Zu Soul Superfly


I just ordered a pair of the new Zu speakers on a whim. I was going to wait for information, but the fact that they threw in the free superfly upgrades to the first 30 people got me.

From a similar thread it sounds like some of you guys have heard the speaker despite information only being released today. I'm wondering what you can share about it?

Also, I am really hoping it works with a Firstwatt F1 amplifier. Can anyone comment as to that? I know the Druid's and Essences worked OK.
gopher
Thanks! This is reassuring.

The gentleman I spoke to at Zu said Nelson's gear is great and that it should all sound good with it, but that he was unfamiliar/did not test it with the firstwatt amps. I just know as current amplifiers they really aren't suitable for cross over speakers, so I was wondering if anyone had any specific info.
A friend of mine received s/n 0001/0002 last week. I had a chance to listen to his speakers, which are Soul Superfly, extensively, with a few different amplifiers. The FirstWatt will be fine. That is to say, if you like the FirstWatt F1, you'll like it on Soul. If you don't like the F1, Soul won't make you like it, except for one thing: This is a nominal 16 ohm impedance speaker. Most solid state amps will output less power into this load but also sound smoother.

You can assume any amp that works well with Druid will work well with this. Soul has deeper bass response, and it is more projecting and more vivid than Druid Mk 4-08, but it is the essential Zu holistic tone presentation. Using the some further refinements to the FRD learned from development of the Essence, this speaker has the widest midrange dispersion of any of the Zu single FRD speakers. It also has the best implementation so far of the Griewe cabinet, and now the floor-to-cabinet gap is non-critical, without the complication of the Essence double plinth.

Think super Druid 4-08 in a more compact form, rather than Essence. Forgoing the ribbon tweeter allows Zu to run the FRD at normal Zu efficiency, and the dynamic supertweeter contributes the meatier more musical harmonic information that the ribbon thins. Soul Superfly is a vivid, punchy, neutral and tone-rich speaker that resets your assumptions about how much cash to allocate to power amplification, yet its impedance and efficiency allow some vanishingly cheap amplifiers to make music instead of noise.

My friend has built new a $10K system around a pair of Superfly Soul, and results easily demonstrate it was exactly the right thing to do.

Phil
Yes. When I listened to them in my room they sounded fine. The room is 16' x 24' x 10' (Sloping cathedrial cieling)