Zu Soul Superfly

>>I'm curious about the flaws of this $1700 speaker.<<

No one has heard the base version yet. Only the Superfly upgrade, $2600, has been shipped so far. A limited number were sold at an intro price of $1800.

I haven't heard the perfect speaker at any price. The flaws of the Zu Soul will make themselves apparant relative to individual expectations that are difficult to anticipate. What do you expect for $2600 or $1800? Someone somewhere will think a speaker of that price should have usable output below 30Hz. OK, Soul doesn't have that. Someone somewhere might think a speaker at this price should have perfect semi-polar dispersion. Nope, not Soul. It's dispersive but compared to some speakers it's still a little directional. It pays to play with placement. Someone somewhere will say Soul isn't revealing to the nth degree of detail. It's not -- its design prioritizes tonal truth over scintilla.

But it's hard to fault a speaker under $3K with this level of balance, tone density, dynamic life, overall fidelty, unfussiness in placement, fit, finish, reliability and construction, as well as adaptability to such a huge range of amplification.

One does not have to be a sycophant to like this speaker. It's just plain convincing, accommodating, compact and well-executed. If I thought it is less than that, I'd say so. I thought Zu Essence was a mistake, for example. The speaker is shipping now, so let's see who shows up having heard it who doesn't like it, and why.

Phil

Biggest potential dissappointment with Zu Speakers is that it does not have HF extension, and so does not create hi-fi "air" "detail" "pin-point imaging" etc.

Personally, I find all of that stuff totally fake and do not like it. But it is to hi-fi taste, which is why we have all these terrible sounding piston speakers out there. Still, if you like that sound you will know it, and it was what Zu was chasing with the Essence.

With my druid setup in very large room, I think Zu needs more watts than Phil suggests. You will need to make your own call. Also, in my room, I have suckout at upper bass, which makes presentation dry. I have engaged various strategies to fix that with placement etc. I totally disagree with people who say speakers should be "unfussy about placement" simply because, at lower frequency, you will have room interaction and either it is working for you or working against you. Druids benefitted greatly from placement but did not need much treatment, soul are less directional so maybe they need more treatment but less placement help?

Finally, i find, contra phil, that on really massive orchestral work at high volume they overload poor single driver somewhat.

Still, scads better than most other speakers and a great price.

>>Biggest potential dissappointment with Zu Speakers is that it does not have HF extension, and so does not create hi-fi "air" "detail" "pin-point imaging" etc.<<

Hmmm. The supertweeter goes out to 25kHz before roll-off. The original Druid certainly lacked HF detail but this problem was pretty much solved in Druid 4-08, and has never been an issue with Definition. Soul Superfly sounds extended. I have no trouble getting pin-point imaging from Soul or Definition, and Druids are much improved in this respect since 4-08. But, right, it isn't the emphasized top-end sound characterized as "hi-fi." It's more like music actually sounds in real acoustic spaces.

Now for anyone who wants that "hi-fi" sound, there's a ribbon-supertweeter Essence to take care of that.

>>With my druid setup in very large room, I think Zu needs more watts than Phil suggests. You will need to make your own call. Also, in my room, I have suckout at upper bass, which makes presentation dry. I have engaged various strategies to fix that with placement etc.<<

Lots of variables, room to room. The good thing is, if you need more power to really load an acoustic space, Zu speakers can handle it. I will say, however, that loading more power into Druids can deliver a sense of compression sooner than Soul Superfly. That is, unlike the more scalable Definition, Druids can reach a point where more power doesn't seem to be doing any more for you. I usually find this point in the 80 - 120w range with Druids. Whereas Soul just feels like it can run with more juice. It has more dynamic elasticity and throwing more watts at it will make a difference in how a large space is loaded. Both the stronger motor/lighter cone and the full Griewe loading contribute. Also, to get the same apparent dynamic life from solid state and tubes, you'll need more solid state watts generally.

>>I totally disagree with people who say speakers should be "unfussy about placement" simply because, at lower frequency, you will have room interaction and either it is working for you or working against you. Druids benefitted greatly from placement but did not need much treatment, soul are less directional so maybe they need more treatment but less placement help?<<

I'll write it again. There's no conflict between a speaker being unfussy about placement and potential benefits of precision set-up. An unfussy speaker like Soul nevertheless benefits from dialed-in placement, not to mention that the room does too. The point about unfussiness in placement is that the music lover who can't be bothered -- and that's the market Zu would really like to wake up -- can plop them down and get good, rather than crap, sound. WE here on Audiogon might not think it's right, but there's a market that just wants to put speakers where they look good or can be accommodated by the room. That crowd will like this speaker.

>>Finally, i find, contra phil, that on really massive orchestral work at high volume they overload poor single driver somewhat.<<

See prior comment about difference between Druid and Soul. Druids, somewhat, sure. Soul far less. Also, it could be your amp running out of headroom.

Phil

I would concur with Zanon that the Druid does not have HF extension for my liking. I have not heard Soul.

However, the more expensive brethren do much better in this regard (I own Definition 2s)---not a beryllium tweeter, make no mistake---but I do not find a lack of detail in the high frequencies.

I think the biggest drawback of Zus so far is that they aren't as amplifier friendly as a 100db speaker would allow you to believe. Or should I say, they don't sound good on all types of amplifiers. Amplifier matching on my Def2s has definitely been more difficult, but at the same time more pleasing.

KeithR

KeithR:

Please! I am very happy with Druid HF extension because I do not like what I feel is exaggerated, unnatural HF extension which defines "hi fi" today. If Soul has HiFi extension it is not for me, although looking at super tweeter I would not expect it is so. This is maybe #1 reason HiFi people do not like Zu's. I hope nothing has changed in this respect with Soul.

Maybe I would not like Definitions based on what you suggest about their sound?

Second main reason people do not like Zu's is you get potentially dry presentation with suckout at upper bass. You can do things to fix this, but it can happen, especially if your room is working against you in this freq. range. This is a more serious problem, but then Zu has these very flat curves for Soul and it is possible new driver behaves better in this critical region.

Third main reason people dislike Druid at least is bass is not great at 30Hz, and is freak at 60Hz. I think this 70% room and 30% loading, and I can believe that new loading in Soul is better here. This is area I am most interested in actually

I think Zu's have been set-up to their disadvantage by people saying they are friendly to flea-amp SETs. In real world it is just not so. If expectation had been set correctly, I think people would be perfectly satisfied with Zu amp matching, it's just that they think 2W SET is a good idea and then wonder why it does not sound right.

PHIL: Druids are perfectly fine off axis, or setup without care. But in order to have them sound their best, you need to take care. That is all.

For people who do not care how speakers sound, then they should by $200 polk. For Zus, I play in living room, and when I don't care, walking around etc., they sound fine. But, when I sit in listening position they sound great.

There is no speaker that can sound great if you do not care about setup. It is not possible. And if you do not care about sounding great, then stick with table radio of those free white buds you get with iPod.

Maybe music lover who cannot be bothered with setup is actively listening to music where actual sound is not so important. Again, I wonder why they bother buying $2000 speakers.

But coming back to Bjesien question -- he asked something honest and reasonable and we should do our best to answer it honestly and reasonable too.