Zu Soul Superfly

>>Do you plan to replace your Druids?<<

Yes. Although I may keep them for another use, for sentimental reasons.

Phil

For those of you who have heard the new Zus and the Cain and Cain Abbys, I'm wondering--how do the Superflys fare in terms of overall coherence.

While I can definitely pick and chose things I'd love to add to the performance I currently have, I certainly don't want to give this aspect up.

I auditioned Abbys (with and without the supertweeter) before I bought Druids back in 2005, and have heard them occasionally since. In fact, at the time it was my intent to buy Abbys for one of my systems, until I got in front of a pair of Druids. There's certainly no less coherence from the Zu FRD, and the latest updates to the Zu FRD as implemented in Soul only further improve its performance in this respect. The Fostex driver options in the Abby do not meet or exceed the Zu FRD performance in any way, though the Abby is a very good speaker, with remarkable tonal and transient coherence. However, its intrinsic single-driver coherence, where it is closest to being competitive with Zu, does not overcome comparative lack of drive, range, dynamic aliveness, and combination of power handling with high efficiency. I considered Zu Druids prior to the 4-08 upgrade clearly superior to Abbys, and the 4-08 upgrade to Druids rocketed their lead, then the further advance of Soul Superfly over Druids puts quite a lot of distance between Soul and Abby.

Phil

Thanks for sharing your findings, Phil. I'm not a person that holds onto gear that doesn't do it for me, and I've had my Abbys for more than five years now... I'm very excited and anxious to see for myself what these Superflys are all about.

Have they begun shipping yet or is it just a few of their local friends who were lucky enough to get their hands on them prior to June.

Gopher - A friend of mine got the first pair of Soul Superfly on an advance special order for a custom finish. Zu's first regular production Superfly speakers should begin shipping in the next week or ten days, so perhaps there will be some Audiogoners among the recipients.

Phil