I am starting to think it would more make sense to explore other used speaker options; as nice as the Thiels sound at times, they may simply be too impractical given my financial constraints. Perhaps a pair of Vandersteen 3A signatures or a new pair of 2ce Signature Mk. II? Perhaps the Gallo 3.1s?

What would you do if you were me?

btw, the rest of the system consists of a Quicksilver linestage and a Rega Saturn CD player. Thanks!
jonathan1257
jonathan1257 OP
82 posts
 
Drubin is right. I never did say I wanted a warmer sound. Actually, I don't find the Thiels to be overly bright at all; they are revealing of the recording, though, warm, bright or otherwise.
unsound
7,311 posts
 
If you like floorstanders like the Thiels, really want to keep your current amps and with your current room, perhaps you might want to consider some Meadowlarks speakers. Of course they're out of business, so you'll give up Thiel's legendary customer service. On the other hand, while they share traits with the Thiel's, they're simpler and as far as I know, use off the shelf drivers.
french_fries
815 posts
 
once you draw a line in the sand regarding whether or not you want to keep your amplifiers, the decision is going to get alot easier. thiels reveal alot of detail and throw an excellent soundstage, and are better (more accurate) speakers than vandy-2's. too bad they need extra power. if you could only drive the woofers with a separate ss amp (could even be a monoblock), the tube amps would only have to deal with the mids. when you don't have alot of money to throw around, you can still consider alternative solutions.
unsound
7,311 posts
 
Thiel hasn't offered dual sets of cable inputs since the CS 3's, well over 20 years ago. The 3.6's are amongst the most demanding of Thiel's speakers to drive. While there are some less expensive amps that can do the job, one needs a real high quality powerfull amp that works well into low impedances (and that usually doesn't come cheap) to get the most out of them.
ttodd92
1 posts
 
I owned a pair of 3.6's before trading up to the 6.0. Both speakers are incredibly inefficient and demanding. I've tried a variety of amps but I found it took a high power, solid state (400 watt) amp to really get them to open up and perform. If you're running them with less than 200 watts you'll get that hard, bright sound. Do you have a dealer that will loan you a high power amp? I'd give that a try if possible. Having used three different preamps and four amps with Thiels I'll tell you the answer is power, and lots of it. Good luck!
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