Just like what said earlier, I was planning on a speaker upgrade only so I started reading reviews on stereophile magazine, AudioReview.com, as well as friends' recommendations.
My budget had a hard limit of $1000, which is relatively low for any HiFi equipment standard. Obviously I am not looking for a set of new speakers. I've auditioned BA Lynfield series, KEF, Energy, Paradigm, and read about Mission, Acoustic Energy, NHT, etc. While the models I have listened were fairly recent or new, and they are all very fine speakers for what they are at sub $1000 range, but none was being particular or special.
The best suggestion came from a friend of mine whom I have not met in person but had been conversing on a different special interest mailing list, namely the Alfa Digest list. He is also an active member on the AudioAsysum.com.
Thiel CS3.5, you can get these for very little money but what you get is a true HiFi performance, they project an incredible 3D image of the music.
I started searching information regarding to the CS3.5, unfortunately not much information could be found on the web as this is a model introduced 15-20 years ago! There are a few reviews on audioreview.com, and not too much more. In any case, I started looking for them on ebay and Audiogon.com. It wasn't so hard to see a pair of these for sale, the hard part was to find a local seller so I can check them out and pickup them up locally and a chance to listen to before making the decision.
Eventually I picked up a pair within the SF bay area, immediately after i hooked them up, not only my tiny living room now inhereted the elegance of the CS3.5, the room is also filled with REAL music! What a fantastic pair of speakers! I said to myself :)
From there on, I listened to all my CDs and found many to be unrecognizable, not just because they sound different, but there are so much more details that I was not used to hear, suddenly all my CDs seem to be new to me again! I even started listening to volcal tracks that I was not found of before but now i could marvel the singer's voice and passion. I hear clearly when finger sliding on the guitar strings, a triangle lingering in the middle of symphony, birds sing on the tree, etc, things just haven't been the same!
The Thiel CS3.5 came with a factory bass equalizer to futher linearlize it's bass response all the way down to 20hz. At first I used some spare el-cheapo radio shack RCA cables to hook it up, but the result was simply dissapointing. It went back to Thiel for reconditioning (for that the connectors were badly corroded), at same time, I figure that the equalizer was meant to be part of complete package to deliver the right sound, I should try my best to connect it up with right interconnects so to bring out the most without signal degradation.
I almost had my mind set for JPS labs' Ultraconductor after reading and sampling a few including products like Diamondback from AudioQuest, MIT Terminator 2, Analysis plus copper oval, to name a few. As I was getting ready to order the Ultraconductor, I was given recommendation to go for custom cable using Beldon 89259 with a design based closely on Jon Risch' published designs for both interconnects and speaker wires, while using quality connectors from Cardas. You can either DIY with information from Jon Risch's website, or opt for a custom made cable by the professionals. In my case, I got mine from TakeFiveAudio.com. The craftmanship was top notch, and came pre burned-in so it's ready to use.
While at it, I figured that money is already spent on 3 interconnects, might as well get a better custom wire for the speakers. Again, from TakeFiveAudio.com. These are made of twisted beldon 89259s and Cardas banana/spade termination, and are of Jon Risch's design.
Unseen clarity and spaciousness that somewhat reminded me a bit of Wilson Audio's watt/puppy that I've auditioned before at HiFi store . Here's a little excerpt that I sent to Gene @ TakeFiveAudio.com:
Anyway, I was listening to a cd of harpscicord, everything went great and then I heared some kids out there making noises. For a few minutes I tried to ignore that, till i kinda fed up and got up to close the windows (yeah i left the window open at the time, it's almost summer time here in california) to my surprise there's no one out there in the alley. To that point I realized that the child noises were from the CD recordings!! hahahaaa.. Just to say that I never heard that details before with the monster something 300 ICs and with some OFC speaker wires that I had before, wow! :) :) truly amazed now :)
I find it awfully similar to modifying a car... With cars, the basic rule to increase the power is to increase the flow in and out of the engine. Some people add a free-flow rear muffler that usually don't do much of an improvemnt, some people replaced exhast manifold alone and gained very little. It is only when the entire exhaust path is free flowing that the benefit of each component is maximized.
In my case, my average NAD AV716 AV AMP used in stereo mode had been providing me more HiFi than I needed all these years, it is finally "breathing" when I had the right interconnects, speaker wires, and most importantly, a pair of speakers that truthfully reproduce ALL signal fed to them. With this upgrade I received satisfaction far exceeded my original goal for relatively little money.
To date, I have also disconnected my surround speakers front and both rears, as the pair of Thiel CS 3.5 projects a clearer image with clarity and quality not possible from cheap consumer grade components.
updatesThe NAD died sometime around end of 2002 or beginning of 2003. With no real budget, I setup to spend about 1K to find a replacement. Both Outlaw and NADs came highly recommended. I picked up a NAD T761, without any other change, we could hear noticeable improvement over the old AV716. Even my non audiophile wife noticed that the music is fuller and feels more solid and life like. We found ourself confused about things we hear is from the speakers more and more often, which only says that the system now at current setup reproduces sounds quite natural. The pair of CS3.5 seems to do everything we throw at them and they seem they can do much more still! until then, I'll enjoy good music for quite a while :)
