Anyone listen to Zu Audio's Definition Mk3?


Comparisons with the 1.5s and the others that came before? Getting the itch; again......
128x128warrenh
Agear,
I missed the humor intent (hard to tell when reading threads I`ll admit) I apo;ogize. I don`t intent to patronize, just feel the debate about amp prefernces can get off track and silly after awhile.You may call it a platitude but I simply believe there`s no universal best when it come to audio components, just what one person happens to like vs other options(simple but true) exactly why so 'many' brands/choices exist in the first place. I`ll end it at that.
charles,
Regards,
Spirit,
When I went from a tube pre to my current First Watt B1 buffer/pre, I experienced better transparency and more transient snap with my Def 1.9s. This almost hurt my feelings as I was running a Rogue Athena pre which is no slouch and not known for any tube softness. At any rate, the First Watt was an improvement but it is very utilitarian looking and only has 2 sets of inputs. Now I feel I'm just getting the flavor of the KT120 output tubes on my Rogue monos which to these ears sounds magnificent. If you like your Radia, you might try a buffer or passive. The First Watt is relatively cheap.

Matt
1Daddy,

You write

I don`t know you personaaly but based on reading your posts you come off as dogmatic and somewhat childish, as if what you prefer 'has' to be better than someone else`s choice,Come on my friend grow up.

I must say that you have done that to me in this thread and now you do it again. We are not your little boys that you can spank when you feel like it. Writing that members here have to grow up/mature and meet your full manhood stature is condescending.

You have a lot to add on there forums but this daddy paddling the little boy is not one of them.

You can have the last word Dad.
Hey Dad, if I ever ragged on the Audion 845 like 231 does the Krell amp I would be a two year old.


RE: How much of the "high end" is a scam?
Posted by 213Cobra (A) on April 3, 2010 at 20:41:18
In Reply to: How much of the "high end" is a scam?

My first reaction, looking at the list of gear you heard, was to think, "well, obviously you won't get anything resembling music from that stack." But I realize that, by itself, doesn't help.
Now, really, SET OPINION=ON. No, I'm not going to try either to offend anyone or avoid it. That stack represents most of what's wrong with high-end audio and why most people can't remotely relate to it. It's also a prime example of why the SET, widebander and Gaincard insurgencies sprang up over the last 20 years. Wilson, Boulder and to a lesser extent what Meridian has unfortunately become (after a long illuminating contribution to hifi) are the current endpoints of a toneless jag high-end set off on circa 1980. I peg the turning point to the debut of the first Krell amps, easily the bleakest line of electrified dead mass ever heaped upon an ususpecting public of music lovers. The day a leather-eared hifi journalist of stature deemed Krell a contender during our last significant economic calamity, a rush of EE entrepreneurs jumped in to over-fetishize hifi during the Reagan administration, to the point where six figures puts you in the Maxell chair wondering where the fun went?

Has a Wilson speaker *ever* produced a note that sounds remotely communicative of the emotion carried by music? No. Too many drivers, too much crossover, cabinets too dead to do anything but drain life from the sound. Of course to get any jump factor out of the Wilson, you need amps powered directly by the Hoover Dam, so you get complex, toneless Boulders that manage to reveal every transient but left the body behind alongside Jimmy Hoffa. And poor Meridian, once purveyor of digital gear full-bodied and visceral now obscuring music in a jangle of crystalline angst.

People hear these stacks of toneless metal pushing a firehose of sound through dreadnought boxes of pistonic might and they know you're nuts because it just doesn't sound right. Oh, it's *immpressive* but it doesn't sound like any music they ever heard but, you know..., you're an audiophile and the stuff looks expensive so..."what do I know?" is all they can say.

What gives is that the mainstream exotica has become totemic of wealth and conferred exceptionalism. What does it matter if it sounds like a cannonball fired at your face? It looks impressive! Those are brands 'everybody knows'! How about that bass rattling your pelvic structure? Ever hear cymbals hurled at your head like that??

And then of course 90% of this gear ends up in a "man cave" hidden and cherished, so the few times anyone else gets exposed to it who might be sensible enough to hear it and say, "Dude, WT...F?" instead gets cornered into a "demo," which is going to be about everything BUT the music. And the retailer displaying that Boulder....well, can't blame him. It's no different from a shiny Rolex.

SET OPINION=OFF.

Look, these kinds of systems are why a few adventurers prowl the back alleys to find oddities from a lost era. Have you ever heard a full 47 Labs / Sakura Systems system? Zu or Cain&Cain with SET amplification? A Shindo system or Leben amps with simple wideband or 2-way speakers? Heck, let's go mainstream. Walk into your nearest McIntosh & Sonus Faber dealer and ask him to wire up the "nonsensical" combination of Cremonas + MC1.2kws + any Mac preamp and any decent disc player or TT they have in the store.

Good sound is out there that lives up to (or beyond) its price; it's just not where you had hoped.

Phil
Glory,

You missed the point of that post. A post, by the way, I'm happy to have in the permanent record since it probably sums up more of what I think has gone wrong with hifi than any other single post I've written. Thank-you for re-posting it here; the old school forum equivalent of a re-tweet!

And it was in response to a question: "How much of high end is a scam?" Read the whole thread. Why stop with me?

Anyway, Krell was just a start. Dig some more and you'll find other mentions of my disdain. But I've got a long list of gear to cast aspersions to for insults to music fidelity. None of the gear discussed in *this* thread is on that roster of rogue hardware. We're discussing smaller differences between components that all get in the realm of musical credibility, revolving around what we all agree are exceptional speakers. Our differeneces are over answers to the questions: "....but if you have to pick just one, what...?"

Phil