Zu Soul Superfly

>>PHIL: Non-audiophile people who don't notice and don't care are probably better served by $500 polks or $100 speakers available at any garage sale than $2000 Souls. Anyone who cares enough about sound to spend for the Souls really should care enough for at least modest placement.<<

No, I don't agree. A non-audiophile music lover can easily appreciate the tone and dynamic superiority of a Zu speaker over what's possible from Polk-bracket speakers. They don't have to care about anything else to love Souls. "...at least modest placement..." conforms to my contention that such a person can put their Souls where they work for them in terms of room function and still appreciate the value of their purchase. They can learn about placement after they buy, and decide for themselves if any effort at optimization of the room for listening is worth the effort and possible inconvenience, to them.

>>I shake my head that you recommend tiny triode monoblock for Soul.<<

The Tiny Triode is 25/25w of EL84 power with ability to run in tetrode mode at closer to 40/40w. Come listen to what 20/20w of 845 SET muscle does on Soul. The 845 will outmuscle the EL84 but those amps will be just fine at the poster's budget and in most rooms.

>>Whomever follows up this advise is setting themselves up for disappointment.<<

He asked whether those amps will sound good on Soul. They will and they won't sound choked in the midrange in any unusual way. An 845 SET amp will sound better, but he's looking at a $700 option. At that price, given the options, the Tiny Triode will sound beautiful and even within its dynamic limits listening volume will be high enough. Like any push-pull tube amp, it will let you know through escalating congestion and compression (unlike most SS amps which will simply degrade precipitously) that you're running out of dynamic headroom as you raise volume. But the clean watts are going to give him a punchy, fulfilling sound. Soul sounds substantially more lively than Druid at moderate power, due to the shove of the newer driver motor.

>>That is his business of course.<<

Ain't that the truth.

>>Miklorsmith: 45W is OK. 5 or 8 is just not.<<

Read more closely. He didn't say 45w. He wrote "45 SET," meaning his single-ended-triode amps using the 45 triode tube. He's referring to 2 watts or so on his Definitions.

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Again, the point of contention here is that you want all the advice here to be "audiophile" targeted. I'm happy to give the audiophile view but my larger objective is to remove perceived barriers to interest in high-end audio. People who aren't yet in the tent but are investigating our realm use Google, Yahoo and Bing to explore and they find what we write here, in AudioAsylum, AudioCircle and similar. We aren't just talking to ourselves here.

Zu expressly designed Soul to be unfussy, for anyone who loves music in their life to buy and appreciate without complication. It's designed to sound shockingly good on a $300 receiver taking signal from a PC/DAC or a $49 CD player, as well as be worthy of the full gamut of obsessive audiophilia and the best possible gear that can be associated with it.

Zu succeeded, even beyond their prior such success with Druid 4-08.

In the grand scheme of available amplification for a person on a budget, used Tiny Triodes or anything else similar to them are going to sound impressive and convincing on a pair of Superfly. They really do simplify. Let's open doors, not shut them. Now if someone has a question about $7000 amps rather than $700, my answer might reflect a more demanding POV.

Phil

I can't say how well Rawson clones or emulates the sonic character of Red Wine. I've heard Red Wine and other various Class D architectures on Zu speakers. In Red Wine's case, the sound is very smooth and listenable, certainly preferable to many far more expensive and ghastly solid state amplifiers. Their sins are of omission. While less so than many of thier ilk, the Red Wine amps still sound desiccated, spatially flattened and a little bleached of midrange tone compared to alternatives in their price range. It's not a sound I can live with if I don't have to, and I don't. On the positive side, Rossi's amps are quiet, dynamic, smooth on top and bass is fast and well-defined.

If Rawson builds a good clone, depending on his price and how you view the competitive options financially, you might value the positives over the negatives. Zu thinks Red Wine Audio amps are good matches to their speakers. Others here do, too.

Even at under $1000, I'd rather have a number of affordable Asian tube amps or some used tube and solid state options from Audiogon if I were financially tapped and needed amplification.

Phil

Phil,

Just to clarrify, this is not built by Tim Rawson and it was probably unfair for me to call it "Rawson-esq" as Tim act(ed) with Nelson Pass' blessing using his actual schematics. The gentleman building the Wineclone appears to be bootlegging and after actually exchanging messages with Vinny today, it is without his blessing.

Notwithstanding, I'm curious if you have actually heard the 30.2, Phil. From the reviews I've read of the clari-t amp and even the 30, your position seems to be supported regarding a slightly bleached midrange, but from what I've read of the 30.2 it sounded as if it had a warmer tonal balance than most tube amplifiers along with being very harmonically full. Hmm..

I'm also curious about the debate over power needs. My First Watt is a transconductance amp, so it may not count, but its only what? 10wpc and it controls the drivers with tremendous authority.

On a side note, I spoke with Gerrit at Zu today (his favorite amps for Zus is the Yamamoto A08s and Melody i2a3) and they got my carpet spikes in the mail. He also highly recommended that I work on getting my speakers properly situated before even considering a change of amplifiers. I've been doing precisely that for the last hour or so and its paying off. Perhaps I'd do best to put off an amplifier 'upgrade' until I can afford to make an improvement rather than lateral move.

One of the amps I used on the Essence was an 8 watt Luxman EL84. It powered them very well, though this amp with the ribbons on the Essence made them bright. I agree with Phil that the Essence was a mistake.

Although I am critical of Zu because I had a bad experience with the Essence I admit that I took a blind chance on the drop drawer praise by strageon ebane and a few other reviewers. I had my doubts but am glad they sold well and many people like them.

Anyone planning on a Mastersound amp on the Zu's? Talk about a value speaker with a seriously undervalued used market amp! I had the 24 watt 300BPSE and found it to be an amazing integrated. I'm thinking about getting a second system going, and this looks like a fun match.

Phil:

You seem to have me confused with salesperson or marketer. I am neither. I am a Zu fan, and I think that they would benefit from people being more honest about their products.

A non-audiophile music lover should stick with their 128kb mp3 and their ipod earbuds. Not that they need my encouragement to do this, as they are doing it already.

Anyone who is thinking about dropping $2K for speakers should care about sound, otherwise they are simply fool with money who wants to show off. In that case, there are flashier looking (and sounding) speakers I would point them to.

So you want to spend $2K, and you care about sound, and you are considering Soul. Good. That person can now read discussion between me and you and make up own mind about what is helpful and what is not.

Contrary to you, I do not think this individual should not care about placement or flea watts. Room interaction and time smear with high dispersion soul FRD will blur attack and kill sustain. You will have no tone left, or very unremarkable tone, just as my Druids are off axis. There will be nothing to appreciate.

Flea watts kill dynamics with congested midrange at very low listening levels. Now, maybe some people don't care about a midrange sounding like a chest cold -- their taste of course -- but it will not seem "dynamic" to anyone. If someone has small room then OK, they can go to 30W or better 40W and might be OK. And please, my issue with flea watt has nothing to do with level. The congestion has to do with ease and comes long before you are anywhere close to clipping.

While Souls eliminate fiddling with gap height (which I like) I fear higher dispersion FRD will require additional room treatment (which I do not). But I have not heard so cannot say.

It is interesting you say Souls are "substantially more likely" than Druid as people went on and one about how lively Druids were. This must by massive hyperactivity. Although they are both rated 101dbW, in practise my Druids sounded like mid to high 90s, so it is possible that Souls are more sensitive even though their "official" rating is the same.

If Miklorsmith likes Deficitions at 2W all I can say is his tastes differ widely from my own. I would not recommend his path to anyone.

Anyone who comes here from Google Bing whatever: you should get Soul as they represent excellent value and are wonderful speaker. But, to get your $2K value you will have to care about placement. I am sorry. But I hope you will find it rewarding like me, as I learned so much about music through this. And for gods sake, get amp with at least 40W