SET amp owners thread
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That signature sound has been reduced quite a bit in the last several years, imo they are getting much closer to neutral.
I enjoy them a lot and agree they are excellent for rock, blues and electronica. They also can fill large spaces/produce high SPLs.
Dave, I'm the person on this forum who has ploughed the lonely Zu furrow, working hard to ameliorate their shortcomings whilst keeping their magic. Effort put into modding high- and low-pass filters and subs transformers, improving isolation from the floor, adding supertweeters, plus strenuous efforts to reduce noise in the rest of the system, and sweating the details on careful optimised setup, has provided massive benefits.
The Zus will never win any awards for ultimate transparency or neutrality, but care spent dialling them in does wonders for the ability to really hear into classical recordings. Certainly my first pair of Zus back in 2008 were impenetrable on acoustic music. Not so my current maxxed out pair.
The Zus will never win any awards for ultimate transparency or neutrality, but care spent dialling them in does wonders for the ability to really hear into classical recordings. Certainly my first pair of Zus back in 2008 were impenetrable on acoustic music. Not so my current maxxed out pair.
Kondo Niero 2A3, Kondo KSL M77 pre, Kondo DAC, and Brian Charney's Concerto speakers with Lowther D4s.
Its funny, they are high sensitivity but I get the impression that they perform best at higher volumes and perhaps this is why more subtle music is not their forte. This could be due to colorations or perhaps cabinet issues? Normally, high sensitivity full-range drivers excel at low levels and start to lose it as the volume goes up. For example, I have a pair of Decware HDTs that use modified Fostex drivers (206E). These are a true 96db and in this particular (crazy) cabinet they get down into the mid 40s pretty effectively...better than the backloaded horn implementations I have heard. They are really great low to mid volume speakers. So, night listening is pleasurable without strain. Crank them up though and they start to shout, which is probably something to do with IMD rising sharply. I think this speaker will make a great bass/midrange up to 3-5Khz and then blend that to a 1" cd/horn. Something I am looking into as a mod. Maybe eventually I would cut off the whizzer if it seems like it will improve the mids. The 11 watt MasterSound Dueundici does a nice job with this speaker (not a SET but a SEP with an EL34 doing output duty).
My big Odeons also do well at low volume but can get very loud without apparent strain. Just adding a tweeter (Beyma CP350ti in a wooden spherical horn (about 10inch mouth diameter) with huge dynamic capacity makes a world of difference...no shout no matter how loud (ok loud for me). It is more their location in the house that prevents late night listening often times, thus the second system.
Brad, that's a misconception. My Zus are good at "after midnight" levels. I actually don't feel the need to crank them up w the synergy of dense, fleshed out SETs sound.
From the model I heard (Druid mk4 or 5) I would not agree with you. However, let's assume you are right about your model, then how to explain their reputation as a Rock and roll speaker rather than an ideal choice for a string quartet or delicate music or music with lots of "atmosphere" etc.?
Nothing to do w having to play them loud. More to do with a presentation that misses that last bit of delicacy, transparency and neutrality.
My Definitions saturate an 800 sq ft/10,000 cub ft space w ease on 35W Audion Black Shadows 845 tubes.
But they have been challenged on material that demands the least spkrs self character and microdetail.
My Definitions saturate an 800 sq ft/10,000 cub ft space w ease on 35W Audion Black Shadows 845 tubes.
But they have been challenged on material that demands the least spkrs self character and microdetail.
This suggests that they have an issue with what my late friend Allen Wright called Downward Dynamic range. By which he meant the ability of a component to resolve low level signals in the presence of the high level signals. This would be consistent of your self-assessment of the issues the speakers seem to have. Generally, this also has an impact on how low you can play the speaker and it maintains the level of resolution and tonal balance and relative dynamics that it has at a "normal" listening level (what my wife would call damn loud !
). I think the two things are linked, although perhaps even when playing louder they are not getting any more resolving (many speakers need to be played louder to have reasonable transparency and ability to hear small details and ambience/3d cues) and they do the "follow the tune" well...something that Linn and Naim always were banging on about as a cover, IMO, for their lack of tonality and resolution.
Brad, that sounds eminently reasonable. It's been a bit of a mission of mine to eek out as much performance from them. But I fully realise they may have a glass ceiling. However, what they do well, they do extremely well, and I've not heard any spkr rival them in this respect. I was a big fan of the Linn/Naim/active Isobarik presentation, and there is a certain thread from that sound to what I have now.
Only the Linn TT was kind of interesting and maybe a Naim CD player. The rest...
The choice in mid 80s London was a Linn LP12/Naim 6 pack active/Linn Isobarik, or Vpi/Krell behemoth/Apogee Scintillas.
You should add the Meridian M1 or M10 active speakers.
BTW, I had a few great listening sessions with the active Isobarik system at KJ Leisuresound. Colored? Yes. Imaging? Rather strange. But we could feel and enjoy the live of music in it!
Francisco, that's always been my take on Zu which doesn't chime w the ultra purist transparency/neutrality crowd here.
That it's possible, despite not running the most characterless spkrs, to have a few of the key factors of live music.
That it's possible, despite not running the most characterless spkrs, to have a few of the key factors of live music.
Hi Spirit,
Just clarify what I mean about transparency, it is not the "conductor farted very loudly, the microphone picked it up, and the listener now hears it. And so many scream "It's high fidelity, Baby!"' / "transparency to source"/ "fart takes over the music" type stuff Valin praises (and other analytical reviewers also).
That type of transparency doesn't help listeners - who are active in this thread - find the "state of flow" and bliss we seek. When I speak of transparency, I instead mean transparency to the music itself so it generates emotion.
Just clarify what I mean about transparency, it is not the "conductor farted very loudly, the microphone picked it up, and the listener now hears it. And so many scream "It's high fidelity, Baby!"' / "transparency to source"/ "fart takes over the music" type stuff Valin praises (and other analytical reviewers also).
That type of transparency doesn't help listeners - who are active in this thread - find the "state of flow" and bliss we seek. When I speak of transparency, I instead mean transparency to the music itself so it generates emotion.
Now that system sounds very interesting indeed. Can you share piccies / more details etc.
Caesar, I've never got the "you are there/they are here/faithful to the master tape etc" dichotomys which I consider to be ultimately just so much navel gazing.
I do believe we stumble across the kinds of presentations that press our buttons, not truly look for the truth. If we really did the latter, just where is the "truth" in a recording like Pink Floyd The Final Cut, recorded in as many studios and countries as there were musicians at the sessions? Where's the "truth" in the drum sound on most modern recordings which are probably recorded on the equivalent of an I-Phone and dialled in (pun intended)?
No, for me the choices are more about whether one values uber detail retrieval, speed, PRaT, wide and deep soundstage and pinpoint imaging, tonal density and timbral accuracy, etc.
I realise some uber setups get a long way to ticking all these boxes. But at a more real world situation, one is likely to major on a couple of these situations to the partial exclusion of others.
Prior to finding the magic of tubes via my Hovland HP200 pre in 2005, my proclivity seemed to be more for the soundstage/imaging thing I admired in a friend's setup of Musical Fidelity KW monos feeding ML Prodigy hybrid panels.
However the spell of tubes led me to realise that tone and timbre were actually closer to my heart, what you might call meat on the bones of music, and quality steak rather than fast food (although there are a fair number of Big Macs and Whoppers in my collection LOL), and this then naturally led to the Zu type presentation finished off by my total immersion in SETs, and the magic of high power SETs on high efficiency zero crossover full range drivers in a large space.
Indeed a decade of Zus, Zus w SETs, these w idler/rim drive analog, and greater exposure to more and more live acoustic music has confirmed my view that tone, timbre, PRaT, mean way more than the type of HiFi imaging and staging I'd have had if I'd gone down the megaWatts/panel route (no disrespect to anyone who has).
What I have tried to do is optimise the heck out of my Zus so they combine their transparency of tone and timbre, w more traditional virtues of transparency to maxx microdynsmics, delicacy, air etc. And my efforts have been pretty fruitful.
So Caesar, we're speaking the same language. I'll let the bats deal w the conductor's farts LOL.
I do believe we stumble across the kinds of presentations that press our buttons, not truly look for the truth. If we really did the latter, just where is the "truth" in a recording like Pink Floyd The Final Cut, recorded in as many studios and countries as there were musicians at the sessions? Where's the "truth" in the drum sound on most modern recordings which are probably recorded on the equivalent of an I-Phone and dialled in (pun intended)?
No, for me the choices are more about whether one values uber detail retrieval, speed, PRaT, wide and deep soundstage and pinpoint imaging, tonal density and timbral accuracy, etc.
I realise some uber setups get a long way to ticking all these boxes. But at a more real world situation, one is likely to major on a couple of these situations to the partial exclusion of others.
Prior to finding the magic of tubes via my Hovland HP200 pre in 2005, my proclivity seemed to be more for the soundstage/imaging thing I admired in a friend's setup of Musical Fidelity KW monos feeding ML Prodigy hybrid panels.
However the spell of tubes led me to realise that tone and timbre were actually closer to my heart, what you might call meat on the bones of music, and quality steak rather than fast food (although there are a fair number of Big Macs and Whoppers in my collection LOL), and this then naturally led to the Zu type presentation finished off by my total immersion in SETs, and the magic of high power SETs on high efficiency zero crossover full range drivers in a large space.
Indeed a decade of Zus, Zus w SETs, these w idler/rim drive analog, and greater exposure to more and more live acoustic music has confirmed my view that tone, timbre, PRaT, mean way more than the type of HiFi imaging and staging I'd have had if I'd gone down the megaWatts/panel route (no disrespect to anyone who has).
What I have tried to do is optimise the heck out of my Zus so they combine their transparency of tone and timbre, w more traditional virtues of transparency to maxx microdynsmics, delicacy, air etc. And my efforts have been pretty fruitful.
So Caesar, we're speaking the same language. I'll let the bats deal w the conductor's farts LOL.
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And just to reiterate, I've heard many systems that do things way better than my rig, I'm not so myopic as to claim Zu/SETs is anything other than one way to get a direct connection to the musical message. But this one way is the way that on balance speaks to me more than many others at my price point and 2x dearer.
I have 4 systems, and with Zu, it's the one I analyze the sound the least after listening. I simply don't think it needs any improvement.
It's amazing how the Zu speaker and the Audion SET just fuse together in perfect union and convey every bit of emotion of the artists. Listening to King Curtis, Aretha, Mike Bloomfield, Albert King, and other artists that play in a more emotional rather than cerebral style, it's all dropped-jaw and goosebumps. Kind of like a Porsche Boxster on a mountain road - just perfect for what it does.
I don't give a damn that something may be a bit more transparent or some well-marketed box speaker may have more bass wallop. I would never trade the Zu for any box speaker.
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