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Zu Tone/Druid Tonal Anomalies

I like to hear anyone with Zu speakers if they have had a similar problem. I recently acquired a pair of Zu Tone speakers. Certain aspects about them are very good, such as soundstaging and speed, but it seems to me that unless my pair are defective, there is a serious issue with tonal accuracy. Right away when I set them up, I noticed that they sounded quite hollow. I then made a lot of measurements, both close miked and at the listening seat, with both a Behringer DEQ2496 and an RS sound level meter (using both pink noise and frequency generation). In both cases, it fairly closely matches what I am hearing, which is a severe rise in the upper midrange. I am trying to use a Z-Systems RDQ-1 digital EQ device to correct this problem, and have gotten much closer to a natural tone and flatter curve. What this required was a 7.6 db cut centered at 1.4kHz at a width of 1.5 octaves. This is quite a cut! For reference, I've had two other sets of speakers (Monitor Audio GR60 and NHT ST-4) in the room at almost exactly the same position, neither of which had this problem. I spoke to Sean Casey at Zu about the problem, and he thought it might be room interaction, which might be true to a point, but the anomaly is just too severe, and makes this point less viable since my other speakers didn't show the problem. I noticed in another thread here, that a couple of people heard what seemed like a similar problem with the Druids.

I am very curious as to what others have experienced with any of the Zu speakers in this regard.

Thanks,
Stew
smeyers
pjl2122
83 posts
 
hello I hear a fair amount of people talking about speaker interactions wit thw zu tone or Druid .I found none of the above , and I have a small 12x14 room.
1. if you don't play these speakers loud to get the driver moving a 1000 hours is very realistic,ask Sean at Zu .this is why I always tell people let Zu break them in.
at Zu they run them hard and put 150 hours on them, if requested on order, ,LIke myself I played them for 3 weeks straight 24-7 ,and at night with a breakin cd set around 30hz just appliying enough volume to get the driver moving every evening.
then after 300 hours they are just starting to open up.
and everything just gets more focused and refined.
If you have he Druids you should has not more than 1/16
of a inch under the speaker, with a cd case slid underneath for the low frequency vent. if not that will also give you imaging problems .
glreno
224 posts
 
I just purchased some new Druids. I felt the same way about tonal issues. Mine seemed to have no headroom, rolled off in the high frequencies, and imaged weird. I played them for 7 days straight at moderate listening levels. I then spoke to Sean, who was awesome and extremely helpful. Zu certainly ranks as the one of the best when it comes to customer service. I went back and played with the speaker placement. BINGO! These things really need equal distance between speakers and listener, with extreme toe in pointed directly at the listener. Now I'm happy as a clam. They are still breaking in, but they now have astonishing imaging and perfect tonal balance. Keep breaking them in and playing with the listening position. I imagine that the Tones are affected by stand height as well, since the height of the Druids as determined by the spikes is critical. An interesting point that I learned from Sean is that he worked on the design of the Talon Khorus with Thierry Budge. I owned that speaker, and it's placement, break-in, and tonal issues were very similar to the Druid, which is why the first versions were so controversial.
drubin
3,282 posts
 
These things really need equal distance between speakers and listener, with extreme toe in pointed directly at the listener.
Does this mean the Druids are decidedly a one-person speaker?
smeyers OP
181 posts
 
I agree that the speakers (I have the Zu Tone's) image best when pointed directly at the listener (I have commented on this in other threads), but it seems to me that tonal balance is better with them not toed in much, mainly due to some excessive high frequency energy coming from that super-tweeter. When I was experimenting with this, I put my ear close to the super-tweeter, and you can hear some 'hissing' that actully hurt my ears! This 'hissing' is tamed somewhat, when the speakers are not pointed directly at the listener.
glreno
224 posts
 
Interesting question, Drubin. After reading it, I sat in my listening seat and moved around. Are they a one person speaker? No. But movement more than two feet from the sweet spot does result in a SLIGHT change. I think most speakers I've owned are like that, except the Decware 3.0s which I still have, but are for sale. I've had one person speakers. The Innersound Eros comes to mind. Move your head, frequencies vaporize. Fabulous speaker as long as you don't move. I'm in another room right now, and they still sound good. But to get the optimum set-up, you must experiment with placement. Critical listening with ANY speaker I've owned requires an exact seating position where they sound the best. That magic triangle of equal distance seems to be the rule of thumb for the best results with the Druids. But they can play at dinner parties, if that's your inclination.
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