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Zu Audio loading resistors

Zu is now offering matched high wattage resistors to put on the speaker terminals in parallel to smooth out the impedance curve of the Druid and Soul Superfly/Supreme models.  Has anyone done this before?  Are there any downsides to doing this?  I've had some amps in the past that didn't seem to like the Zu impedance curves with some bloated/distorted bass in heavy bass passages, so I figured it was something to do with that.  My SIT-2 loves the Soul Supremes, but I'm wondering if this will make them even better?

Curious to know what the consensus is for these.
128x128marlin38
3 responses Add your response
gdnrbob
4,447 posts
 
I was surprised to see the impedance variation on the graph.
Smoothing that degree of variation should help an amplifier with playback. And, I can't think of any downside effects, unless you lowered impedance below 4 ohms-which some amps might have a problem with.

I wonder if a pair of Zero Autoformers would the same? Albeit, at a higher cost.
Bob
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,841 posts
 
A good bit of amplifier power is just going to be used to heat up those resistors. I can't help thinking there's a better solution.

The higher impedance of the speakers is good if you want to keep distortion down, and that's pretty well regardless of what kind of amplifier you have. Even with the SIT 2, I would expect it to not have much frequency response variation if the speaker nominal impedance is 16 ohms or so.
whoopycat
169 posts
 
Nelson Pass recommends it for the SIT-3:

https://www.cnet.com/news/high-expectations-for-a-low-power-audiophile-amplifier/

The Audiophiliac seemed to think it made a big difference.
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