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This was a hard review to write. Normally, the critic ends up with a shopping list of faults that he just has to assemble into some kind of logical order. In the case of the Thiel CS2 2, however, it seemed that the longer I listened for flaws, the less I heard—an enjoyable task for the music lover, but a frustrating one for the professional reviewer. At its price, the CS2 2 is a sonic bargain. Beautifully finished, with a sound that is smooth, tonally well-balanced, and extended at both extremes, it is musically one of the most satisfying loudspeakers I’ve heard. Its main drawbacks are the slight tendency to brightness, which will lead to care having to be taken in choosing a matching amplifier—the Thiels and the Audio Research Classic 120s were a marriage made in heaven—and the limited dynamic range in the low bass. Unless you mainly play organ or synthesizer music, or want your high-end speakers to double for high-level disco party use, however, this should not be a problem. The CS2 2 is a “good big’un” for less than you would pay for a good pair of minimonitors with their stands. Highly recommended.
Footnote 1: Just before the cello enters with the “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” theme. I grew up on these performances, recorded by the premier English RCA team of Chuck Gerhardt and Kenneth Wilkinson, which were originally released in the early ’60s as part of the Reader’s Digest‘s Adventures in Light Classical Music boxed set—so I regard them as definitive. Buy this Chesky, as well as the others in the same set: René Leibowitz’s Evening of Opera (CD61) and Portrait of France (CD57). I must respectfully disagree with J. Gordon Holt’s rather fainthearted praise of the latter in this month’s “Record Reviews” section, therefore. It is much better than he says, even Bolero.