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Zu Audio - What is Going On?

watchnerd

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First, a disclaimer: I have never heard any Zu speakers.

Second, I have no axe to grind with the company, having no interactions with them. I don't even know anyone who is a customer of is affiliated.

But, when I read about their designs, and see some measured results, I see a bunch of red flags that not only exist, but appear to be intentional design decisions that reverse what are otherwise considered fairly universal best practices.

For example, letting your "full range drivers" run all the way up into break-up mode, where the output becomes random relative to input:

716ZUSSfig7.jpg


Second, their weird port tuning that apparently first devised for motorcycle mufflers (uh...why is that good? to be a loud fart note?)

Zu_port.jpg


Third, panels that strongly resonant right in the midrange:

716ZUSSfig2.jpg


All in all, it seems like a throwback to the Sanyo rack system my parents had in the early 1980s -- big resonant cabinets, big paper woofers, cheap or non-existent crossovers:

10338.jpg


And yet, despite all this, people seem to love them.

(I'll admit they look cool and have nice cabinet work)

What's going on here?

Are audiophiles just deaf?

Or are the received engineering best practices wrong?
 

tomelex

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For a lot of folk with low power tube stuff, there are not too many choices. There are better, but that's one explanation. Another, I think, is that actually, the imaging is really rather superb when you don't play them too loud. Lots of compromises in these things but imaging at low levels is great. A member of the local audio club had these, and they had some merits in the imaging department but don't play them loud.
 
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watchnerd

watchnerd

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For a lot of folk with low power tube stuff, there are not too many choices. There are better, but that's one explanation. Another, I think, is that actually, the imaging is really rather superb when you don't play them too loud. Lots of compromises in these things but imaging at low levels is great. A member of the local audio club had these, and they had some merits in the imaging department but don't play them loud.

Well, if they image well, at least that's an improvement on 1980's Sanyo. Those couldn't image their way out of a fashion show.
 

tomelex

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By the way, I appreciate the facts and data you put into many of your posts Sir, such as the above OP. I wish I was not so lazy about this but audio is well, lets say, it was interesting when I was late teens or early twenties, but other stuff is a lot more mentally stimulating and interesting these days, however, still the love for audio, and listening almost every night for an hour or so.
 
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watchnerd

watchnerd

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By the way, I appreciate the facts and data you put into many of your posts Sir, such as the above OP. I wish I was not so lazy about this but audio is well, lets say, it was interesting when I was late teens or early twenties, but other stuff is a lot more mentally stimulating and interesting these days, however, still the love for audio, and listening almost every night for an hour or so.

I go through phases where I digest what is new, often accompanied by a re-architecture of the hifi system, and decide if my core criteria / beliefs need to be re-assessed.

Then I go back to listening, recording, or performing music for a while.
 

Blumlein 88

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Those are pretty awful measurements.
Yes, something of a tradition with Zu speakers.

Something of an anti-Harman approach to product design. I wonder how a pair of them would fare in Harman speaker comparisons? By the measured info they would be rated even lower than Ray's M-L's.

Here are JA's comments on another Zu model than the one above.

In many ways, the Zu Essence is an underachiever, measurement-wise. But the surprise for me, when I auditioned it in AD's room, was how much of its measured misbehavior was not too audible, other than the rolled-off highs and the lack of impact in the lower midrange. I suspect that Zu's designer has carefully balanced the individual aspects of the Essence's design so that the musical result is greater than the sum of its often disappointingly-measuring parts.—John Atkinson
Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/zu-essence-loudspeaker-measurements#LSrEJhzYFqVF4q75.99

Yet if you look at the measurements, they would suggest exactly what he described. Lacking highs, weak lower midrange, etc etc.

You can also see some suspect results of yet a third Zu speaker here.

http://www.soundstagenetwork.com/measurements/zucable_druid/

And another person's take on their unusual design choices.

http://noaudiophile.com/Zu/

Quite a ways down this page you can download recordings of the George Thorogood mentioned playing over these speakers, and one of a better speaker for comparison.
 
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watchnerd

watchnerd

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"From $5400" for the Druid gets you this hot mess:

frequency_on1530.gif


Compare that to the teeeeny tiny NHT Super Zero I used to own ($200 way back in 1995, now revised and $250 in 2016 money):

NS0FIG04.jpg


Ns0fig09.jpg

Ns0fig06.jpg


So "from $5400" for the Zu Druid gets you something with the bass extension of a micro monitor with a 4.5" woofer, but with far worse cabinet resonances and worse directivity / dispersion

Again...I'm mystified how this happens.

Either the received wisdom is wrong, or lots of audiophiles are tolerant of very badly measuring speakers.
 

Blumlein 88

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I actually think this little opinion piece has the right take on it (Zu speakers are addressed directly). I also think the attitude is behind how much high end gear is so underperforming, and how mystifying it is to me when some really high performance moderate gear is looked upon as not very good by the same people. It is all about the backstory.

http://www.soundstagexperience.com/...se-menu/657-does-a-product-s-backstory-matter

I know for many years as a more conventional audiophile it was the backstory that at least in some measure increased my enjoyment. Then again my natural bent of understanding things caused me to reach a breaking point where too much is just too much. Not by itself, but one of the points along that path were experiences listening to SET's of great expense. The best of them were like an audio equivalent of a circus fun house sound. Without the backstory it would be dismissed immediately as simply lofi to the point of being hifi caricature.

As a disclosure, years ago I built a single driver transmission line. It was efficient (somewhere around 94 db/w/m), the bass was decently flat down to about 45 hz, and on axis at 1 meter response wasn't bad up to about 11 khz. Sounded not bad at all on a 10 watt OTL. I am pretty sure it would smoke these ZU speakers for real performance. Likely with the solid cabinet it would have been about $1k a pair as a commercial product. And yes the single driver had a whizzer cone. Off axis response suffered above 8 khz. Still likely better than this Zu. Yet I didn't develop the backstory. If I had done the development maybe I could have started hand-crafted You Sound speakers. A speaker with a sound all about you.
 
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watchnerd

watchnerd

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I actually think this little opinion piece has the right take on it (Zu speakers are addressed directly). I also think the attitude is behind how much high end gear is so underperforming, and how mystifying it is to me when some really high performance moderate gear is looked upon as not very good by the same people. It is all about the backstory.

http://www.soundstagexperience.com/...se-menu/657-does-a-product-s-backstory-matter

I know for many years as a more conventional audiophile it was the backstory that at least in some measure increased my enjoyment. Then again my natural bent of understanding things caused me to reach a breaking point where too much is just too much. Not by itself, but one of the points along that path were experiences listening to SET's of great expense. The best of them were like an audio equivalent of a circus fun house sound. Without the backstory it would be dismissed immediately as simply lofi to the point of being hifi caricature.

As a disclosure, years ago I built a single driver transmission line. It was efficient (somewhere around 94 db/w/m), the bass was decently flat down to about 45 hz, and on axis at 1 meter response wasn't bad up to about 11 khz. Sounded not bad at all on a 10 watt OTL. I am pretty sure it would smoke these ZU speakers for real performance. Likely with the solid cabinet it would have been about $1k a pair as a commercial product. And yes the single driver had a whizzer cone. Off axis response suffered above 8 khz. Still likely better than this Zu. Yet I didn't develop the backstory. If I had done the development maybe I could have started hand-crafted You Sound speakers. A speaker with a sound all about you.

Okay, I get the part about backstory and confirmation bias.

But....

Speakers aren't supposed to have flavor. They're ideally instruments of reproduction. The Zu speakers blatantly are colored (the makers have to know), and yet they seem to see that as a market differentiator, not a flaw.

Full points for business acumen! But for engineering....meh.
 

Blumlein 88

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Okay, I get the part about backstory and confirmation bias.

But....

Speakers aren't supposed to have flavor. They're ideally instruments of reproduction. The Zu speakers blatantly are colored (the makers have to know), and yet they seem to see that as a market differentiator, not a flaw.

Full points for business acumen! But for engineering....meh.

Well you're getting closer. Any old design can aspire to reproduce the music. Only extraordinary designs that are way out of the box can produce the music. Further such music production means you always have a unique sound. Uniqueness counts even when everyone is unique just like me. :D
 

fas42

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Zu is about full range, and sensitivity, and power handling. That gets you a long way towards sound with genuine dynamics, making the usual constipated, "correct" sound come off second best for people who want something more ...
 

Purité Audio

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Amongst the worst speakers I have ever heard or measured, I visited one potential client who had a pair, measured them in room with Dirac, there was no bass and no treble, just awful.
Keith
 

Thomas savage

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Amongst the worst speakers I have ever heard or measured, I visited one potential client who had a pair, measured them in room with Dirac, there was no bass and no treble, just awful.
Keith
Yea but that was before the entreq and shun mook hardwood Keith ... It's all good now.
 

Keith_W

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Speakers aren't supposed to have flavor. They're ideally instruments of reproduction. The Zu speakers blatantly are colored (the makers have to know), and yet they seem to see that as a market differentiator, not a flaw.

And that is why people like you will never get it.
 

Kal Rubinson

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Well you're getting closer. Any old design can aspire to reproduce the music. Only extraordinary designs that are way out of the box can produce the music. Further such music production means you always have a unique sound. Uniqueness counts even when everyone is unique just like me. :D
Here's my Zu story (from a past CES):
I had heard about them and, although I did have an expectation bias against them, I felt they deserved a real audition. At the room, another listener and I were treated to a long pseudo-technical introduction to the backstory of the design and its implementation before being allowed to hear them. That, alone, could instill a bias in a naive listener. He chose a familiar tract but the identity now eludes me. It sounded entirely strange and wrong to me and I said so. The presenter countered by telling us that we are hearing, for the first time, what the real studio experience sounded like and that is why it seemed so different. Then, the previously silent other listener spoke up. He said that he was at those recording sessions, listened live as well as to the monitors in the control booth and that it sounded nothing like what we just heard from the Zu. Microphone drop!
 

Purité Audio

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I really don't understand why anyone would own a pair, amongst my least favourites I would include Devore and Audio Note UK, any number of horn loudspeakers ,and I like horns , Zu comfortably holding the top spot though.
Keith
 

FrantzM

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High End Audio has jumped completely in the luxury segment with appropriate marketing and philosophies. (disclaimer, I own some luxury watches, mea culpa) when it comes to this segment reality is avoided... by the manufacturer and the customer. Any mechanical hand-made watch cannot hold a candle to the watches they use to give for free in detergent boxes ... A real diver would never let his life hang on a Cartier or Rolex "diver" watch .. For that there are many others , mostly Casio , Seiko or Citizen ... SOme will seat ticking at depth down to 1000 ft for years...
High End Audio is Luxury. It become strangely difficult for those who no longer subscribes to Audiophile BS to separate the Wheat from the Chaff. And this even from more pro-leaning brands such as JBL... Should one go for a 4367 or a 4722N ? (ugly as hell but the measurements look great) To paraphrase Uber founder and current CEO Travis Kalanick: "When there is no data, Emotions rule the day"
 
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