Thiel CS3.7 and CS2.4 comparisons?

>I almost walked out with a pair of Magnepans 1.7

Is the 1.7 shipping?

I believe there is around a month wait on all orders of 1.7s. One of my dealers has them on the floor while the other one does not...

They sound very good though. I have never heard the 1.6 so I can not compare them. But I have heard the 3.6R a few times for long demos. I felt the 1.7 had a little more texture in upper bass than the 3.6R and maybe a little more detail in the upper mids too. It is hard to say though because they were different systems.

The highs on the 1.7s were pretty good with nice detail and decay but I did not feel they were as integrated as the preliminary review (Jonathan Valin...) were claiming. They seemed to come from the upper outer edge of the speakers. The power in the bass caught me off guard and was very comparable to the 3.6R (again different systems heard about a week apart).

The mids still had the somewhat larger then life vocal size. Nora Jones sounded about 8 feet tall but siductive at the same time.

Anyway for the price they are a steel, $2095 for the metal trim model.

How are the cs2.4's sounding james63? What amplification did you mate with them?

Velocityofhue,

I am still enjoying them. I have not worked the system around them. I just dropped them into my old system Mac Mini (connected by toslink)-Benchmark HDR-DAC1 preamp/dac-Wyred4sound ST500amp.

My guess is that most people on this site would not like my system but enjoying a system is about knowing what you like and going with it. My system is very detailed and very aggressive for the bottom up. The bass has lots of punch and depth (relative to the size of the speakers/room) and is very good from such a small speaker, mids are sweet but tell the truth on vocals, bad recordings need not apply. Highs are nothing special but still hold there own, in my very damped room the highs are balanced and not bright at all (brightness is common with the 2.4). The driver integration is OUTSTANDING, and soundstage is as good as my room will allow.

I have moved them into a smaller room 12X15X7 and I feel they are a better fit in the smaller room. The bass fills the room better and everything else stayed about the same. I guess I should post pictures of my system sometime.


I really just bought the speakers as a stepping stone but I think they will be keepers for awhile. I have demoed the Thiel 3.7, Sophia 3, B&W 802Diamond (CS2.4 also) again this month in the same system/room. It was my second round of demoing the Sophia 3. I had full intent (still do) to buy new speakers. But the quality of the CS2.4's sound really makes me stop and rethink high priced speakers. I have been looking for a sound that turns out I already have... I guess that is true of a lot of things in life.

The CS2.4 is the first set of speakers that I have had where I do not focus on a glaring flaw. I have over 3000 CDs on an external drive and use my iphone as a remote. I love to change songs/albums/genres on the fly. I like that I can go from a soft Tori Amos album "Under the Pink" to something like Dream Theater at the drop of a hat. So all in all I am enjoying the music and that is what it is all about.

I may just skip mid priced highend ($15000ish) and hold out for a deal on something highend I really want. I am not sure speakers in the $15000 range will yield better results in my current room (still in the small house my wife and I bought in college). Once I move I will upgrade.

Hi james.....I'm interested in your impressions/comparisons with those other speakers you listed. I'm in the same boat, I have CS 2.4s hooked up to a McIntosh C220 pre and MC 402 amplifier. I also have 2 Velodyne DD 10 subs which pretty much take care of the bass. I was also thinking about upgrading to the next step of speaker....some of the choices I've been considering are the CS 3.7, the Verity Audio Parsifal Ovations, Sonus Faber Elipsas, and Avalon Indras/Transcendents. Are our CS 2.4s really that good that they do compare to some of these much higher priced models? What do you think? I haven't really had a chance to do any comparisons yet.