Anyone listen to Zu Audio's Definition Mk3?

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

Hi Glory,
No, I`m not assuming the role of big poppa on this thread. IMO we`re all adults who happen to share a common interest of music and the components that reproduce it in our homes.It seems most of us by this stage have had exposure to enough equitment as to be able to form idividual impressions.

I freely acept the fact that people like different components(just as we have varied taste in the music we like). We are`nt(nor need to) all going to make the same choices when buying audio gear, this is logical.
Glory you and others have hit your sonic jackpot with the ASR amp, congratulations(I mean it sincerely). I`ve found utter joy with my Coincident 300b SET(phil with his Audion amps).I t`s sublime for me but won`t be the answer for others, just as the ASR won`t satisfy everyone.

My only point addressed to agear was his attitude that the ASR is a superior choice to any tube and or SET amp without question and that simply is`nt the case. How is it a platitude to state the 'obvious' fact that different ears will prefer different types of sound(this is why an absolute 'best'stance is`nt possible). A large SS class AB amp with NFB will surely be quite different to a SET lower power amp in class A without any NFB(both types have their supporters).Which is preferred is up to the particular listener, always subjective(by default). Within the realm of SS high power and SET there`s significant variations in performance and a hierarchy develops. Not 'every' SET amp is good, but some are outstanding, same thing of course with any genre of amplifiers.

Platitude alert, people will/should buy what sounds best to them if they trust their ears, is there any other way?
Glory I hope you enjoy your current system for many years to come,just as I plan to do with mine.
Charles,
Regards,

Gear wrote,

An overused and tired fallback position, and one that, if you or anyone else here really believed it, Audiogon would not exist. Most of the verbiage generated is the derivative of debate (and subtle and not-so-subtle insults). Glory caught cobra with his pants down. Cobra has gotten the better of Glory too. So what. Don't go to the Asylum anytime soon.

Not everything is created equal. This is true of most things in life, and audio is no exception. A Yugo would never be confused for a Porsche, nor would a Audion Black Shadow for an ASR.....

You wrote

My only point addressed to agear was his attitude that the ASR is a superior choice to any tube and or SET amp without question and that simply is`nt the case. How is it a platitude to state the 'obvious' fact that different ears will prefer different types of sound(this is why an absolute 'best'stance is`nt possible). A large SS class AB amp with NFB will surely be quite different to a SET lower power amp in class A without any NFB(both types have their supporters).Which is preferred is up to the particular listener, always subjective(by default). Within the realm of SS high power and SET there`s significant variations in performance and a hierarchy develops. Not 'every' SET amp is good, but some are outstanding, same thing of course with any genre of amplifiers.

Dad what are you smoking? How do you read Gear's post and come away saying he thinks the ASR is God's amp and there are none others?


You write
No, I`m not assuming the role of big poppa on this thread. IMO we`re all adults who happen to share a common interest of music and the components that reproduce it in our homes.It seems most of us by this stage have had exposure to enough equitment as to be able to form idividual impressions.

By telling members here to grow up you then become the big Daddy with your paddle. Can you refrain from doing that?

By the way one of my first amps was the Audio Note 300B Meishu. Wonderful amp! I love SET amps with HE speakers.

Wow…this thread has been “all around this world” to borrow a Grateful Dead song title. I could say the same for the 2 months just passed since I received my DefIV’s. I won’t bore you with the non audio related and only a little on the non- Zu Def IV related (some amp trials)

To cut to the chase and fill in the details later, I am listening to some wonderful sound coming from my Def IV’s as I type. It is open, coherent, surprisingly more transparent than my already transparent 1.9’s, beautifully sweet, and most importantly, musically engaging. Sean just left my house an hour ago after having hand delivered a new pair of Def IV’s and picked up my old pair of Def IV’s.

My original pair had a problem with the Hypex amp in one of the speakers. I can’t say enough about Sean’s commitment to making sure the problem was solved and that I was happy with the results. He didn’t need to build and deliver a new pair for me, but he insisted that this would give him the peace of mind that I was fully satisfied with the speaker. I can say unequivocally…I am more than satisfied with the speaker. And Sean’s efforts to fix the problem and ensure I was happy as a customer means a great deal to me. I was already a “Zu fan”, loving my Druids and prior 1.9’s , but this speaker, the Def IV, and Sean’s efforts and communication throughout this period have made me a “Zu Groupie”! Great guy! Great company! Truly Great Sound!

Hours after I first posted in May about receiving my Def IV’s I noticed a low frequency oscillation with no signal going to it. I measured it electrically at the speaker binding posts with my Fluke and found it to vary from ~16 Hz to ~20 Hz depending on parametric EQ settings. Amplitude was as high as 5 Volts at full volume setting on the Hypex. Of course, at this level, the doors and walls in the room would visibly shake. What I was hearing was a somewhat higher frequency than that, though below a 60Hz AC. If I had to guess, what I was hearing was the 2nd and/or 3rd harmonic of what I measured.

The result of all this is that whether for psychological reasons or physical reasons, I had a difficult time enjoying the sound, even with the EQ settings down low enough to not induce a measurable oscillation in that speaker. In direct comparison with my 1.9’s, the 4’s lost and lost consistently. That is definitely not the case today…the 4’s are a very significant upgrade over my 1.9’s!

While I waited for Sean to build and deliver a new pair, I listened to my 1.9’s. I took the time to determine if SET amps would move me in a direction I preferred compared to my Atma-Sphere M60’s. I bought a used Cary 805AE from a dealer in Indy…it definitely was not my cup of tea and certainly not worth experimenting with different tubes to improve it. Sold it and lost a bunch of money . I demo’d old chassis Sophia 845 SET monoblocks and there was much to like, even a hint of midrange magic. Alas, it seemed to impart too much of its own signature, a signature that included a bit of upper midrange glare, for me to be happy long term. It didn’t help that the mfg insisted that I not try an 845B tube (“amps are tuned for the A tube, don’t change tubes”) and not to worry about biasing the tubes (you cannot bias the old chassis amps without going inside the chassis), so I returned the amps to Sophia. I am still very curious about the Audion Black Shadows and also the ASR Emitter Exclusive, so I may seek answers there in the future. However, given how wonderful the sound is through the Atma-Sphere / Def IV right now, I am, indeed, content for the moment.