View Full Version : zu essence speakers
hifinutt
07-02-2010, 15:56
zu seems to have got quite a following .
i have heard the zu at several shows now and not quite sure what to think
in manchester they were powered by a huge atmosphere valve job.
very fast sound and not sure how long i could listen to them for but what do others think ?
http://www.sixmoons.com/audioreviews/zu16/essence_2.html
They do seem to be an aquired taste, another marmite speaker.
On the four occasions I have listened to them (outside of shows) three of the sets up's produced a very forward, dynamic and articulate sound with plenty of bounce, though hifinutt's obersvation mirrors much of my feelings. Not great bass extension dept imho.
Though the other system was very open and sweet, more laying and a lot less 'in yer face', still had get up and go too. Two of the systems used valves, the others used solid state. I feel with careful matching these could make some very pleasant sounds.
Ali Tait
07-02-2010, 18:18
I've heard a pair at one of our do's,not sure which model (a bookshelf one though) I'd echo the above comments,nice sound but quite forward to my ears.Some liked them,they did get a few comments.I do find it difficult to get on with box speakers these days.
hifinutt
07-02-2010, 19:51
i guess it is a matter of an acquired taste. perhaps this is why there is such negativity on some forums towards focal [ altho today i found a focal forum with a breath taking 137 pages of discussion about focal !! ] once you had acclimatised to the fast and transparent sound of focal, everything else sounds sleepy or prozac as mr c would say!!
technobear
07-02-2010, 19:52
I have owned a mildly modified pair of Zu Druid MkIV for nearly a year now.
They sound fantastic on the end of my mildy modified Croft Syntegra.
I have also heard the Essence on Whittlebury Hall and it sounded very good. It was a little less forward than the Druids. Not sure if I prefer that or not but I suspect many will. There were no problems with bass, the Essence being much easier to set up than the Druid (the latter is dependent on the gap between speaker and floor being just so).
I think the Essence is probably a little more refined than the unmodified Druid although I haven't compared them side by side.
Neither speaker will flatter poor kit. They are very transparent and will reveal all sorts of things you never knew existed on your discs (including what an electric guitar really sounds like - not always a pleasant experience).
They are very dynamic and will reveal lots of tiny details (but only if your source and amp are good enough).
I could go on and on praising these speakers...
Why not just pop down and have a listen. I don't bite. Send me a PM!
hifi_dave
07-02-2010, 20:07
I like that 'Marmite speaker' description...:) Very apt.
I had a pair of the Druid for a couple of months and found that they could sound exciting and dramatic or raspy, boxey, hollow and in yer face at the drop of a hat..:eek: I moved on to Tannoy DC and haven't looked back.
Harbeth rules!!! Especially Croft driven.
So there :D :cool:
technobear
08-02-2010, 00:48
It's worth noting that, like all high-efficiency designs it seems, the Zus take an age to fully break in.
Surprised nobody has asked what my 'mild modifications' were :scratch:
Well I'm gonna tell ya anyways :ner:
1) Changed the crossover capacitor.
There is a single Kimber cap in the Druid MkIV. The speaker benefits hugely from changing this to a Mundorf Silver Foil & Paper In Oil cap. This gives much greater transparency, less noise and, to use a hideous and quite inappropriate metaphor, blacker blacks :lol:
2) Fitted a tweeter damping resistor
I fitted a 47ohm Mills non-inductive wirewound resistor across the tweeter terminals. This really ought to be mandatory on all tweeters. Even though the Druid uses the tweeter as a supertweeter (xover = 10kHz I think), it is still giving audible output down in the 1 - 2 kHz region where all 1 inch tweeters get into trouble. The damping resistor damps this resonant behaviour and removes a fatiguing edge from the upper-midrange. The Zu was better than most in this regard already but it still got better yet.
3) Fitted 5 small rubber damping pads to the rear edge of the whizzer
The rubber pads came from a DIY store or somesuch and are the kind of thing you might use for 'feet' on a calculator or something. They are about 10 or 12mm across and maybe 1mm thick. It's important to use an odd number because the object is to foil resonances, in this case bell modes and circumferential modes in the whizzer cone. This removes a small amout of fizz and has stopped the odd bum note that used to issue forth on occassion (presumably due to hitting a resonant peak at some key frequency or other).
The result of these mods is that I now have a very clean, transparent, detailed, engaging speaker with superb dynamics and realism that I can listen to for hours on end. Timing and coherence are superb. It will play soft and very loud with equal composure. If there are any anomalies in the frequency response, they are not obvious.
When I first got these I said they had 'final loudspeaker' writ large.
After a few months, I became aware of their shortcomings and started thinking about DIY OBs again.
Then I did the mods. I haven't thought about changing them since. I think they really could be my final speaker.
'
jandl100
08-02-2010, 08:50
I spent a while in a large room at a Show a year or so back with a pair of big Zu's .... can't recall the model - array of 4 woofers at the rear ...? Anyway - very grainy in the mids, loadsa colourations and a bit shouty, but nicely dynamic. Fairly horrible on classical music. No way could I live with that sound.
I've heard Chris / Technobear's modded Druids at a couple of bake offs, in a couple of rooms. In the first room I heard that same grainy mid colouration, but to a lesser extent, and a bright/forward sound. Chris was obviously unhappy with the sound himself and moved the Zu's to another room. The mid grain pretty much disappeared leaving a fairly coherent and very articulate, fast & dynamic sound with very tangible presence. Still a bit bright for me with some mid/lower-treble colourations, but very very listenable - especially with Chris's rock-oriented taste in music. I can certainly understand why he loves them :) Very setup dependent, but when done right they are well worth an audition if you are in their price bracket ... and can get the modifications that Chris has!
From what I have read, the new Essence has addressed some of these issues, but I haven't heard them myself.
According to another site, the druids have little bass extension below 100Hz and at low levels this is very audible to me. Turn 'em up a bit and they do come to life.
I'm troubled about resale value of these things though. They're very difficult for dealers to sell IMO, but the small reservior of serial box swappers out there may keep values realistic.
technobear
08-02-2010, 09:48
I've heard Chris / Technobear's modded Druids at a couple of bake offs, in a couple of rooms.
That would have been at Frank's. That was pre-modding. They haven't been out of the house since they were modded.
It's time we had a return match. You must come over for a day :)
technobear
08-02-2010, 09:54
According to another site, the druids have little bass extension below 100Hz and at low levels this is very audible to me. Turn 'em up a bit and they do come to life.
Not this old chestnut again! :rolleyes:
The Druid is ported at the bottom. The gap between base and floor is critical to the bass performance. It needs to be about 6mm.
One stupid magazine mounted the Druid in mid-air (because that's how they always measure speakers :doh:) and needless to say recorded that it had no bass.
Come round to mine and watch 'Die Hard 4.0' or perhaps 'Terminator 2' and then tell me they have no bass! No subwoofer required here :ner:
They go all the way down to 35 Hz before there is any noticeable dip in response.
hifi_dave
08-02-2010, 10:27
According to another site, the druids have little bass extension below 100Hz and at low levels this is very audible to me. Turn 'em up a bit and they do come to life.
I'm troubled about resale value of these things though. They're very difficult for dealers to sell IMO, but the small reservior of serial box swappers out there may keep values realistic.
They remind me very much of other 'pipe' speakers such as the Posselt from some years ago. Most of the time there is not a lot of bass but then hit the right frequency(ies) and there is loadsabass. If you play favourable music and at fairly loud volumes, everything is fine.
technobear
08-02-2010, 11:15
They remind me very much of other 'pipe' speakers such as the Posselt from some years ago. Most of the time there is not a lot of bass but then hit the right frequency(ies) and there is loadsabass. If you play favourable music and at fairly loud volumes, everything is fine.
The Druid is not a simple 'pipe' speaker and does not sound as you describe.
Where is this nonsense coming from? The Druid has superb bass. It is fast and articulate and tuneful and there are certainly no holes in the response. The Druid does not do one-note bass.
It does need proper setup though. The gap between base and floor can be adjusted to give more or less bass with more or less depth and the correct setting apparently varies from amp to amp.
I'm troubled about resale value of these things though. They're very difficult for dealers to sell IMO, but the small reservior of serial box swappers out there may keep values realistic.
Difficult for dealers to sell...? Well they are now because they are only available direct from the importer but in the short time (about 4 months) the Essence was available from the only (I think) dealer they had, he sold 10 pairs including mine and had many more 'expressions of interest'.
As far as resale value is concerned I couldn't really give a toss, the Essence is a real keeper from my perspective (I had my last speakers for 12 years) and if resale value was to be the major criterion for choosing new hi-fi, as opposed to vintage gear, then shouldn't DSJR be restricting his recommendations to Naim amps as little else has any real residual value.:eyebrows:
The Essence scores over the Druid in terms of refinement and user friendliness. The newer speaker has a double plinth arrangement which obviates the need to faff around getting the base to floor gap correct and the new ribbon tweeter is said to be a lot smoother than the old horn loaded one, the Essence is about as 'plug and play' as speakers get and for such big (approx 115 litre) boxes they manage to consume no more room space than a small stand mounted speaker at around a square foot each.
No bass, what on earth have people been listening to these things with? They have the deep fast articulate bass that many other 'mainstream' speakers can only aspire to plus they possess real bass tonality that few speakers of any kind can manage, Miroslav Vitous' bowed string bass on the 'Trio Music' lp with Chick Corea and Roy Haynes is stunning, what they don't have is any boomy overblown stodge.
They also have dynamics to burn so you don't need earbleeding spls to get the best out of them, any review suggesting otherwise is simply wrong, end of, but of course if you really do want to treat the neighbours to the joys Rammstien then the Zus will oblige, handsomely:).
The Druid is not a simple 'pipe' speaker and does not sound as you describe.
Where is this nonsense coming from? The Druid has superb bass. It is fast and articulate and tuneful and there are certainly no holes in the response. The Druid does not do one-note bass.
It does need proper setup though. The gap between base and floor can be adjusted to give more or less bass with more or less depth and the correct setting apparently varies from amp to amp.
Fast bass usually means NO bass I've found.......
The Druids I heard sounded bass light at normal domestic levels. Thrash 'em a bit and they were ok..
Sorry, I prefer bass that "breathes......"
technobear
08-02-2010, 16:39
Fast bass usually means NO bass I've found.......
For the majority of speakers on the market, I would say that is about right.
This is because the vast majority of speakers on the market are low efficiency snooze boxes that have no hope of ever producing articulate and deep bass and sound broken next to the Zu's :ner:
Like I said before, you are all welcome to come and have a listen :)
I'll just retaliate that most speakers sound broken when compared with some bling free, boring looking Harbeth's. but that wouldn't be charitable, would it?
Enjoy what you have. Good that people can take different combinations and make them go properly...:)
hifi_dave
08-02-2010, 17:39
The Druid is not a simple 'pipe' speaker and does not sound as you describe.
Well, it certainly looks very much like the 'pipe' or 'column' speaker as described in Gilbert Brigg's books dating from the mid 1940's.
As for the sound - I can only speak as I found in three rooms with various electronics. One man's meat etc, etc.
technobear
08-02-2010, 18:11
Well, it certainly looks very much like the 'pipe' or 'column' speaker as described in Gilbert Brigg's books dating from the mid 1940's.
How so? Have you looked inside one? It's not just an empty box ;)
It isn't a pipe, nor is it a reflex, transmission line or horn. It is quite different to all of those types.
hifinutt
08-02-2010, 18:47
thanks technobear for the invite and should i be in glastonbury will take up your kind offer . listening to simons setup up in manchester was certainly good , wonder how they would sound with my class d bel canto refs?
technobear
08-02-2010, 19:03
wonder how they would sound with my class d bel canto refs?
With those, I think we could rock half of Glastonbury :lolsign:
(Stunning would be my guess ;) )
hifi_dave
08-02-2010, 20:42
How so? Have you looked inside one? It's not just an empty box ;)
It isn't a pipe, nor is it a reflex, transmission line or horn. It is quite different to all of those types.
Yes, I have looked inside, I owned a pair for approx three months and it is a 'pipe'.
A 'pipe' as described by Gilbert Briggs and many others. In the Zu version, they use a pyramid of foam at the bottom where Briggs used a roll of fibreglass or BAF.
I spent a while in a large room at a Show a year or so back with a pair of big Zu's .... can't recall the model - array of 4 woofers at the rear ...? Anyway - very grainy in the mids, loadsa colourations and a bit shouty, but nicely dynamic. Fairly horrible on classical music. No way could I live with that sound.
Hey Jerry
I reckon that would be the Defintion 2s at Heathrow a couple of years back. To be fair the set up in that show did them no favours. Mine, I've happily run for 2.5 years now, are not grainy in the mids nor are they shouty. Chris is right in saying that the Zu's don't take any prisoners when it comes to the preceding line up. I listen to all sorts of music including classical and they are the most satisfying speaker I've owned. Of course they aren't for everyone ;)
They're obviously a R&R speaker range. A good gander at their site practically confirms it...
The main unit is now mk4. How long did it take them to get to this?
The Vinyl Adventure
09-02-2010, 14:33
what does r & r mean
hifi_dave
09-02-2010, 16:49
I thought it was 'rest and recreation'....:doh:
technobear
09-02-2010, 18:09
So did I :lol:
The Zu's talents extend to much more than rock 'n' roll.
They are very good at blues, jazz, piano, rock, girlie & guitar, prog, dance & trance, techno, stadium rock... come to think about it, they are consummate all-rounders really :smoking:
The Vinyl Adventure
09-02-2010, 19:56
yeah i thought the same...
always learning :lol:
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