Zu Soul Superfly

Miklorsmith:

I agree. I originally had the druids spiked to the carpet, but then put it on wood boards which sat on the carpet. made a big difference. In the future, I may swap the wood for stone.

One benefit of the wood was that I coulde slide the speakers about easily. Druids are very directional, and tiny differences to toe in and position made a huge difference to soundstage/imaging.

My room is large and impossible to fully charge. I liked the druid directionality because it enabled me to bypass some of the problems I had in the large room.

>>When did you get a chance to hear the Soul?<<

A friend of mine here in L.A. bought what turned out to be the first pair, s/n 0001/0002. They were a custom order configuration and finish. He took delivery about a month ago and I've listened to them expensively. He came to me asking for a recommendation for assembling his first quality audio system, replacing 15 years old HT components. He wanted to get as close as possible to the sound of my Druids system for a specific budget. I knew Soul was coming so I had him order a pair while Zu was still working out manufacturing details, plus I found him a great deal on amplification. Our request for upgrades similar to the "off-menu" upticks that were available for other Zu speakers became the basis for the Superfly Edition.

Phil

Tim,

Occasionally a room poses too many problems to sound right with a given speaker, until you address the room. It sounds like you have done so.

The Druid floor-to-plinth gap was crucial to get right, to get correct balance out of the speaker below 100Hz. Effectively, the partial Griewe implementation in that cabinet delegated to the floor gap functionality that a full Griewe model handles within the speaker cabinet. Druid's sound balance was *very* sensitive to the gap setting. Differences as small as 1/16" could be heard. It was nearly impossible to fully optimize them on thick carpet on a thick pad.

If you liked the essential character of the Zu FRD in Druid, other problems not withstanding, I think you can be optimistic about Soul Superfly working well in your revised room.

Phil

Thanks for keeping this thread alive, guys.

I am very excited to receive my pair and get it situated at home.

Does anyone know if shipping began today as anticipated?

Phil:

Here is the stereophile link:
stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/zu_essence_loudspeaker/index5.html

If you ignore HF what you have left is FRD. Note that the measurement taken both with and without the plinth.

So we have huge suckout at 60 Hz, and I hear freakiness on my Druid at 60Hz too, and another at around 150Hz. This was more surprising to me as I like very much how Druid sound in midrange. Anyway, this is bass loading and FRD sweet spot -- both ragged and unbalanced octave to octave *by the numbers* (which only tells you a little about sound).

Your point about how it actually sounds and measures in your home is 1000% correct and too often ignored by those who obsess with graphs. Especially in base, room interaction dominates speaker etc.