Charles,
I have this "2 watts" discussion all the time.
Look, it certainly works and 45 amps like the Yamamoto are revered by some who gravitate to flea power triodes. The tonal realism, immediacy and beauty can be arresting -- for awhile. I don't recommend this route however. The reason is that even at 101db/w/m efficiency, the dynamic limits of such a small amp are still quite noticed, even in a modest room, and that constant sense of grazing the ceiling -- or banging your head right through it -- is distracting. I find the 45 adherents forced to listen within dynamic limits that are excessively restrictive.
These 2w amps aren't cheap either. So instead, a well-executed 300B amp ala Audion Silver Night or Golden Nights can deliver all the tone, nuance and subtlety, but with acceptable dynamics. I consider a 300B's 7-8 w or perhaps a PX-25's 6-7w the practical lower limit for pairing Zu to an SET amp with true-tone attributes and acceptable dynamic range.
Better yet is a well-executed 845, but we've already discussed that.
Gerritt at Zu (the man you generally get when you dial them up) loves the Yamomoto 45 amp on his speakers, and recommends it unequivocably. I think if you are the kind of audiophile who has a small inventory of high quality amps in rotation, it's worth having a 45 like the Yamo or something similar among them. You'll love it some of the time. But if you have one amp only, I advise against 2w amps for Zu, as being too dynamically limited for general satisfaction. On balance for me, 2w amps give up too much in dynamic ease and headroom to gain what's lovely about them. Others may disagree.
There is one interesting way to justify it however. Are you a headphones listener? EddieCurrent has a sub-$3000 2a3 headphone amp that also has speaker outputs. Into speakers it outputs 3w/ch. Justify it for headphones and tap that flea power for speakers when you feel the urge to switch a few cables.
Phil |
Spirit,
Def4 is snappier than Def2, which was pushed toward some tonal reticence when the excitable cabinet of Def1 was corrected. Everything up to roughly 12khz is output by the FRD (including whizzer). So a lot of what people hear as high frequencies benefits from the rather large performance gains realized from the nano-cone and the oomphier motor. Def4 brings back Def1's snap without the cabinet talk, with more speed and tone. The revelatory traits of 4 are instantly recognized over 2.
The Radian brings refinement to the very top end, much better spray, and restores real beauty to everything it outputs compared to any other dynamic super tweeter I can recall. All the detail; none of the irritation. But I think most of what will alleviate your perception of softness will come from the nano FRD, with the Radian playing a vital supporting role. The combination is forgiving of SS amp top end. Your Hovland combination is very good but you have to be prepared for the possibility that your perception of your electronics may change.
For example, the slightly forward tone of the Klimo Merlino Gold preamp was a perfect complement to Def2. Even with CCa tubes however, through Def4 that forwardness wasn't an asset. Small but actionable. So I changed that out for a 6sn7 preamp, and the system was a system again.
Phil |
>>So you see 23 you say one thing and do another. If ASR should then Audion should. You have lost my attention 23!<<
The difference is, the Audion Black Shadows sound fully credible stock, and they are not inordinately affected by power cords. And since I took it upon myself to investigate power supply capactior upgrades, I communicated this back to Audion and they are running their own listening test to determine whether they want to incorporate same in future stock. But I didn't NEED the cap upgrades to enjoy the amps nor to render them musically convincing. Everything can be improved, but if there is an external dependency for an amp to sound convincing, then that should be supplied.
Now on the Golden Dreams, the capacitor upgrade made a bigger difference, which led me to now consider the Golden Dream a full-frequency amp, which I previously cautioned was compromised in deep bass performance. Above 100Hz, however, Audion Golden Dream monoblocks were and remain among the very best hifi amplifiers ever made, by music criteria, with or without the recap.
Phil |
>>Sounds like you are pissed about something here 23.<<
Nope. I'm sorry if I gave you reason to infer that.
>>Remember I live in FL 23? HOT here.<<
I live in Los Angeles, and not on the beach. It's hot here too. I never understood the hot weather amps phenomenon. It just doesn't make that much difference, and certainly not enough to affect an amplification decision -- for me.
We disagree on the "...plenty more out there to champion..." I think there are very few exceptional hifi products in any category worth seriously considering at any given time, such being the deleterious influences of rampant groupthink.
Phil |
>>Your writings and hypocrisy has destroyed your credibility with my circle of friends and myself.<<
As I wrote, it's not a popularity contest. You don't have to read what I write, and you don't have to be influenced by it. This is a discussion; not an election. You draw your conclusions and decide what's actionable. I never mind holding a minority point of view. You posted twice more after writing that I "lost your attention." Fascinating. Please, feel free to ignore me.
Phil |
>>How intuitive are the 5 way controls on the backs of the speakers? Is it fairly easy to find the best settings, set and forget?<<
If you read Zu's manual, the controls make sense quickly. If you don't read the manual, twirling the knobs will orient you quickly and then you can dial it in. There is both apparent and real interactivity between the settings. I think it takes some care but not endless fuss. Once set for your room, the combination you arrive at will be stable. I suggest you start with Phase at 0deg, Low Pass Freq at 45Hz, PEQ freq at 31, PEQ gain in the middle, and Volume on 8, and adjust from there. Room variables make any one setting impossible to prescribe. The big levers are Volume and Low-Pass Frequency. Dial them in and then go after the others, with Phase last. Don't obsess. It gets pretty clear by ear quickly, and if you want, an analyzer app can guide you further.
Phil |
Glory,
You missed the point of that post. A post, by the way, I'm happy to have in the permanent record since it probably sums up more of what I think has gone wrong with hifi than any other single post I've written. Thank-you for re-posting it here; the old school forum equivalent of a re-tweet!
And it was in response to a question: "How much of high end is a scam?" Read the whole thread. Why stop with me?
Anyway, Krell was just a start. Dig some more and you'll find other mentions of my disdain. But I've got a long list of gear to cast aspersions to for insults to music fidelity. None of the gear discussed in *this* thread is on that roster of rogue hardware. We're discussing smaller differences between components that all get in the realm of musical credibility, revolving around what we all agree are exceptional speakers. Our differeneces are over answers to the questions: "....but if you have to pick just one, what...?"
Phil |
Germanboxers,
You're in a good spot of equilibrium with Def4 + your OTL.
Two comments:
1/ The Audion 845 amps and Audion SET in general have qualities quite apart from almost all other SET implementations. It's far more articulate and transparent than Cary and its ilk. I did not commit to SET until I heard Audion. Black Shadow is the only 845 amp I recommend unconditionally, with others conditioned on caveats. I generally consider Sophia's 845 as next best to Audion, but trading a little more drive for a distinct loss of finess, articulation and some diminishment of tone.
2/ You can safely use the 845B as a drop-in replacement for the stock 845a in the old or new chassis Sophias. It sounds much better, too. I have two friends who couldn't afford Audion Black Shadows, who stepped down to old chassis Sophias on my recommendation to use the 845B from day 1. They've found the B better in every way, and reliable.
Phil |
>>What I noticed with the Sophia’s in reference to the M60’s is that they were a little sweeter, had a little more “density” to the midrange tone, and a little more sense of coherency or “cut from the same cloth” sound (at least from upper bass to treble); however, the latter seemed, upon further listening, to be a coloration imparted on all music and ultimately became a bit of a distraction.<<
All of this is consistent with what you should expect from competent SET v. push-pull -- even OTL. However, I cannot reconcile your statements. At least within the terms you chose to use, I don't know how "coherency" can be judged a coloration. It can take awhile to get used to, after years or decades of hearing push-pull crossover notch grunge, subtle as it is, as normal. But I'm guessing that whatever you heard as a coloration was something else about the Sophia. I don't regard the Sophia 845s as objective as the Audions, but they get closer than most competing 845 SET amps. The Sophia design is a more in-your-face presentation, and that's not just a function of acoustic energy. It's more aggressive.
>>There was also something going on in the upper midrange / lower treble that showed up on some tracks.<<
That something was likely the 845A tube's signature upper midrange glare, which the B tube mitigates, as does (to a lesser extent) the 845A Cryo. I know why amp makers ship with the 845A (it's dirt-cheap and consistent) but I don't know why any of them insist that's how their amp sounds best -- it doesn't. Not anyone's. I can't listen to the Sophia happily either with the stock tube. There is also some further tunability in the Sophias via the input, driver and rectifier tubes. It's not as simple a circuit as Audion's. The downside is less palpable intimacy and finesse. The upside is you have more tubes to roll for custom contouring!
>>The Atma M60Â’s had significantly more drive, a larger soundstage, more air on top & weight on bottom, though none of the aforementioned was perceived as lacking while listening to the SophiaÂ’s.<<
Ralph's M60 is a muscular amp and it has deep bass performance more precisely defined and textured than almost any SET amp. Can't comment on the soundstage differences since when I've heard both of those amps, soundstage was as large as I could want, appropriate to the music and the room. That none of these comparative shortcomings were perceived when listening to the Sophias shows vividly how subjective evaluation is. A/B comparison can make both contenders sound "wrong."
>>I have heard that the SophiaÂ’s have a lower noise floor than the AudionÂ’s?<<
They have in the past, though to me the difference was not actionable. Audion has recently changed their power transformer shielding and made some other internal wire routing changes, in part based on results from some work that Bob Hovland did on my Black Shadows. These amps are now as quiet as Sophia's, which were the quietest 845s on the the market, previously. You can also run the Audions very quietly by virtue of their high input sensitivity. If you have ample gain in your preamp, you can run the input level controls quite low and use more of the gain in a quiet preamp. In any case, this nosie floor difference between the two brands' 845 amps is now effectively moot.
>>Although noise didnÂ’t significantly factor into my evaluation of the Sophia, I wouldnÂ’t want it to be too much higher. Can this be a distraction with the Audions?<<
I'd need to know you much better to say. I've been listening to tubes my whole life, and vinyl too. What's a little power amp noise after all that? Power amps are quiet compared to recordings and sources. There's noise in the world, including at any live performance of music. Compared to my guitar amps, my hifi amps are silent. I didn't consider noise a problem with my Audion power amps before and they're over 10db quieter since Hovland had a go at them, so I never think about it. on the other hand, I know people who love the sound of a tube amp but because of scant spurious noise, they listen to solid state they enjoy less. People are funny.
Phil |
>>From what I surmise from some of his writings, room acoustics, power conditioning, and wire are a waste of time.<<
This is not nearly a correct summation of what I think about these topics.
Power condition is difficult to prescribe. That is, the precise results in any given home and system are not strictly predictable. I use voltage correction, isolation, and on my sources, balanced power. All these have been helpful to me. I generally recommend large balanced power isolation transformers as the most cost-effective power "conditioning." But I've also heard installations where no conditioning sounded unmistakably better than any alternative. I can recommend balanced power unconditionally, but I can't predict exactly what method power conditioning will be best for you.
I've never written that cabling is not valuable. I have written that I have not found much correlation between cable price and contribution to sound quality. I've also written that I view cables as having distinct sound signatures -- that they are effectively "fixed parametric equalizers" -- and there are more important aspects to pay attention to if money isn't unlimited. The role of cables is affected by context. I prefer soncially neutral cabling that is also practical to use. That excludes most of the cable on the market.
On acoustics, I've written that room treatments tend to underperform though in some rooms, an acoustic dysfunction may be so egregious that correcting for that is indispensible. A friend has a room that without elementary treatment, it's first-order dysfunction simply builds cumulatively, like a figurative sonic Hadron Collider. Fixing that is worthwhile regardless. But most treated rooms end up overdamped and unnatural. My personal preference is to eschew dedicated listening rooms, keep the hifis out in the open living areas of my home and mitigate with room furnishings and placement. The rooms are to live in first, to optimize for sound second. Here's the thing: No matter the room, I can always hear the signature(s) of the gear through the prevailing acoustics, and that defines the actionable elements to what I'm hearing. But the room as an acoustic environment becomes just that -- environmental -- and easily forgotten. Put another way, no room has ever gotten in the way of me enjoying music, but much gear has proven too deleteriously distracting be enjoyed.
Phil |
>>Question for Phil: do you have any addendums to add to your room philosophy in light of recent experience with Keith and panels, etc?<<
Keith has a severe first order acoustic dysfunction in a nearly square space. We couldn't take down his ceiling panels but Defs mitigate floor and ceiling effects much more than the speakers he owned when he had the room treated. So put that aside. But it was easy to remove his reflection-points damping panels. In that space, removing the damping panels had the effect I expected, but worse --- the room goes "runaway" -- a sonic Three Mile Island in the making. It also eats bass below 100Hz or so, like a grizzly romping through a salmon farm. The Def4 sub eq helps there. I've never chosen to live in a space that mandated a virtually square acoustic domain for listening. If I had a first order problem like that, I'd minimally treat it too.
But I don't. I have normal US sheetrock-on-frame aberrations: some rising bass response, a little slap echo, some excitable sheetrock glare when I run Duane Allman or Hound Dog Tayler a little hot. But the tonal integrity of the system and room is solid, and imaging is as good as it gets in a 14' x 21' space -- smaller than Keith's uni-room -- where I can't place the Defs far from the boundaries. Interestingly, aside from the differences in our respective rooms' sub 100Hz bass profiles, an iOS device-measured FFT analysis profiles surprisingly similar signatures.
My 2nd system is in a 12' x 22' space, on the narrow wall, but like the 1st, it is not fully bounded in an open plan house. That room presents different anomalies, none of which are practical nor actionable to treat. And anyway, that is a relatively near-field setup.
So net is, in rectangular rooms, I won't do anything acoustically that can't be mitigated by normal furnishings. If I had the severity of Keith's primary problem, I'd do the least needed to correct the 1st order acoustic dysfunction and live with the rest. Keith's room doesn't sound as bass-deficient nor as soft on the top end as it measures, and mine doesn't sound as bass-emphasized as it measures. What others do is up to them, but again, I don't advocate dedicated listening rooms. And I haven't heard one yet in 40 years of being exposed to them, that sounds natural enough to justify the work or the livability compromises. The best domestic room I ever heard remains that beautiful space in an Arlington house, so whenever I consider a move to a new domicile, I just look for as many attributes of that space as I can get. Anyway, there are guitars that need buying and playing, too.
Phil |
>>There is not a single system that doesn't benefit from at minimum treating first reflections and a bass trap or two.<<
A system will benefit, but the room may not cooperate if its primary purpose is living in it. I'm completely supportive of the idea that music can be a first priority but audio might take a back seat to functional or aesthetic priorities of a primary living space. Put another way, I'm not replacing an original oil painting or a limited serigraph with a damping panel at a first reflection point, regardless of the sonic benefits. And bass traps present their own problems. I have yet to see one that's invisible, which is not the same as "hidden."
>>Audiophiles imo are lazy and want to buy cables, vibration, racks, points, paint, contact solution, green markets, etc and ignore the room too often. Like teflon dialetric is going to make a bigger difference than the room.<<
I can always hear these allegedly smaller influences through the room, regardless of the room compromises. The acoustic context and the electronic delivery chain have distinctly different influences and effects, and one can be improved without improving the other, to very good result, compared with doing nothing. There's a limit to everything. Does a $10,000 rack make sense? Not often and not for me, but somewhere there's an audiophile who thinks so and it's not because they're lazy. On the other hand, changing my turntable mounting made transformative improvements that no amount of room treatment can duplicate. These other electro-mechanical investments help in ways the room cannot.
>>In fact, I honestly don't think you can be a true audiophile without working to achieve basic room acoustics.<<
If by this you mean there is such a thing as an audiophile absent interest in music -- lover of sound for the sake of sound alone -- sure. Then I'm not an audiophile and neither are most people here. A musicophile who wants to have convincing sound through audiophile means can draw his or her own lines. By this definition, one can't be an audiophile without also committing to a dedicated listening room because anytime hifi is placed in open living spaces where living functions make audio considerations secondary, "basic room acoustics" will not be optimized. Putting audio absolutely first is the primary disease rendering hifi irrelevant and arcane to the larger population.
>>Phil's room in particular suffers from a small sound stage, lack of detail, and separation of instruments due to slap echo and lack of bass trapping that he mentions above.<<
I don't agree in this sense: My sound stage is as big as is appropriate for the room. Particularly since Def4s have been added, the soundstage is, when the music warrants, the full width of the acoustic space, and the full hieght, too. It shouldn't be bigger. It's not small compared to soundstaging in a smaller room. But it's not as large as a 25'x25' space either. In such a space, I hear some sound images as bigger than life, and I don't want that either. I hear no greater separation of instruments in similar treated room systems like yours, but then I have lots of experience listening through my room, so nothing to adjust to. I have yet to hear any detail on Keith's system that I can't hear on my own *though the presentation of detail is differrent* for many reasons, ranging from the space itself and placements, to sources and intermediate electronics. I've already said I don't think detail is under-represented in modern hifi -- it is mostly over-detailed, especially in digital. My system mitigates this in meaningful ways, and it's not the room doing it, but the system is more highly resolved in texture, finesse and tone.
>>Some day I will toss a few panels in the truck to take over and play with for a few hours....it will be an interesting experiment.<<
Let's see.
>>The difference in sound with and without will be similar in any room. That's because you can't cheat physics.<<
The actual sonic results are reduced in rectangular rooms. Physics of acoustics notwithstanding, just as measured results of gear don't anticipate how important a characteristic will be to perception of it, I've never heard a rectangular room go runaway, but I have often heard this in square or nearly-square proportion rooms. Our rooms don't sound as deviated from "flat" response as they are, and rectangular rooms are more forgiving of the physics violations, as we actually hear them. Guess what -- every performance you ever heard live was compromised acoutstically, too. And so was every recording. Ever been in an acoustically perfect recording studio? Ever been in one that is highly imperfect? Robert Johnson recorded in a hotel room and his musical influence continues to be cumulative. He sounds vivid and ultra-present on those deeply flawed recordings. Sun Records was far from an acoustically perfect studio. The realism captured in a legion of acoustically flawed studios before multi-tracking and out-of-control multi-mic'ing became the norm is stunning to hear against contemporary context.
Phil |
>> is the Zu Dominance more immune to room issues? Do you think it will fix things when replacing the IVs...<<
I heard Zu Dominance (the only pair in existence) in the home of a very generous, friendly and questing Zu customer, with also a discerning collection of music. We had corresponded periodically over the past year when he approached me for advice on recommendation from Zu. The system built around Dominance speakers is in a Rives-treated room, and it is a dedicated listening space, and a very comfortable one.
One of the owner's first comments when we entered his room was to explain what Rives had done and then to say "I think they went too far and I'm still thinking about what to do next...." With that we turned on his system
No speaker is immune to room issues, but some are less affected than others. When Sean Casey first told me a few years ago what he was thinking about for his super speaker, I was wary. Three FRDs, two supertweeters, a big built-in sub. It had the potential to be an overbearing speaker in most domestic settings. As executed, it isn't at all. Dominance has more acoustic power and scale available to the room than the smaller Definition, but it is as fleet, precise, delicate and agile as any small monitor. It is both large and beautifully focused. That focus and immediacy mitigates, but does not obviate the room.
I am unlikely to ever buy a pair of Zu Dominance. It is the best speaker I know of commercially available at any price, and is easily the best speaker I've ever heard, on balance, in over 40 years of being active in high-end audio. But it is a more visually and physically imposing speaker than I am likely to want in any domestic setting I'm likely to live in. Perhaps I'll get closer to Dominance by buying Experience sometime. But would Dominance "fix" my room if I bought them? Sorry. The room would still retain it's basic acoustic flaws.
Some perspective is in order for this discussion.
I've never said that I don't understand nor that I don't believe room correction is influential. I understand it perfectly, and there are both physical and DSP remedies. All of them are imperfect, too. My low priority assigned to professional room correction is a choice of principle and aesthetics. In any residence of mine, there will never be a dedicated listening room, no matter how much available space there is. Music via hifi is part of the social experience of being in my domicle, and that's not going to change. So the systems are in the living areas and if there is a choice forced between a 1st reflection panel and a Nieto painting, the 1st reflection panel loses that contest, no matter how much good it would do sonically. There's only so much wall space.
I've never heard a system for which the attributes of the gear couldn't be heard through the room, so whether a room is treated or not, the signature of the assembled hifi prevails. A related point is that the many people who came to hear music in my home who then left asking how to get "that sound" were not deterred or distracted in any way by the fact that they were listening in a room only marginally corrected by furnishings of the room. I have, by the way, heard the room empty, and it is radically improved by the way it is furnished. Improved enough, and it has no runaway tendencies.
So, while I have found most treated rooms quite unnatrual in significant ways, for anyone who wants to put room treatment as a first priority, it's an act of free will so have at it. But if people *ask* me whether I advise them to start there, my answer is no, for reasons already stated. I also, as you've seen from repostings of some other opinions I've written, don't want to participate in any trend that reinforces the notion that hifi for music is a geeky, solitary pursuit more regarded as pathology than enlightenment. But that's me. I'm an evangelist for the interest, and I'm actually more interested in bringing more people in from outside our community, than in influencing people already in it.
One more thing: I've known a lot of audiophiles with treated rooms over the decades I've been involved with this interest. One observation that comes to mind is that I expected a preference for room treatments to also result in more system components stability or longevity. But that's not what I've witnessed. Audiophiles with treated rooms have in my experience tended to be more restless about their gear than people who don't prioritize acoustic optimization. Is that coincidence or correlation? I don't know. But I haven't seen room treatment lead to greater apparent satisfaction nor more settled owners in the hifi realm.
And, Glory, my private email traffic from people asking my help has gone up due to this latest run of this thread, even today since Keith's criticism of my room and priorities. So, you know....I'm demand driven. I don't mind people asking for help, and I don't mind people ignoring me either.
Phil |
>>Despite the compromises you`ve noted with phil`s room do you enjoy the music when listening there?<<
If someone comes to my house and can't enjoy the music here, it's their defect, not mine. Seriously; no one has ever not enjoyed listening to music in my house regardless which house, which gear, or what the power grid was doing that day. Keith will answer for himself. Ask Danny Kaey, reviewer for Positive Feedback. Ask Sean Casey, founder of Zu or his front guy, Gerritt. Ask anyone who has been to a Zu party at my house. Ask Gary Alpern, importer of Audion, Human Audio and several other lines. Ask the many people who bring CDs and LPs to my house because they want to hear it here. You've all had the same experience!
When we banter here about room differences we are not referring to impediments to the enjoyment of music! Keith an I are nearly 25 years apart. Our disagreements on politics and economics are much wider than over anything audio. He tunes his system against some of my preferences and his room is difficult even corrected. But none of this has anything to do with whether I enjoy music at his residence, especially when he has something that's new to me. For cryin' out loud -- we have both put ourselves in the same realm by building systems around the same speaker -- Zu. That makes us far more similar than different in what we're seeking, in the grand scheme of hifi alternatives. We both use tube amps as a preference. He sidelined my first amp recommendation (SET) for my third one: Quad push-pull.
This whole hifi discussion goes off track radically when people begin to wonder whether music is enjoyable on two systems and rooms that have more in common than in difference. We are discussing relatively arcane deltas that emphasize and exaggerate differences beyond which most people even in our community would consider actionable. There are no emergencies in hifi, other than your system not working at all.
I remember how much I despised the sound of Cerwin Vega and JBL in the '70s. Awful aural assault & battery but when the stylus dropped on The Band or Gregg Allman or David Bromberg or Neville Marriner & the Academy at St. Martin in the Fields in a friend's apartment playing through those awful speakers, enjoyment of the music was never in doubt.
Give me a square -- even cubic -- room and I'll still find a way to mitigate its problems non-exotically, and however much I can or can't normalize the acoustics, I'll still find familiar bliss in the music I play in that space.
Really, if anyone *ever* visits my home and doesn't enjoy the music I'm playing (or they asked for) because I have a bass rise, some acoustic bounce and only a 14' x 21' space with a coffee table and a flat screen.....well.....they aren't getting the Pappy Van Winkle's 23 either, and they will be welcome to depart disappointed.
Phil |
>>The contention that just because a room has treatments that it interferes with a living space is erroneous as well. I have architecturally interesting diffusers and ceiling tiles (vs. hidden) and host a variety of events during the year. I did art panels that turned out great in the back of the room with top of the line photography. I would have my reflections panels hidden as well if it were a more permanent installation- but as a result I have 3 grey panels that blend in with my wall paint color, but are somewhat obtrusive. I can take them down for any party if I'm that particular. And yes, I have a coffee table.<<
Every room that has treatments is compromised for someone who is visually driven about their environment and has specific aesthetic biases. There are no truly "invisible" room treatments. The debate isn't about whether acoustic treatment to a room can or will improve sonics. The issue is entirely one of whether the intrusiveness is acceptable to the owner, in the full balance of factors that affect livability. This is subjective. I don't resist the idea that my room can be mitigated. Doing so is just too intrusive to the aesthetic environment I want to maintain. To an art collector, no panel with art applied to it is going to be acceptable in the same space. Put another way, treating my first reflection point will either force me to move a prominent piece of art or visually crowd it. If you could put one treatment at that spot in my room and magically transform it into the acoustics of Symphony Hall, that's still not going to be allowed. On the other hand, dedicated listening rooms have less social considerations, and you listen in low light anyway. They aren't general purpose rooms, so people can knock themselves out. I just won't ever put a hifi in a dedicated listening room, and most other people won't either. Even Keith hasn't(which I think is good).
>>Even 213Cobra has never tried an external piece of room treatment in his room, so until then all of his opinion is really just pure speculation. <<
This is not quite correct. I have in other dwellings I've lived in, assented to friends in the business bringing room treatments in for demo. The differences were clear. So were the visual compromises. I know what room treatment will do; I just don't want to accept the price to my environment. Simple as that. I'm into hifi for music, not into music for hifi.
>>when room/speaker makes by far makes the biggest difference in sound.<<
I think this is not fully correct. The room/speaker interface is highly influential to a class of differences in a system's sound. But gear is equally influential in other ways that room improvemtns can't influence very well. There is a lot that doesn't overlap. Point is, one can improve room or system independently, and achieve big advances in quality of music reproduction. It's not mandatory to do both, and improving gear is easier to manage, typically. The idea that getting the room right makes everything else right has clear limits. In that "perfect" room in Arlington, MA, I could make any gear sound good, but not make anything satisfying. It was very easy to get far more satisfying sound from better gear in an inferior room. A room doesn't correct for crossover artifacts, crossover notch distortion in push-pull amps, honky horns or hashy DACs, for instance.
>>They think I'm a whack job right when they come in the door!<<
Yup. This is what we really ought to be concerned about. The mere existence of a hifi with 12"x12"x49" speakers in your living room has become notable for being rare and therefore strange, compared to 40 years ago. When it's turned on, they begin to understand, but it takes a LOT of exposure to it for the ono-initiated to begin to relate to high end hifi as something they could own for themselves. This is among the reasons I maintain the no-cave policy in my household, which leads to other biases against the visual pollution of room treatments.
Phil |
>>Now my direct rim drive tt/air bearing linear arm is overtaking digital again and the 2s are struggling to perform of their best.<<
Spirit,
I think you have to explain what you mean by this, for context.
Phil |
Spirit,
If your location did not change since you've introduced system alterations circa 2007 and continuing, then I would have expected you to have distinctly different preferences as your combination of gear progressed.
A key point here is that you started with a preference for analog with a Michell Orbe in place and the change introduced being ProAc to Zu Definition 2 speakers. With the Michell being a suspended sub-chassis turntable and belt drive and the Definitions capable of putting more deep bass energy into the room compared to the ProAcs, it's possible (even likely) that the colorations introduced by the turntable were exacerbated by switching to Def2s. Meanwhile, moving from the unsettled tweeter in the ProAc to Zu, going crossoverless and upgrading your optical disc player allowed your ranking of relative objectivity to change.
Now, once again you've introduced a large change in sources and the design differences alone will alter perceptions. You've moved from a very fine suspended subchassis turntable with "relaxed" drive characteristics to a slate-plinthed suspensionless turtable with the urgent pacing of direct-rim-drive. That's a pretty radical change and once again, it's possible that in your installation not only does the TransFi prove less pervious to structurally-transmitted bass energy, I would expect its timing to sound more correct, and that it will deliver more of the dynamic burstiness that is also natural for Zu. In other words, the Salvation will be more like digital in its good aspects, while being solidly analog in tone, finesse and musicality.
Now, if your question is, "Are the Def2s obscuring some of the information the Salvation sends down the pipe?" Sure. But so does any speaker. After all, the loudspeaker -- even a good one -- is the most egregious contributor of distortion of all the gear in the chain, and it functions into an acoustic space interface that further influences it. Will Def4 resolve more of what your TT is feeding it? Yes, and I have no doubt you will recognize this within 13 seconds of dropping the stylus on wax through your new speakers. As I've written before: I can't think of a single way in which Definition 2 is equal to or better than Definition 4, other than used 2s being cheaper!
But it's not going to be just what else Def4 resolves that Def2 doesn't. That's appreciated and valuable. But for me the two most beneficial improvements are in the audibly tighter unity behaviors of the drivers working together, and that very much applies to the 12" downfiring sub compared to the 4x10" rear-firing line array in Def2. The second thing is that while Def4 doesn't extend any higher than Def2, it sounds like it does because the nano FRDs are so much more agile up to 13kHz and the Radian 850 compression tweeter is as beautiful as it gets above there. I haven't heard anything in a tweeter even remotely as listenable in supertweeter duty as this Radian.
And yet, the human brain is a hungry beast. You could buy $500,000 speakers and if that Salvation is delivering information as well as you say, then even a half-mil will eventually leave you feeling you're not getting something you paid for in the source. Definition 4 will be a leap in musical realism for you. Enjoy your Def2s while you have them and have complete confidence in Def4. In the meantime, none of this is worth worrying over.
Phil |
>>firstly the baffle is v. wide, surely there may be diffraction effects esp. since surfaces are flat and not curved?<<
Narrow and wide baffles simply present different advantages and liabilities. You'll notice that the trend for many full-range small driver speakers is for very wide baffles to move the edges further from the waves-source. Here, the wider baffle is a net asset and it shows in the speaker's increased precision and clarity. I mean for you to understand that *everything* is clearer with Dominance than Definition. It should be at about 4X the price!
>>Secondly, even though I know 90%+ of the output into the treble comes from the FRDs and 3 of these should be v. positive, are there not beaming effects from having separated tweeters above and below these pointing towards the listener?<<
As others have noted, off-axis listening is broadly improved by the nano drivers and the Radian compression supertweeter in Def4 over Def2 and other Zu speakers not equipped the same. There is more sonic focus from the listening positions -- notice plural. The lateral range of useful listening positions for Dominance is as wide or wider than Def4, as and where I heard them. If the tweeter doesn't particularly beam in the first place, this design doesn't introduce beaming. It does introduce greater focus anywhere in the lateral listening window of optimum soundstaging.
>>by creating more of a hotspot type listening experience, one of the things I hate about a lot of high end spkrs (Magico, Martin Logan come to mind)?<<
The off-axis listening isn't compromised and the sonic focus of the Dominance's 3D baffle does not create a spikey hot spot. You don't hear selective spike in spectrum energy that characterizes "hot-spot" errors. Dominance is on the contrary, even smoother and more relaxed sounding than Definition 4, and however it measures for efficiency, its perceived behaivor is that it's more dynamic, burstier and capable of convincing performance without losing tone, on even less power than is Definition.
What else can I say? Dominance is the best speaker in overall music terms that I know of and the best loudspeaker I've heard in over 40 years of hearing music through hifi gear, including the industry's proclaimed "best" for that whole span and earlier. Dominance is the best speaker I've ever heard. Period. And yet eventually Zu will make it better still.
Phil |
Definition 4 overperforms at its price, relative to the market. It can be a "last speaker" for many people and is far better than most audiophiles or musicophiles will own.
If you hear Dominance, you leave mentally rummaging through your house looking for all the things you can sell to pay for them but when you return home listening to Definition 4s, you aren't left feeling deprived and wearing a permanent frown.
I already prefer Definition 4 to any Magico I've heard, though the Magico Q5 is certainly quite good.
Phil |
>>...twice the footprint, 25% taller, and 250% the volume of the Def 4s. Not insignificant for real-world applications.<<
When Zu says Definition offers the maximum loudspeaker performance available in about 1 square-foot of floor space regardless of price, I think they are right and that footprint happens to be practical even for many customers at least in the US who don't have extravagent digs. You really must have an extraordinary commitment to domestic high-fidelity music reproduction to go further in a loudspeaker. But of course in a pursuit like this, there's a lot of elasticity to where any two individuals would place the boundary demarcating the threshold of "extraordinary commitment." In a market sense, is Dominance worth its size and price? Yes, but only a relative handful of people will think so.
Phil |
Gopher,
As I wrote in a much earlier post, compared to Def1.5, Def2 had a little less snap, in exchange for which it delivered a more relaxed presentation than the excitable MDF cabinet in the v1 speaker. First the HO drivers from 2010 and now the nano drivers even further restore the snap of v1 without reintroducing the cabinet talk and glare. One of the by products is more apparent aliveness at low volumes. With nano drivers, this is elevated further by the greater definition, agility and resolution intrinsic to the nano across its range. My move to Def4 improved low volume listening over Def2, but I can also say that upgrading to the older HO drivers in Def2 had similar benefits on Defs I heard so equipped. The nano drivers in your Def2 will help your late night listening at low SPL.
Phil |
>>>The major problem I had with the Omen Defs was the high frequencies which I thought was related to the tweeter. However with the same tweeter in the Def iii's, this problem is completely gone and everything sounds better. I think it must be that the improvement is from the new Nano Drivers.....detail, top end air, staging, imaging, etc. are all world class........<<<
It's not just drivers. Quite a lot of the upper midrange and treble glare on Omen Def that also blurs detail a bit is coming from the comparatively excitable cabinet. In the Def2, Def3 and Def4 cabinets, you get to hear the drivers much closer to their intrinsic performance than in the lower end Zu speakers. This isn't a knock on the less expensive Zu speakers but instead is intended to spotlight the cabinet as elemental to Definition's overall sound. If it were only drivers and internals, then Omen Defs could sound much closer to Definitions than they do.
The cabinet and baffle engineering and build decisions in the upper end Zu speakers are often overlooked but they are hugely influential to the improvements you are hearing when moving up from the simpler cabs.
Phil |
Spirit,
The ASR sounds neither notably "fast" nor "slow" so I don't think speed in a hifi sense is a notable trait for that amp. I'll say it's "fast enough." Given where you are starting (Hovland/Hovland) the ASR will probably strike you as the least interesting in this particular respect. The Hovland 200 preamp was intentionally voiced to sound completely modern, compared to the more vintage-voiced 100, and as a result it's a "fast" tube preamp and the Radia won't disappoint in that respect.
Audion circuits are simple and sound characteristically speedy -- more so that any tube products I can think of. The Audion preamps are beautifully toneful yet neutral and transparent but for now they lack remote controls. The power amps, regardless of SE or P-P or power level or tubes used carry these traits forward. You can "slow" them a bit by choosing tubes accordingly but there's no reason to strive for an explicitly slower sound specifically. Black Shadow has silver in the signal path wiring and silver secondary transformer windings. Cap and resistor selections make their contributions. A Silvercore TVC is also likely to be a good front end for it. Berning amps have also always been notable for speed, transparency and tone within their topology. So if you like immediacy and event speed, everything you're planning to audition with Def4s qualify. You'll just have to listen and draw your own conclusions. I expect the ASR will prove the least engaging of the electronics you're considering beyond the Hovland gear you already own. The Berning is its own thing. The Audion combination represents single-ended exceedingly well executed for music. You're getting speakers that will lay bare the differences so you can easily choose.
In the Black Shadows, the 845 tube makes a big difference. The expensive KR845, the inexpensive cryogenically treated 845A, and the metal plate 845C are the "fastest" readily available options. The 845B and the stock 845A are the slower of the bunch but the general circuit execution sounds so fast, the total sound retains exceptional perceived speed. The 845B is reliable and brings exceptional tone -- I want to cryo a pair to pick up the advantages I heard in the chilled 845A. The amps ship with the standard 845A which is fine. There is a Sophia 845TypeIII that I'm optimistic about but haven't yet tried. The input and driver tubes have a significant effect but the stock tubes are certainly very good for audition.
Each of these amps will have differing bass characteristics. When you switch between them, adjust the sub level and EQ to tune the bottom end to a common standard, else you will be apt to draw false conclusions depending on your biases. You could view the Berning as a "midpoint" between the ASR and the Black Shadow but that will leave you with bass perceptions that infect your view of the midrange on the amps that aren't the centerpoint one. I haven't heard any two amps on Def4s so far not require tweaking the sub parametrics when switching between them. Remember the sub amp is deriving its input from the power amp output - not from a line-level signal.
Phil |
I unequivocally recommend Zu's B3 cable geometry continuity via the Speakon connector. Zu had abandoned this for several years in favor of the Cardas multi-way binding post. But because my Druids are early models continually upgraded, they were built with the Speakon + the Cardas connections. So I had Zu Ibis speaker cables on both my Druid and Definition systems, with the Ibis terminated with Speakon on the Druids and bananas or spades on the Definitions. Same lengths in both systems since I use mono pairs of amps on both. So I was able to listen to the difference between Speakon preserving the B3 geometry vs. Cardas connection interrupting B3.
There was no aspect of the sound that was better via Cardas and many subtle - but in the aggregate significant - improvements to driving the Druids via Speakon/continuous B3. If this can be heard on Druids, imagine the difference to be more obvious on the more resolving Definition 4.
The question then always asked is, "....well then does that mean Zu B3 Event via Speakon is better than any other cable connected via Cardas....?"
My answer is, that depends on you. Zu Event is an unusually neutral cable, very clean, transparent, toneful. It also gives a coherent sonic presentation. It is much more neutral than most cables at any price. Given the "fixed parametric equalizer" nature of most cabling, whether you will prefer another cable to Zu B3, or not, very much depends on what role cables play in compensating for other traits elsewhere in your system. I know, for instance, that the older Ibis and the newer Event cables have been too transparent for some listeners using solid state amps. Depending on your sources, especially digital, other traits may be preferred. One of the best alternate speaker cables I've heard for a Zu speaker is the Auditorium 23 popular with the Shindo/Leben subculture. Others here have argued for far more expensive cables with complex geometries and multiple dielectrics. I don't recommend that.
The question of whether there is any non-B3 cable better than B3 and therefore preferred via Cardas two-post vs. B3 via Speakon is impossible to answer simply because no one has heard all of the cable offerings under identical or comparable conditions, and cables are so often used as compensating tone controls. What I can say is that Zu Event and the older Ibis are exceptionally neutral and therefore not highly useful as compensating elements for correcting another component's traits. They are also quite transparent, revealing, dynamic, and allow coherent presentation of music -- and they are reasonably-priced relative to the rest of the market. All of this is especially so if connected via Speakon to a Zu speaker equipped for that. But for Speakon-connector Zu speakers, Zu offers a nifty Speakon adaptor with the Cardas two-post clamp so you can cable whatever and however you want.
Phil |
There is further bracing of the Def2 cabinet internally to make it a Def3, and some added quieting of the structure. But Def3 does not get the immense stiffening of the front baffle resulting from the inclusion of the compression-mounted Radian 850 super-tweeter. I haven't seen the internal drawings of the cabinet mods to create Def3s from Def2s.
Def4 on the other hand is a completely new internal structure, with FRDs in a mini-Griewe chamber, the structural stiffening of the front baffle by the massive Radian compression structure, and the whole speaker being mechanically anchored by the super-stiff machined-aluminum plinth to which the down-firing cast-basket 12" sub is bolted. The internal wood plates forming the Griewe load slash remaining cabinet talk and arrest booming by the tall sidewalls. The FRDs are isolated internally from the subwoofer chamber. So you have the speaker bisected into two very strong boxes within the tower, on that massive machined aluminum foundation.
Phil |
Gopher,
Druid is a form factor iconic for Zu and you could view it as Zu's most "architectural market" product. Until we hear both Soul Supreme and Druid V, we won't know the relative results but I expect Druid V to have more sophisticated cabinet composition than Soul, so the drivers composition may not explain all of it. Druid V's machined aluminum plinth should also have some sonic benefits over Soul's plinthless bottom. But even if one performs as well as the other, there will be buyers who choose Druid on form factor alone. I expect Druid V to sound a little better than Soul Supreme or at least tilted to a somewhat different bias, as Soul Superfly is a more forward sounding, striving and punchy speaker than the more relaxed and bohemian Druid 4-08 that inspired it.
Phil |
Def2 had a slightly reticent character compared to Def1.5 before it. Simply installing the nano FRD or even the 2010 HO FRD to stock Def2 shifts the presentation of the speaker to a more vivid, forward sound comparatively. This is good from an ultimate fidelity standpoint but whether one likes it better without going all the way to Def4 and the benefits of the Radian 850 and cabinet improvements is quite subjective. The major revisions to Definitions from Def1.5>Def2 in cabinet construction especially made Def2 the most forgiving of the Definition versions until Def4.
Putting the hotter FRDs in Def2s change the sound profile enough that if you do it, you should plan on having to work back through the gear chain prepared to make one or more adjustments. It could be minor, like changing tubes or it could be major, perhaps changing power amp or DAC. These speaker models are integrated designs so making incremental sub-assembly upgrades necessarily disrupts a balance intentionally achieved earlier. Also the newer FRDs take lots of time to settle in.
I am sure Gopher's concerns will end and he will get back his briefly-achieved system synergy. Some patience and experimentation will be needed to pin it. Going from Def2>Def4 I changed my preamp, for example. There was nothing wrong with my Klimo Merlino Gold +, but it's slight forwardness which was so complementary to Def2 was not quite as well matched to the midrange of Def4 as my Melody Pure Black 101 -- *in my room*. Point is, there are some general guidelines for making these incremental upgrades work, but you really dial them in by working with the specific context of your room, system components and your own emotional triggers for satisfaction.
I got but did not choose to upgrade my Def2s with the 2010 HO FRD, for example, because after having extensive exposure to a friend's Def2s that were built with HO drivers I concluded that in my room I was better off waiting for Def4. In Gopher's case I know that specifically putting nano FRDs in Def2s will remove Def2's forgiveness of the glare in the "A" version of the 211 or 845 power tube. It's his place to start the upstream adjustments.
Phil |
Charles,
I love Audion preamps and have one in my 2nd system. An Audion would be a great and synergistic match for Def4. But the DACs I am evaluating in advance of building a server to rip my CD library to have the option of balanced outputs from which they sound better, conclusively. In a couple of cases the bal outs are separately voiced. The Melody has Audion attributes with one set of balanced inputs. Now, those inputs are not true balanced, but using them as-is still sounds better than using a bal>rca adapter to the single-ended inputs.
A more minor advantage is that presently Audion has no preamps with remote volume control; the Melody has a very good one. My Audion preamp is a 1st gen with full IR remote including for input switching.
There's no sonic reason not to pair an Audion preamp with Def4; on the contrary there's every reason to do so, my situation excepted.
Phil |
>>...more than 200 watts which he ran successfully on his Def. IV speakers. On paper this seems like overkill or even a mismatch? Can someone perhaps shed some light on this?<<
Putting aside all the usual reasons why a Zu speaker sounds good and performs well -- crossoverless full-range driver, high efficiency, etc. -- what makes it just about in a class by itself is the main driver's combination of high 101db/w/m efficiency with high power handling. Last I heard, no customer has ever blown a Zu driver in the field. It's remarkable enough that Zu rates their speakers for amps from 2w - 300w, but frankly you can put 1200w McIntosh MC1.2kW monoblocks on them. The advantage of using high power with an efficient speaker that can handle the power is freedom from dynamic restriction in any practical sense. Or put another way, the sense of dynamic ease and effortlessness with the perceived ceiling on peak clarity removed improves the clarity of even single notes from a piano or a close-miked guitar or cello, for example.
Now, this is only worth so much. Most high power amplifiers don't sound as authentic in the essentials of tonal fidelity, spatial representation, event precision and octave-to-octave balance as a truly well designed low power amp, but there are high power contenders. So if you find a powerful amp in which you like the proverbial first watt, and the rest of the watts retain that clarity and beauty, then a Zu speaker will show you the added benefit of dynamic ease. However, if the powerful amp isn't listenable for you, then no perception of dynamic ease will draw you to it over a better, smaller amp.
The big Mac autoformer-output amps work well with Zu. The Dartzheel makes sense. I prefer and recommend 25w 845 SET amps over 2w triodes. On the other hand the best solid state sound I've heard so far comes from 10w First Watt SIT-1 monoblocks biased hot and I have not heard great sound from big 200+w push-pull tetrode and pentode amps by any brand. So you should sometime have the experience of hearing a great amp on Zu that happens to be powerful, and you can rank-order the relative benefits for your space. And your music preferences. If you listen to a lot of EDM or electronica, you may have a different view of the value of high power than someone listening to indie rock and jazz, for example.
Most high efficiency speakers don't even give you the option of finding out.
Phil |
In most rooms, running the low pass filter above 40Hz is just too high. My LP setting is 38. Perfect. This also keeps excessive bass energy out of the vinyl mechanicals. Too much overlap with the FRD low end output if you're well above 40Hz, though can be helpful if you have a bass suck out in that 40Hz - 80Hz range.
Gopher: Next time I.m in New York....
Phil |
The least "alive" Definition was the original Def2, before the 2010 HO drivers. And still, at modest levels it was comparatively excellent at representing full tonal body and presentation of graceful detail with dynamic contrast. Definition 4, and all the ZU speakers with the nano FRD generally, are as effective as you're likely to hear in being able to present aliveness at low SPLs.
The one caveat is -- *after reasonable break-in.* If you buy them new, especially during cold shipping months, they will not immediately bloom at low SPL, even if the apparent volume is there. But they limber up, and do what you want.
As for the resolution of Def4 compared to "conventional" speakers: I have in the past seen some reviewers compliment Zu speakers, with the one aside that in some words or others, Zu in general does not give you "ultimate resolution."
For older Druids and original Def2, there was some validity to that observation, though I argue reviewers who felt that way were mostly accustomed to intensely *over"-resolved loudspeakers, which is a common trait throughout high-end audio today and for much of the past decade. But in Def4, the combination of the nano-FRD and the Radian 850 supertweeter, I think Zu resolution is as high as you'd practically want, and I say this as a former electrostatic speaker listener, and my headphones are Stax.
A lot of what audiophiles hear as "resolution" is either rising top end, ringing and resonance, and crossover artifacts OR it's simply from recordings that are so inappropriately close-mic'd as to render the recording completely non-representative of how you'd hear the same music performed and heard from even the closest practical listening position.
I have no lingering resolution hunger in my mind's ear, when listening to Def4s with commensurately resolving amplification.
Phil |
Severe toe-in for Def4 doesn't make sense to me and is the exact opposite of my experience with them although for those placing speakers 12' apart or more, I can see more toe-in than I use may be necessary. My Def4s are placed 9' apart, center to center, and one of the clear improvements of the Zu nano FRD even if mounted in Def2 or Druid is the broader horizontal dispersion compared to older Zu drivers. So I hear less toe-in is needed for proper sound staging than for earlier Definitions. I also cannot replicate any similar experience where different speaker positioning is needed for 16/44 digital vs. vinyl analog sources.
Spirit, the toe-in and positioning 4' out into the room, with the imaginary Crosspoint being 4' in front of you is reminiscent of the setup advised by Audio Physic for the initial version of the Virgo in the 90s. It was quite effective with that speaker and in fact the speaker wasn't well placed conventionally, if you cared about soundstage. But that speaker bears little behavioral similarity to Definition 4, so I don't have any correlating experience that suggests your setup should be optimal, nor that you should have big differences spatially between analog and digital.
Sean & I (I was volunteering to help Sean get back on the road fast) set up a pair of Def3s for a Zu customer in Los Angeles a few days ago. One thing that was handy was having two people to move speakers while the listener evaluated placements. In his room, there was very little latitude for spacing the speakers apart so he ended up about 9' on centers. We started with mild toe-in to get our bearings and then with the listener in the sweet position, Sean and I incrementally rotated toe-in around the front inside corner point until the owner's preferences for sound staging snapped in. He's not an inexperienced listener. You have a continuum of spatial options from extreme focus to expansive staging, and anything in between. No toe, and the middle of the soundstage starts to tear. Too much toe and the acoustic space collapses (though focus might remain). Since there is no way to be sure how most rock, blues and jazz recordings reference an intended sound image, this is an area highly subject to preference as well as to the variances in how individuals perceive acoustic space and spatial cues. We ended up simply dialing toe-in to his preference and it was pretty much spot on where Def4 toe-in works in four rooms I have listened to them in so far, here in LA.
Then at Sean's suggestion we dialed in some rake, deviating to a little back-lean from level. in some respects rake angle variance was more influential to image precision and tonal balance than toe-in. The adjustments have to be quite small too, by increments. It sounds tedious but the owner was seeking a trifle more vocal presence, and a slight tilt back nailed it for him, in his room.
Most people live in rooms presenting some acoustic anomalies, so I can't rule out that I might agree with your severe toe-in, Spirit, if I was there to hear it. But my experience with Def4 in a variety of rooms doesn't correspond with what you're suggesting.
Phil |
Spirit,
To answer your questions directed to me:
I had OTL amps for a long time (pre-Zu) and I did listen to an Atmasphere amp on my 1st-gen Definitions before buying Audion Black Shadows. At the time I was using Audiax 88 monoblocks. OTL amps are highly transparent but if push-pull, they still sound like push-pull amps with that subtle crossover notch grunge. You only really notice this once you live with the unity of fast, transparent SET like Audion, and then try to go back to push-pull.
With Zu you don't have to. You have the efficiency for 25w to sound robust and with 845, you get quality bass with the rest of its convincing tone. Other than what someone qualified might homebuild, the synergy between Zu and Audion SET, and a few other similarly-voiced alternatives, is elevating to both.
As I've written before, once you have a Zu speaker the fulcrum of fidelity for your system is the power amplification. It's worth getting right before pouring more money into sources and cables, especially if you have credible bits there already.
Sonically I put the Berning ZOTL scheme ahead of Atmasphere. However, if you feel truly satisfied with your Hovland combination, build on that. I think Black Shadows with proper tubes, into your Defs, will alter your perception of what's satisfying.
Phil |
Unless an owner asked for something different, Def4s have a Mundorf cap on the Radian super tweeter. I know Zu continually evaluates new capacitors for in-line upgrades and as options for customers before or after delivery. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Mundorf "holds back" the Radian in Def4 and Druid5, but you can certainly alter the perceptual output contour of the very top end by changing the tweeter network cap to voice your system. I will have more to say on this in January, as I will be doing a few cap comparisons on my Def4s and Druid5s in a few weeks.
I agree that Atmasphere OTL amps are "clean & lean" on Definitions; less so on Druid, which tends to help any amp deliver more tonal body in the midrange. And for some reason, Superfly conveys Atmasphere sound more like Def than does Druid. I get more natural presentation from specifically Audion SET than from any push-pull tube amps, OTL or otherwise, but I also have to say that the amplifiers under discussion by Spirit lately in this thread are all in the family of highly credible amplification for Zu, and that includes his Hovland. Yeah, sure you're getting some silicon sound from the Hovland power amp but compared to what normal music aficionados are dealing with, we here are talking about spending silly money to correct a relatively narrow deficiency. Not that I wouldn't spend it or haven't! Once the right power amp is lashed to a Zu speaker it becomes very straightforward to sort sources, cables and even to dial in setup.
Phil |
The Def4 sub amp outputs a rated 400w into the sub-bass driver's nominal 6 ohms load. The amp is sourced from Hypex, an OEM version of the UcD400. It's as much responsible for Def4's seriously improved sub-bass performance as is the downfiring driver, over earlier Definitions.
Phil |
