I have a pair of Thiel MCS1s that I love from 150Hz and up. I've had them for a long time, paired with a CSS Trio 12 sub (tuned very low). The MCS1s are powered by a Bryston 4b, fed from the XLR outputs on my Oppo BDP-205. They are playing full range, as I didn't want to put any additional AD/DA conversion or active circuitry in the way. I run the RCA L/R outputs from the Oppo to a miniDSP for low pass to another Bryston 4B to power the Trio12. Fortunately, my room design and treatments has led to no need to EQ the sub. I get a very flat in room response (The room is a fully isolated, double wall/room in room design with lot of absorption and reflection treatments).
So why am I messing with this?? Well, I primarily designed for DSD playback perfection. On the Oppo, this means that there is no bass management in DSD mode. Just L/R, hence the need for the miniDSP setup. I also feel I'm missing punch and accuracy from 40-150Hz. The MCS1s are great stand alone down to 150 or so, but there is a lot of room for them to cover all the way up to the midrange. I would like to take this system to the next level and add a woofer component to the MCS1s. It needs to be fast and musical. I was actually looking at sourcing a pair of woofers from the 3.7s and building an enclosure for them to sit next to the MCS1s, but not sure if there is something better out there. No real restrictions on the box size, etc. Each woofer will get a channel from the Bryston 4b (getting rid of the Trio12).
Ideally I could add a HP filter to the MCS1 and a LP to the new woofer boxes, something clean and 1st order to keep with the design principles of the MCS1.
Thoughts??
So why am I messing with this?? Well, I primarily designed for DSD playback perfection. On the Oppo, this means that there is no bass management in DSD mode. Just L/R, hence the need for the miniDSP setup. I also feel I'm missing punch and accuracy from 40-150Hz. The MCS1s are great stand alone down to 150 or so, but there is a lot of room for them to cover all the way up to the midrange. I would like to take this system to the next level and add a woofer component to the MCS1s. It needs to be fast and musical. I was actually looking at sourcing a pair of woofers from the 3.7s and building an enclosure for them to sit next to the MCS1s, but not sure if there is something better out there. No real restrictions on the box size, etc. Each woofer will get a channel from the Bryston 4b (getting rid of the Trio12).
Ideally I could add a HP filter to the MCS1 and a LP to the new woofer boxes, something clean and 1st order to keep with the design principles of the MCS1.
Thoughts??
So I've actually decided to keep the Trio12. Going to run it off the sub/LFE output on the Oppo. Need to get another amp for it, contemplating a Crown XLS1502 or Behringer NX1000D.
After more testing, it looks like the Sub out is null with DSD playback (original reason for the added bass sections to the mains). But it will use the internal digital bass management of the Oppo for everything else. So I'm going to set the crossover as low as possible (40Hz) with the L/R mains set to "Large". I believe that this will run my mains full bandwidth all the time (using the XLR outputs on the Oppo bypasses bass management regardless), and still give me an LFE channel for movie playback.
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