At VTV, one recording Sean and Adam played in the Zu room delivered what I thought Druids are capable of, and that was a Chinese recording using a combination of western and Chinese instruments, and I don't know the name of the recording or the performer(s). Everything else played while I was in the room, while interesting and fun musically, impressed many people but did not deliver what I hear from my Druids every day. Zu did use the Consonance Droplet CDP but on Saturday was sending its digital output to the dbx DAC. On Sunday, when I wasn't there, they apparently spent some of the time demo'ing from the Droplet's analog outputs to the Melody preamp. I'll go so far as to say that if I'd heard Druids in that Arcadia hotel room before buying them -- and that includes in both the Zu and Shindo rooms -- I might not have followed through on the purchase. The truly impressive demo was listening to how much dynamic energy at decent tonal quality was available from the miniscule Z.Vex ImpAmp. Now that was a motivator because it made clear how much amplifier latitude one has with Druids.
I have tried many amps on the Druids and I don't find them especially sensitive to amp topologies, but certainly revealing of their character. A 300B amp with flabby bass will be revealed for holographic tonally rich midrange, smooth spray on top and, well...flabby bass. The absence of a crossover makes the loss of focus and detail in an otherwise good push-pull tube amp starkly evident compared to a good SET. A tonally neutral, smooth and unfatiguing solid state amp like a Red Wine comes through as exactly that while a high power silicon beast delivers tons of slam indelicately. An 845 SET sounds more objective and punchy than an equivalent 300B. Differences between EL34 and KT88 are obvious. There is lots of room for preference. BUT, in every environment except those Arcadia hotel rooms (and apparently at the Marriott in Denver) the Druid has an aliveness, tonal richness frequency accuracy and utter lack of fatigue that seems elusive to reproduce in the massively dysfunctional hotel setting. I wish it were otherwise. How Zu will create customer touch points in environments like shows where they can't control their circumstances remains a marketing problem to solve for them. Again, in my opinion, everyone at VTV was similarly handicapped and nothing there sounded good enough to me to compel a purchase if I had only those demos to go on. In general, the manufacturers in the industry should theoretically benefit from the direct exposure to customers, but it's possible that these hotel room shows for the public (as opposed to the dealers in the trade) actually slow decisions to buy, on products that absolutely require listening for evaluation.
I am willing to evangelize Zu speakers not because they are perfect, but because they solve in one stroke an intersection of many problems commonly cited here and elsewhere by audiophiles as causes for dissatisfaction. The catalytic effect of a 101db/w/m speaker that is frequency accurate, missing the shout of most HE designs, crossoverless overall and filterless 40Hz - 12kHz and with extended treble and bass with uniform transient behavior top to bottom transforms system character and makes the power amp the center of gravity of the system. You will find a lot of dissatisfaction and fatigue factors you might have once ascribed to sources and cable, preamp and power amp, have actually been instigated by crossovers in the mid-band of your speakers, along with speaker inefficiency and wild loads cornering you into restricted amp choices. The Zu design sets you free of all that, but frankly by far the best way to realize the benefits is to take the 60 day money-back offer. For me months later I am near the end of changes having cascaded through 2 systems because of Zu, and I have to ascribe to their speaker designs and my patience in assimilating all the downstream effects they drive, the greatest leap forward in fidelity I've been able to create in 30 years of making good choices. Someone else might bias their equipment array to steer their Zu system to have some different traits from mine, but that essential holistic character will be unmistakable. I just haven't heard it simulated in a hotel lodging room. Perhaps it can't be.
If you hear Druids or Definitions in my house and you don't like them, well then it's settled -- you just don't like them. Zu gives you the opportunity to settle the issue in the room you know best -- your own.
Phil
