watchnerd
Grand Contributor
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:
Second, their weird port tuning that apparently first devised for motorcycle mufflers (uh...why is that good? to be a loud fart note?)
Third, panels that strongly resonant right in the midrange:
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:
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?
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:
Second, their weird port tuning that apparently first devised for motorcycle mufflers (uh...why is that good? to be a loud fart note?)
Third, panels that strongly resonant right in the midrange:
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:
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?