>>Enjoy playing with your amps and preamps. And cables.<<
Well, I've made no changes in preamps, amps or cables in five years, and that's for two complete Zu/SET systems. I did upgrade my Druids to 4-08 parts and I traded in my Definition 1.5s to get Def 2.0s, to get rid of the MDF cabinet glare in the earlier version. My turntables are 30 years old.
The positioning of my speakers in both systems has not changed since two hours after first installation. There are no room treatments other than the mitigation of normal household furnishings. Meanwhile, by far the best time I spent on audo outside of listening to music in the past 25 years was the solid week of investigation of coupling, isolation and general resonance control I was able to carve out last year.
Of several families of options, explored in combinations and in isolation, what came out on top? If you use a turntable, placing it on cones in turn resting on Aurios media bearings will be a revelation. The improvement exceeds any cartridge and tonearm upgrade I've ever done, by a wide margin. If you use a digital disc player, magnetic levitation (when space and low player weight render it feasible) drives more improvement than upgrading to a player 10X the price of the one you have. When the player is too heavy for that, go with Aurios Classic media bearings or similar. THESE were the vivid, dramatic improvements, once Zu speakers were in place.
Point is, by getting the amp/speaker combinations right, my systems have been quite stable in configuration as well as where I placed them. The one area of changeout has been digital players. The other area of interest prompting acquisition is analog, for which I indulge in more phono cartridges that I actually need.
A speaker designer and maker (not Zu in this case) visited me after I got Zu speakers and revamped my amplification. He looked at my systems and after registering his objections about having coffee tables in the listening area of each system, and lamenting the presence of flat panel TVs, he asked me how I arrived at my speaker placement. I told him the truth. I bought Zu shortly after moving into a new house. I looked at the rooms, and on visual assessment identified where the speakers would go both for best sound and functional compatibility with each room. I also showed him how far I'd moved the speakers from their initial position during the first hour listening. There was less than three inches of movement in any direction, from first plop down.
He said he was sure he could do much better if I'd allow him to. I marked the floor with masking tape to reference the original position and let him have at it. He was competent and he makes good speakers. We ended up back in the same spots, he admitting that I had already found the right and best locations for the rooms. Of course I knew this when I let him indulge his confidence. Now, I've been doing this for decades and have moved around a lot, faced with having to sort many rooms as a result. I also once worked in the business and sorted placement for many customers. But I've never found it even remotely difficult, time-consuming or esoteric in any way. Live with the room and appreciate its voicing. Tone is intrinsic to the gear or it's not there at all. You can get tone from a jail cell if the gear is toneful to begin with. Put another way, you can hear when a guitar player has achieved exceptional tone in acoustically unfavorable circumstances -- and they're almost all acoustically unfavorable. You can hear it walking down Sixth Street in Austin almost any night before you even enter a room. Zu speakers are like that. They have intrinsic tone under even the worst circumstances.
My time spent on hi-fi now is almost all music listening rather than gear futzing. Druids were easy for me to sort out, with respect to amplification. With Definitions I willingly ran through five months of experimentation before settling on 845 SET. After that, all set. Here's one thing you can count on: from the best sound you can get from your new Zu speakers in the first three days, everything will meaningfully improve for the next two years if you do nothing more than play music.
I've been spending my own money on hi-fi for 40 years now and the most significant thing about Zu speakers is that they arrested the search for better sound and eliminated the frustrations of audiophilia, with the result that I've bought more music in the last five years than in the prior 20. I think Soul will make this true for many others. Given its compact size, price, amp-friendliness and low-tweak set-up, after a single astute amp choice within your budget (or perhaps you already own one), music will regain its rightful claim on your money and time spent on audio.
Phil
Well, I've made no changes in preamps, amps or cables in five years, and that's for two complete Zu/SET systems. I did upgrade my Druids to 4-08 parts and I traded in my Definition 1.5s to get Def 2.0s, to get rid of the MDF cabinet glare in the earlier version. My turntables are 30 years old.
The positioning of my speakers in both systems has not changed since two hours after first installation. There are no room treatments other than the mitigation of normal household furnishings. Meanwhile, by far the best time I spent on audo outside of listening to music in the past 25 years was the solid week of investigation of coupling, isolation and general resonance control I was able to carve out last year.
Of several families of options, explored in combinations and in isolation, what came out on top? If you use a turntable, placing it on cones in turn resting on Aurios media bearings will be a revelation. The improvement exceeds any cartridge and tonearm upgrade I've ever done, by a wide margin. If you use a digital disc player, magnetic levitation (when space and low player weight render it feasible) drives more improvement than upgrading to a player 10X the price of the one you have. When the player is too heavy for that, go with Aurios Classic media bearings or similar. THESE were the vivid, dramatic improvements, once Zu speakers were in place.
Point is, by getting the amp/speaker combinations right, my systems have been quite stable in configuration as well as where I placed them. The one area of changeout has been digital players. The other area of interest prompting acquisition is analog, for which I indulge in more phono cartridges that I actually need.
A speaker designer and maker (not Zu in this case) visited me after I got Zu speakers and revamped my amplification. He looked at my systems and after registering his objections about having coffee tables in the listening area of each system, and lamenting the presence of flat panel TVs, he asked me how I arrived at my speaker placement. I told him the truth. I bought Zu shortly after moving into a new house. I looked at the rooms, and on visual assessment identified where the speakers would go both for best sound and functional compatibility with each room. I also showed him how far I'd moved the speakers from their initial position during the first hour listening. There was less than three inches of movement in any direction, from first plop down.
He said he was sure he could do much better if I'd allow him to. I marked the floor with masking tape to reference the original position and let him have at it. He was competent and he makes good speakers. We ended up back in the same spots, he admitting that I had already found the right and best locations for the rooms. Of course I knew this when I let him indulge his confidence. Now, I've been doing this for decades and have moved around a lot, faced with having to sort many rooms as a result. I also once worked in the business and sorted placement for many customers. But I've never found it even remotely difficult, time-consuming or esoteric in any way. Live with the room and appreciate its voicing. Tone is intrinsic to the gear or it's not there at all. You can get tone from a jail cell if the gear is toneful to begin with. Put another way, you can hear when a guitar player has achieved exceptional tone in acoustically unfavorable circumstances -- and they're almost all acoustically unfavorable. You can hear it walking down Sixth Street in Austin almost any night before you even enter a room. Zu speakers are like that. They have intrinsic tone under even the worst circumstances.
My time spent on hi-fi now is almost all music listening rather than gear futzing. Druids were easy for me to sort out, with respect to amplification. With Definitions I willingly ran through five months of experimentation before settling on 845 SET. After that, all set. Here's one thing you can count on: from the best sound you can get from your new Zu speakers in the first three days, everything will meaningfully improve for the next two years if you do nothing more than play music.
I've been spending my own money on hi-fi for 40 years now and the most significant thing about Zu speakers is that they arrested the search for better sound and eliminated the frustrations of audiophilia, with the result that I've bought more music in the last five years than in the prior 20. I think Soul will make this true for many others. Given its compact size, price, amp-friendliness and low-tweak set-up, after a single astute amp choice within your budget (or perhaps you already own one), music will regain its rightful claim on your money and time spent on audio.
Phil