I have to agree with Rtn1 and say that refinement is what you gain with higher-end speakers. The issues is not messing up anything else in the process. IMO materials do not over shadow engineering, but when you have both things get very nice.
Audioguy3107,
Now to answer your question directly. "Are our CS 2.4s really that good that they do compare to some of these much higher priced models?" Yes in the appropriate setting.
Consider the room:
What I mean by that is my room is about 1/2 the size of the demo room. So my CS2.4 fill and load my room about the same way a larger speaker (Sophia 3) filled the much larger room. The end result it that my system in my room was VERY comparable to the sound of the Sophia 3 in the larger demo room. Now where I will ruffle some feathers is where I thought my system was better but I will get to that later.
Also when you think about room size, in my smaller room I need less energy created by the speakers to achieve the same loudness of a bigger room. The speaker can play softer for the same volume. This creates less stress on the speakers and build quality (inertness, distortion, etc) is less of a factor.
One advantage of a larger room is soundstage and imaging. Small rooms have too many close boundaries to really let the imaging and soundstage do its thing. So all in all my point is, if you have a large room big expensive well engineered speakers will out perform an over achiever( CS2.4) but if your room is like mine (limited) I do not think many of the pricy speakers are better.... just different. Also we all know the down side of huge speakers in a small room so I will not get into that side of the discussion.
Concerning the speakers:
Thiel has engineering that other "small" brands could only dream of. The difference between Thiel and some of the other higher-end brands is they design around a price point. Good for me, bad for people will a lot of money. Engineering is easy when price is not limited but when price matters and you still have a good product they have done something very right.
Brands that put as much into engineering as Thiel and also bring unlimited quality of parts will outperform them.
Audioguy3107 I will be more than happy to write you a little review of my demo (with music used etc). I have not demoed may of the speakers you are looking at but as a fellow CS2.4 owner I could give you my take on what I have heard. It will take a little time though. Just let me know if you would like my opinion on any of the following demos and what aspects you are most interested in. What do you feel you are missing with your current system?
I have demoed the following speakers in the same room/system several times over the last year and mixed and matched electronics on occasion.
Sophia 3 vs 802Diamond (Two weeks ago, This time the Sophia 3 was spiked and set up fully with Audio Research/Classe' gear).
Thiel 3.7 vs Sophia 3 (about two months ago... I wrote an over view but the thread seems to be gone now, not sure why??, Musical Fidelity/Audio Research gear)
Thiel 3.7 vs CS2.4 ( two months ago, same room but slightly different systems. Systems were on opposite sides of the same rectangular room).
