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Steve Guttenberg - Audiophiliac

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maverickronin

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Zu audio sells quite a lot of speakers to an enthusiastic customer base. Just a couple days ago I was reading some Zu speaker owners who still swoon over their speakers, having owned them for years, so they seem to be enjoying fairly long term satisfaction.

With something that awful I wonder how many of those people would actually give the same answer blinded.

If they do give the same answer, what music lead to that preference?
 
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tomtoo

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With something that awful I wonder how many of those people would actually give same answer blinded.

If they do give the same answer, what music lead to that preference?

Maybe they remember the PA from blueoystercult 35 years ago?

Edit says: The most horrible PA i can remember.
 

peanuts

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yeah i get what your saying. i also owned awful hawthorne and bastanis speakers and liked them fine for a while, until i started to study measurements and realized how stupid i was lol. now having adjusted to several DSP speakers i quickly pick up if a speaker is doing something wrong.
 

MattHooper

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These products are sold solely on myth or backstory, they make the music more ‘lifelike’ I hear it all the time.
If you have no technical knowledge whatsoever it is easy to be misled.
Keith

It's certainly possible that some Zu owners aren't in a position to parse the true from the marketing claims about the Zu speaker designs.

But in practice the end result is that Zu owners seem to love the lively sound of their speakers. It's what they are looking for and what the speakers apparently deliver. And they are thrilled when listening to music on their speakers. Not sure exactly how this means they are "misled." Not everyone is searching for the same type of speaker.

Zu has a reputation for a particularly "live" or "lively" sound, and as I recounted in another thread, that's what I heard from them as well. And it wasn't due to expectations. I was at an audio show and one thing I pay attention to when wandering the halls is which rooms have the more "realistic" sound emitting from the room, before I enter. The "how close is that to fooling me there are real musicians in that room down the hall?"
I was drawn in to a room that sounded particularly life-like from outside the room...for that exact reason. And from inside the room it sounded particularly vivid and direct and "live" in a way that exceeded most other rooms. I didn't even know what I was listening to and after a while I asked about the equipment. Turned out it was Zu speakers pumping out the sound. So, it helped me understand the attraction some have to those speakers. (I may certainly find if I had a long listening session with my own music that I'd ultimately find the sound too colored for my own taste. But plenty of Zu owners have been super happy with their music collection through their Zus).

I think it's a good idea, if one is truly hewing to a scientific mindset, to remember the caution inherent in science when it comes to making claims.
So for instance, while research shows it's very plausible many people would choose a Revel speaker design over a Zu in blind testing, we would have to be careful about making claims concerning any individual, particularly one who has not been tested. In other words, saying to a Zu owner "you don't really prefer the sound of the Zu to a 'better' speaker design, you just think you do because you are influenced by factors like the Zu marketing." That's only conjecture, not a fact that you know. You'd have to test that individual - his Zu speakers against whatever others - under scientifically controlled conditions, before you can claim to know he doesn't prefer the sound of the Zus.


Yeah. People enjoy all kinds of crazy crap. Especially after they dropped a bunch of money on said crap. There's lots of people who love Beats headphones. There's people who get a set of Beats, and then they turn the bass knob all the way up as well! They "love" it! I used to know a guy who would EQ his system so that the sliders were a straight line from left to right...with the left end at the lowest point and the right at the highest! Am I supposed to care about that guy's speaker impressions?

Well...of course "crap" is a value statement, which depends on what you value. I presume you value things like accuracy and fidelity to the signal?
Zu devotees seem to value that the sonic output of their speaker have a direct, lively sound that makes them feel like the musicians are closer to "here" playing. Maybe crap to you, but it's "better" to their tastes.

There's also the issue of "when are we making a mountain out of a molehill?" in forums like this.

Yes, we can measure many differences between gear. But the important question after that is "to what degree is it audible?" and then "to what degree does this affect listener response or satisfaction?"

Much of what can be measured in DACs and amps isn't audible. And when deviations do occur, even audible ones, in the big picture the sonic effect can be extremely subtle.

When it comes to loudspeakers, the deviations can be more audible. But even then, some things that measure significantly different don't always equate to audible, or really significant in audible terms. For instance, even with a Zu speaker, the poster child for "bad measurements," John Atkinson commented:

"Yet, other than noticing a somewhat clanky quality with recordings of acoustic piano, I didn't find the Zu to sound as bad as this graph implies. In fact, I enjoyed the afternoon I spent listening to the speakers in Herb's system. As with Zu Audio's Essence speaker, reviewed by Art Dudley in October 2009, Sean Casey appears to have carefully balanced the Soul Supreme's performance to sound more neutral than its measured behavior would suggest, allowing the listener to appreciate its high sensitivity and evenly balanced midrange."

Amir has also noted some surprise here and there after seeing some wonky speaker measurements that didn't sound as bad as he would have thought.

Of course the Harman Kardon-type research gives us statistical predictions about what type of sound people tend to rate higher or lower.
But when rating a speaker A lower than speaker B, I'm not sure people have said "speaker A sounds AWFUL!"

Someone here who has tuned their ears to neutrality and who has seen the measurements of Zu speakers may hear Zu speakers and percieve them as terrible next to a more neutral speaker. Whereas another person may not find the difference that extreme (even IF both people would rate the 'better' design higher in blind tests).


With something that awful I wonder how many of those people would actually give the same answer blinded.

If they do give the same answer, what music lead to that preference?

Yup, very good question.

Statistically if you got enough Zu owners in to the blind test conditions, how many would choose a speaker that measures like a Revel over the Zu? If you just think in terms of representative population, you'd expect most of them to choose the Revel speaker. But there may be some selection bias already happening - do Zu owners represent the subset of people who prefer that non-neutral sound, and who have acclimated to it, and therefore might the Zu owners tend to cluster outside the usual results somewhat? Hard to know I guess until that test is done. (And maybe something like it was done and I'm forgetting).

In either case, you still end up with the question: Do preference ratings in the blind testing conditions predict listener/owner satisfaction in the long run? As far as I can see, given all the variables once you get outside the lab, we can't make that inference. And self reports of Zu owners seems so show quite high satisfaction.
 

Purité Audio

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You are doing exactly the same thing, attributing some ( purely imaginary) positive attribution, ‘live’ to effectively a piece of crap.
NOS dacs are sold in the same fashion, more like live music etc etc, I wonder if they would sell as many of they stated these are hugely expensive , poorly designed and just add distortion.
 

Sgt. Ear Ache

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From my perspective, watching a review on youtube of a set of speakers, it would be helpful for me to know the reviewer prefers a "Zu sound signature." That would give me some useful information wrt how much I should value his recommendations of speakers. In fact, I believe Steve is a fan of them...so there's that. It certainly wouldn't be shocking that a guy in his seventies might like speakers that have extra high end energy, lol.

But this is exactly why I don't value those sorts of reviews in the first place. I have no idea what the baseline is. No idea how one thing relates to another. Are the $5000 speakers being gushed about in today's video better than the $2000 set you were gushing about yesterday? And what about the $7000 ones last friday? Where do they rank? You loved them too!
 

MattHooper

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You are doing exactly the same thing, attributing some ( purely imaginary) positive attribution, ‘live’ to effectively a piece of crap.
NOS dacs are sold in the same fashion, more like live music etc etc, I wonder if they would sell as many of they stated these are hugely expensive , poorly designed and just add distortion.

Again...this being a science-oriented web site, your claims are overreaching your evidence.

Two issues:

1. You have claimed that the perception of "liveliness" was purely my imagination.
In the situation I described, I was listening to systems first from the hallways, before I knew what equipment was in the room. It was, in effect, "blind listening conditions" in the sense I did not know what equipment I was listening to, and selecting the ones that sounded more life-like to me. Nor, once I entered the room, did I know what equipment I was listening to (and the interior sound was consistent with the character of sound that drew me in).

How can you determine, then, that it was "purely imagination?" Zu has a reputation for a lively sound, and before knowing the speaker, I was drawn in by the perception of a lively sound.

Do you have scientific research showing that Zu speakers are not perceived as "lively" by many or some listeners? (The blind testing research I'm aware of concentrated on establishing graphs of listener preference overall, not on charting which speakers were rated "lively" vs others).

2. It seems a bit of a pot calling a kettle black for a dealership like yourself to be condeming Zu for selling over-priced gear relative to it's performance. After all, apparently you will sell your customers a $20,000 turntable, with something like a $5,000 cartridge! That's for a technically Obsolete Technology that will play technically Obselete sources (vinyl). How is that justified given you can find better performing sources for hundreds of bucks? Is it, perhaps, that you are selling to people who don't simply value accuracy above all? And...that's ok?
 

Purité Audio

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I haven’t represented GPA for years, I should really remove it, but it is testament to having tried everything a history if you will.
I would recommend buying a Technics direct drive now.
Keith
 

Purité Audio

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ZU are a slap in the face to proper engineers who have strived throughout the years to advance the standard of audio reproduction you are defending the indefensible.
Keith
 

maverickronin

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Statistically if you got enough Zu owners in to the blind test conditions, how many would choose a speaker that measures like a Revel over the Zu? If you just think in terms of representative population, you'd expect most of them to choose the Revel speaker. But there may be some selection bias already happening - do Zu owners represent the subset of people who prefer that non-neutral sound, and who have acclimated to it, and therefore might the Zu owners tend to cluster outside the usual results somewhat? Hard to know I guess until that test is done. (And maybe something like it was done and I'm forgetting).

I think most Zu owners would be very critical of it once blinded, but that a few outliers would end up still preferring it.

In either case, you still end up with the question: Do preference ratings in the blind testing conditions predict listener/owner satisfaction in the long run? As far as I can see, given all the variables once you get outside the lab, we can't make that inference. And self reports of Zu owners seems so show quite high satisfaction.

That's actually another good question. Do short term and long term preferences match?

On the one hand I know I've been initially impressed by things and then hated them later. On the other this hand, the frequency and magnitude of these events have decreased markedly as I've tried more things so it's probably heavily dependent on listener experience as well.
 

Wes

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ZU are a slap in the face to proper engineers who have strived throughout the years to advance the standard of audio reproduction you are defending the indefensible.
Keith

nice, concise review
 

ttimer

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I think it's a good idea, if one is truly hewing to a scientific mindset, to remember the caution inherent in science when it comes to making claims.
So for instance, while research shows it's very plausible many people would choose a Revel speaker design over a Zu in blind testing, we would have to be careful about making claims concerning any individual, particularly one who has not been tested. In other words, saying to a Zu owner "you don't really prefer the sound of the Zu to a 'better' speaker design, you just think you do because you are influenced by factors like the Zu marketing." That's only conjecture, not a fact that you know. You'd have to test that individual - his Zu speakers against whatever others - under scientifically controlled conditions, before you can claim to know he doesn't prefer the sound of the Zus.

Very good point. Speaking as someone who has spent a decent part of his life in statistical research, I caution hard against trying to predict individual preferences from Olive’s model. It’s excellent research and very good for studying average preferences. But average effects are not the same as individual effects! We don’t even know the distribution of outcome preferences. And doing out-of-sample prediction on stuff involving human behavior can and will go wrong even under optimal conditions. Let me emphasize that a dataset of a couple hundred observations taken decades ago is about as far from optimal as a Zu frequency plot is from a straight line.
 

amirm

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We don’t even know the distribution of outcome preferences.
This is extensively covered in the papers and error bars are always shown on the graphs:

index.php
 

smallricey

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He's a perfect example of "golden-eared audiophool poetic exuberance." There is hardly an ounce of actual, useful information in his reviews that couldn't be acquired from reading the spec sheet of the given item he's reviewing. He talks about "sweetness" and "juiciness" and such like as he compares some amp or speaker to other amps or speakers his circa-seventy-year-old ears last heard months ago. Deep in his soul he knows he can't ever allow any of his notions to be put to a blind test of any sort because to do so would make him look foolish. Seems like a nice enough bloke though...
What's you guys take on human cannot correctly distinguish 2 very similar sound during blind test.
Since you are basically comparing sound from 1 memory to another memory.

for example this thread: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...limitations-of-blind-testing-procedures.1254/

What's the explanation that without conducting blind test many reviewers come up with similar conclusion regarding the sound signature.
For example: warm lush juicy or dry sound. Yet at the end of the day, they failed the blind test?
Does that mean the result is inclusive?
 

richard12511

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I think most Zu owners would be very critical of it once blinded, but that a few outliers would end up still preferring it.

I agree with this. I think most Zu owners would probably not like it under blind conditions, but there are always outliers.

I think the happiness of most Zu owners probably has more to do with expectation bias and ignorance than it does with any real preference. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.
 

Colonel7

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From my perspective, watching a review on youtube of a set of speakers, it would be helpful for me to know the reviewer prefers a "Zu sound signature." That would give me some useful information wrt how much I should value his recommendations of speakers. In fact, I believe Steve is a fan of them...so there's that. It certainly wouldn't be shocking that a guy in his seventies might like speakers that have extra high end energy, lol.

But this is exactly why I don't value those sorts of reviews in the first place. I have no idea what the baseline is. No idea how one thing relates to another. Are the $5000 speakers being gushed about in today's video better than the $2000 set you were gushing about yesterday? And what about the $7000 ones last friday? Where do they rank? You loved them too!
Actually, from the bit I've seen of Zeos and Joe N Tell they do constantly compare them against others(that they've reviewed) and many of them budget-oriented. I think it's part of the reason why they're popular.
 

zelig

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i "love" the Youtube speaker reviews that are just videos of the speakers playing music. Ridiculous! :)
 

SIY

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What's the explanation that without conducting blind test many reviewers come up with similar conclusion regarding the sound signature.

Many possible, but much of it is social reinforcement.
 

Sgt. Ear Ache

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What's you guys take on human cannot correctly distinguish 2 very similar sound during blind test.
Since you are basically comparing sound from 1 memory to another memory.

for example this thread: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...limitations-of-blind-testing-procedures.1254/

What's the explanation that without conducting blind test many reviewers come up with similar conclusion regarding the sound signature.
For example: warm lush juicy or dry sound. Yet at the end of the day, they failed the blind test?
Does that mean the result is inclusive?

I would imagine a lot of it comes down to them having already seen other reviews that planted a seed. There's also the possibility that manufacturers documentation can put out subtle hints that could influence impressions. I mean is there any way to show that these "similar" impressions are reached independently? Also, a lot of the flowery poetry is just a sort of common dialogue at this point. They've all learned the lingo, and much of it is fairly obtuse and open to interpretation.

Failing (or passing) a blind test is very conclusive afaic. As far as the stuff about humans having trouble comparing two very similar sounds, I don't buy it.
 
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