Zu Dirty Weekend 6 went on sale today

Awesome @jamesecox 

glad you’re enjoying your new speakers. And definitely an interesting note on the DAC.  These seem to be playing well with quality equipment of relatively reasonable cost as Zu claims. 
 

my Cambridge Audio CXA61 comes tomorrow. I’m very interested to see how it sounds with these speakers. 

I bought a pair of Dirty Weekends a year and a half or so ago and after what I thought was a reasonable break-in period I put my Heresy IIIs (Capitol Records anniversary edition...for whatever that's worth) back in...I was amazed at how much better they sounded than the Zus. More coherent, tonally far more satisfying and seemingly far more accurate (still have 'em and they're excellent)...Zu was very nice about my sending 'em back and they paid for the shipping as they had been dinged when shipped to me. I haven't heard any other Zu speaker so it could be their other stuff is great...but the Heresy IIIs (I also rejected Heresy IVs for bad midrange from the redesigned polyamide diaphragm horns) were much better to my ears. 

@bourbonkernel, new gear day for you soon! The CXA61 should sound pretty neutral. Really interesting though that it doesn’t have a pre-amp built in though as I considered that a pretty standard feature for an integrated. I don’t use built-in pre-amps so it wouldn’t be a big deal for me (I use my Cambridge solos), but just making sure you’re aware of that!

At this point since I finally have sensitive speakers, I would probably order multiple amps in the future and audition them and pick the best one when it’s time to upgrade! My PMA-800NE is a non-mosfet amp (was only a $700 amp). The PMA-1800NE has mosfet components, so that would be interesting to audition. I’d probably pick a Cambridge and a NAD and find a seller with a fantastic return policy.

@jamesecox Keep us updated on what you think as time goes on. You have a similar size room to me, but mine is a little bigger (plus vaulted ceilings) and I had add a little EQ "oompf" to them to get a feeling that they are connected to the ground. They don't seem to be too punishing on subpar pressings which is nice. vinyl scratches/imperfections are a bit more frontward compared to my cheapies, but not overly so. Compared to my cheapy polks, the Zus kinda "unstitch" music and allow each component/instrument to expand as it wishes were my Polks had a "mesh" sound that kinda made everything sound good, but boring without depth. I wouldn't say the Zus make bad records worse, but they let you know that the recording has more easily detectable faults. Pretty cool! For superb recordings I feel like I'm experiencing music completely differently and hearing things I never heard before.

@wolf_garcia Zu is very good about buy and try. They make it pretty accessible and have no problem if people don’t really like what they hear! You had the DWMk2’s probably which was a pretty good speaker for the price. The DWMK1’s were lackluster according to a couple reviews I’ve read (mainly because they had cost reduced parts). An upgraded DW MK2 and MK6 is basically an Omen II MK2 which is tried and true Zu speaker. The MK6 just takes it further with a redesigned cabinet that is supposedly superior to the finger ports of the past where you had to play a lot with the height of the speaker. There’s probably a good chunk of people that don’t spend enough time playing with the finger port heights and placement that send them back. The finger port height is critical for getting that full/lower sound. But it’s inferior IMO because it comes at the cost of not being able to tilt the speaker. Let’s be honest, while the Zu speakers look sexy as hell, a full range driver being placed that’s centered a little bit below 3’ is pretty low for 90% of listening heights (I have very low MCM couch/chairs) and they really deserve some level tilt-back to really get them at their full potential. Doing that with older Zus would be a no-no cuz of those damn finger ports.

The lesson I learned from that most recent round of new speaker curiosity (Really simply curiosity, as my speakers at the time were working swimmingly) was to absolutely listen to speakers before buying. No amount of hyperbole will match your specific tastes. Previous to the ZU issues I convinced myself that a pair of Sonist Audio speakers might be more efficient and sound better than my Silverline Preludes. Nope. The Preludes were far better in every way...off went the Sonists. Damn. The ZU thing was around the time of the Heresy IV experiment, and man...I was tiring of sending speakers back. This year I improved my rig with a Pass XA-25 and various speaker and signal cables, all with excellent results...until my next bout with unconstrained curiosity...

Ditto on audition if you can. Zu has a generous return policy since they know you can’t just go down to you local hifi store (if you have one) and demo. 
 

And yeah unfortunately the CXA61 lacks a phono preamp. I have a couple but will likely fire up my Schiit!  I don’t spin a ton of vinyl but certainly enjoy it as a source. So far very casually think this Cambridge sounds better with these speakers than the Arcam SA20. 
 

I don’t think it sounds as good as my Benchmark Dac3/Rogue Audio Stereo 100 combo but again not a fair fight. I’ll also get around to some blind sound level matched testing at some point to see if I can put my money where my mouth is. 
 

Happy Listening.