2. speakers
  3. 130525-71878

Zu Soul Supreme Recap -- Owners, what are your preferred system pairings with them?

I'll save a long backstory, but in short I've got the Zu Soul Supremes and I absolutely love them for what they do, at least in my relatively small (13x15x9) listening room.  I've had them a couple years as a follow-on to previous Zu speakers (Unions and Cubes, which I still own).  Those followed some vintage Altec horns (16 ohm Valencias and 19s)--which I love, but love the Zus more for daily listening.  Sean recommended the Supremes over the Druids at the time for the size of my listening room, although I suspect the Druids would have been as good or better regardless.

My interest is to hear from other Zu Soul Supreme owners...not may posts in this forum from owners that I can find.  I'd prefer to focus this discussion on the Soul Supremes, as there is a lot of great info already on the Druids and Definitions (which I assume are more prevalent in the wild), even though I'm sure have a ton of overlap in system synergy.

So...

What system components are you finding to be great/phenomenal matches to the Soul Supremes, what have you compared them to, and what hasn't worked as well?   Anyone running them with what you consider to be really high-end gear?  I'm super curious to see how far these speakers can go before a speaker upgrade makes way more sense.

Jay
128x128Ag insider logo xs@2xparsons

Showing 3 responses by keithr

keithr
1,306 posts
 
Hey Parsons, tbh I think Soul Supremes and Druids should pair well with the same amps as they use the same drivers - Defs are a bit different as they are tougher to drive. I have heard a zillion amps with Zu, so this is my experience.

For SS:
FirstWatt F7 - I've had the SIT-1 and SIT-2 in my system, but just heard the F7 and thought it was great at the LA Audio Show. I think the rumors are this is the best FW amp now
Valvet class A monos
McIntosh - all of them are good, though the quad balanced amps are best
DarTZeel - a lot of scratch though

For Tube:
Quad ii Classics (which would probably be my choice)
845-based amps such as Audion, Sophia Electric, etc.
Mastersound SEP EL34 integrated 

I am not a 300B fan, so can't help in that direction. With Zu, I tended to prefer P/P over SET but that's personal preference. I generally don't like SET bass.

keithr
1,306 posts
 
parsons - you might look at the Melody AN845 integrated. I forgot to list that one.


keithr
1,306 posts
 
Great read - thanks for your feedback on the various amps and combinations.  Nice to read the LTA plays in that league - although reported QC issues prevented me from ordering one.

Did you roll the tubes on the Melody? Pretty important as the stock ones stink.

Fyi- Definitions have a higher power requirement than Druids...


More to discover