Thiel CS2.2 & CS1.5 Review — Why These Classic Floorstanders Still Rival Modern High-End Speakers

Thiel CS2 2 and CS 1.5 Floorstanding Speakers

If you had looked at the Thiel Audio website late last year with any knowledge of what Thiel used to be, you might have shaken your head and cried. Before shuttering completely, the fantastic company that Jim and Tom Thiel put together was reduced to making a single Bluetooth speaker.

Why, Universe, why??

The thought of a Bluetooth speaker by Thiel kind of tweaks me off right now, because I’m sitting between a gorgeous pair of Thiel CS 2 2 speakers and remarking on just how much they remind me of current state-of-the-art offerings.

These came out in the early 90s, and judging from period reviews (pun intended — note the space between 2 and 2. Bose threatened a lawsuit to reclaim the dot, amazingly) of the 2 2s, they sounded as good to audiophile ears then as they do now.

And earlier this morning, a flawless set of CS1.5s (they were permitted to keep the period here — thanks, Bose) blew me away with the same kind of modern sound.

There are simple qualities that the best speakers exhibit, but which are hard to achieve. In my context, simple would be easy to identify.

One of these is transient response. You know from a few seconds of listening to good speakers that they reproduce a kick drum accurately and convincingly. Still, you may need to hear more profoundly and longer before you notice that great speakers can put a bass transient together with the striking of a triangle.

Another is spatial information. In well-recorded music, I listen for believability in reverb decay. This effect can’t all be laid at the feet of the speakers— it’s a system thing, involving the amp and the speaker cables, especially. But it starts with the speakers. If there isn’t a phase-neutral crossover and some kind of attention paid to diffraction (more to the former than the latter), changes in amplifier or cables won’t affect this much.

So how do these ~25-year-old speakers measure up?

My goodness. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I’m listening to a new set of top-of-the-line PSB, Revel, or Sonus Faber. There’s a bit of the Dynaudio spirit in there, too.

This is the fantastic thing about buying gently used audio equipment curated to include only excellent offerings, as we do. These speakers represent such good value that most of my readers could shake out their shelves, trade in whatever comes out, and cover the entire cost.

Under close inspection, both pairs of these Thiels appear to have a lot of life left in them. Save your speaker money for some good cables, why don’tcha!