Zu Druids upgraded Vs Essence


How does the upgraded Druid compare with the Essence?

I own a pair of the Druids and have been loving them for a few years. Was wondering if the Essence is worth the leap

Cheers
bonesetter2004
Jsalte: very interested in what you see

Ton1313: really? have you tried them? they have essence driver so I am surprised sound i closer to druid. pls tell us more.
I just went into autopilot when I saw the free superfly upgrade offering.

I'm excited to see what they can do.
Regarding Soul: A friend of mine here in Los Angeles just took delivery of s/n 0001/0002 Soul speakers. His are Superfly. This speaker is better than a Druid Mk 4-08 in every way, for less cash. The FRD is below the supertweeter so that it would fit in the tapered cabinet while sticking to Zu's preference for packaging their sound in a 1 s.f. footprint. Zu extended what they learned in designing and building Essence -- their first full-Griewe implementation -- to a more economical structure and build process while further improving the Griewe model in practice. This speaker upends traditional notions of how to allocate system resources. It truly takes full advantage of high performance amplification and accentuates the reality that a system with Zu speakers moves the fulcrum for fidelity to the power amps. You'll see Soul Superfly systems with power amps that cost 5X and the resulting sound will be entirely legitimate. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that $9500 worth of the right power amplification on $2600 of Soul Superfly will sound better than a good budget amp on Definitions.

Phil
They had the pre-production pair at my house back in November durring the tour. They are a little more "snappy/quick" than the Essence as they are more like the Druids, but have a deeper bass extension. For the price they are asking, its a lot of bang for the buck IMHO.

The Stereophile add mentioned that the first 30 pairs sold will be the upgraded version.

excerpt from their website

Soul (standard), with a global direct price of $1,800 for a matched pair.

Soul Superfly Edition, with a global direct price of $2,600 for a matched pair.

SALE! We are running an introductory special on the first 30 pair of Soul Superfly. Sale ends when they are sold. This intro promo saves you $800! You get the Superfly edition for the price of the standard, that's just $1,800 for a pair of superfly loudspeakers that will last a lifetime.