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ZU OMEN speakers 12ohms??

I am looking into the Omen speakers , but the 12 ohms impediance is throwing me off. I have a ss amp 100 watts , 8 ohms and a tube amp 35 watts with 4,8,or 16 ohms . Whats the best way to go ,and how does the 12 ohm figure into this?
cwazz
afc
141 posts
 
If you think a 12 ohm impedance throws some people off, look at the quick comparison chart for Dominance, which is coming out in January. It's user switchable, and can be set to 48 ohms. Not a typo there- FORTY EIGHT! What stinking tap do you use then? LOL.

@Ralph- not a dig at your gear, not at all (especially since I intend to buy an OTL amp in the next year), but I have a question for you. On that same comparo chart Zu has, it says some of their speaker designs suffer from "poor bass response" or only "fair" bass with OTL amplifiers. What's the rub there? What kind of speaker would make an OTL amp sound limp in the bass response? Still trying to learn about these OTL amps and how they differ from the standard transformer containing amps. One of the great mysteries of my life right now. I can take a body apart and put it back together easy, but this electronic stuff baffles me sometimes.
mahughes
171 posts
 
Atmasphere - interested that you think Omen was the move that Zu needed to move - does that mean as opposed to the Soul?
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,089 posts
 
Mahughes, no, that is as opposed to the Druid.

Afc, the ZU speakers are all fairly high efficiency. So they encourage the user to use lower-powered amplifiers if they can. An excellent example of this is the Definition, which is 6 ohms. A lot of people want to put a smaller amp on that, because they really don't need the power.

Now with OTLs, you have a phenomena of economy of scale- the bigger the OTL, the more efficient it becomes with low impedance speakers. That is why are larger amps like the MA-1, MA2 and MA-3 can fly in the face of conventional OTL mythology as they can be quite comfortable with 4 ohm speakers.

But smaller OTLs, because of this economy of scale, don't make good power into lower impedances. Normally the ZU speakers are 12 ohms, and almost any OTL made can drive that easily. But 6 ohms... now if you want to use a 30-watt OTL, with that impedance it will play, but it won't sound right.

There was/is a 30-ohm version of the Definition, that plays beautifully with smaller OTLs. And now there are newer ZU speakers that have a switch so you can set that impedance high if you want to, allowing for a lower powered OTL and the speaker to strut their stuff.

zeal's avatar
zeal
174 posts
 
So I guess 180 watt monoblocks are out of the question for Zu speakers?
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,089 posts
 
No- they like power just fine, as long as the amp has the finesse to not make a fool of itself.
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