Anyone listen to Zu Audio's Definition Mk3?

Musicxyz, have you owned Merlin or Joseph Audio speakers? If so, how did they sound to you?

Please understand it is still just my opinion and there are a ton of variables that play into the scenario. I have owned both Merlin and Joseph and these are completely different than Zu because Zu does not use any crossover parts for 8 of the 10 octaves. My Wilson Grand slams and Magico were a complete different level than the Merlins or Joseph speakers but again the crossover in the more expensive speaker is an issue for me but perhaps other people can live with crossovers; I can’t. With 60’ of junk cooper in a coil and 5% tolerance levels on caps and resistors, how can any speaker designer claim their speaker is phase coherent at the listener’s ear? I believe the reason I prefer Zu is because they sound like the artist voice, phase coherent. There are some very good speakers on the market today but for me all the frequencies must arrive at my ear at the same time or the speaker becomes fatiguing. Again it is just one persons opinion. I could never go back to a speaker that has a crossover in the midrange area.

Musicxyz, us long-term Zu Def owners have always loved the authentic tone dense sound of the crossoverless FRDs in the design, but I am bowled over that you rate this improved design as superior to such uber speakers as the Wilson Grand Slam, esp. coming from your personal ownership. Looks like I really won't be able to resist the move upwards.
Upon getting bass integration sorted with the SpatialComputer Black Hole which the Def4s will improve upon further, can you comment upon specific improvements in treble extension/transparency going from the 2s to 4s, since this is the one area that could be reasonably criticised in the 2s.

You’re really comparing apples to oranges. It is tough to get to deep in detail because my system will be very different from your system but the Radian tweeter is much more transparent, detail and faster than the previous models. The Nano driver has about 30% more inner detail so ever cut is like listening to a new version of the old song. I have put on albums and had to check to make sure that it was the same album I thought I had put on. Wilson makes a great product but for me no matter what equipment I put on my Wilsons they still were lacking in emotion which tells me they are not phase coherent enough for me. The Mk4’s puts me in the recording studio with the artist but of course it takes great equipment and cables to complete the whole picture. All I can say is “if you are happy with your sound than stick with your equipment”. I am just giving my opinion it could be right or wrong for you.

Yes, Glory has it right. I've been too busy listening to my Def4s to take time to write about them. I bought about 50 more CDs and vinyl discs since they were delivered, and I'm plowing through my thousands of existing discs. It's cutting into my work productivity!

Here are the short strokes, while I get my full narrative together:

To understand Def 4 you have to know Def 1 and 2. I'll write about this later. The basics however are apparent regardless of your historical exposure to Zu.

1/ Top to bottom, Def 4 is for the first time a Definition-archtecture speaker that has the holistic charcter of Druid, with Definition's accuracy and scale. Its tone, speed and dynamic characteristics are now fully uniform top to bottom. In prior versions, the dual FRDs, super tweeter and the sub-bass array left traces of their independence. No more.

2/ Def4 soundstage is as wide and deep as your room allows, and will go beyond to serve the dimensional characteristics of the music performance recorded. For anything from a Blu-ray movie soundtrack to a full orchestra to a trio or solo performer in an intimate space, spatial representations are closer to the perception of live performance than in any Zu speaker to-date (though I haven't yet heard Dominance).

3/ Even in a tricky room, the new 12" cast-basket down-firing sub-bass driver and its driving amplifier more evenly loads a room with bass, with fewer resonance, bass-piling and reflective problems than the older and once-excellent 4x10" back-firing sub-bass line array on Def 1&2. Most of the bass resonance problems that I've in the past just had to listen through in my main room, are mitigated to the point of irrelevance. Bass is prodigious when the recording calls for it, but in all cases is reproduced with higher definition and charcter unique to the given bass instrument and the player's style, than in prior versions.

4/ Top to bottom transient uniformity is unprecedented for a dynamic speaker. Def4 has electrostatic-like speed and uniformity, while retaining the punchy heft of a responsive magnet-motor cone speaker.

5/ The inclusion of the Radian compression supertweeter is a very large advance over prior Definitions, if your high frequency hearing is still intact. It is extended, liquid-smooth, fast and not beamy. It is what Definition needed from Day 1. Similarly, the nano-treated main drivers are responsive and transparent to a new level of revelation because even further stiffness has been achieved in the cones, with only a fraction of the added mass of prior treatments. As I understand it, only around a gram or less of treatment compound is used now per driver. You hear it, in speed, attack, articulation and tone.

6/ As I'll elaborate in a more complete assessment, cabinet talk is suppressed yet again over the prior version, sharply reducing the tonal artifacts introduced by high SPLs in prior Definitions.

7/ An unexpected consequence of all this attention to advancement: somehow and counterintuitive to landing a more revealing speaker, regular Redbook CDs are more listenable and satisfying than ever before, without any change to my sources. I expected a more transparent transducer to render older, or more compressed or generally poor CDs to challenge my tolerance for listening to them. But the reverse is true. These speakers have me mining deeper into my CD collection than in quite awhile. Vinyl gets its due but I have a lot of music unavailable on vinyl, and I'm enjoying all of it more.

8/ Tonal integrity and holistic realism remain evident in the bursty, one-voice Zu way, but beyond what anyone has experienced who hasn't heard Dominance or Def4. This is not an incremental iteration of Defintion.

I''ll get more tapped into text tomorrow or Monday.

Phil