Hi Greg,
very good write up on your ZU's, should be helpful for others in the same boat position that you were in prior to purchase. There is so much I want to comment on and share, so forgive me if this looks like a thread jacking.
The anxiety you shared about plunking down hard earned cash on the ZU's, sight unseen, is exactly where I was in 2014 and I made a big mistake with thinking I could save a grand and go with Tekton LLC instead. I went for bear with upgrades on the Tektons and ended up a very unhappy customer with the sonic results. I have a medium sized room (more on this later) 16' wide, 22' deep and vaulted ceilings to 14' high. I must have moved the Tekton's around over 30 different positions. Nothing would open up the sound stage. Low power class A amps, high powered A/B and D amps, it didn't matter. On a farce I came across a used pair of ZU Essence for $1600. I bought them, plopped them down right where I had the Tekton's and was immediately blown away by the difference. Everything but the deepest bass was far better through the ZU's. I sold the Teckton's and lost my lunch on depreciation for a new customized pair.
My friends were so impressed by the difference the ZU's rendered in my room that one of them bought a new pair of Omen Def MKII's with Libtec speaker cables and Speakon connection. NOW, his room is more like your room, very compact. Only 10' wide, ceiling is only 7' high, but its a good 17-18' deep. The ZU's would not open up in his small room. He also bought the optional $400 plinths to see if that would help, only marginally did the bass improve. He was pretty unhappy with his results despite really nice amplification options. We ran Pass Labs 150.5 and Luxman 550ia on them. SO, I sold my Essence and bought his Omen Def's. I came full circle back to that point where I was going to put a deposit on them back in 2014 but didn't. Funny and ironic.
Results in my room, it was like a turbo charged version of the Essence. Music energy was overwhelming to me at first. They were very open and yet so bombastic. I've heard panel speakers and I have to say in the right conditions, these ZU's throw a big wall of sound at you like an electrostat. Of course I had to take it a step further and go big with the Radian tweeter upgrade. $800 later, I couldn't be more happy with a pair of speakers. I've had a lot of great, large speakers, not too mention the benefit of demoing other large fantastic speakers. I've auditioned or owned Klipsch La Scala, Cornwall, JBL 250ti, ADS L1230, Altec A7's and Model 14's. I've had extensive listening with Vandersteen 3A Sigs and Vonschweikert VR33's. I had Tekton Seas Pendragons. No, for me, its these moded ZU Omen Def's. I throw on something like Nils Lofgren's "Keith Don't Go" and I always get goose bumps. Rock, Jazz, electronica, Bluegrass, these speakers do it all for me. Even my wife and young daughter request music from this system, not something that happened in prior iterations.
Bottom line, I share your enthusiasm. I simply cannot highly recommend enough these speakers with the Radian tweeters. You get 100 lbs of American made speaker that is 101db @ 1watt sensitive, all amps are an option to you.
One last thing, you really need to swap out your Thiels and just listen to the difference extra room volume can do for your ZU's. Thank you for suffering through my diatribe! Cheers
Jason
