Anyone heard Zu Druid speakers?

I was at VTV. Now, keep in mind I own Druids. I didn't find any room at the show where equipment I was familiar with sounded anywhere close to what I know it can sound like in a home, so there was a general problem with lackluster tone, even in horn-based systems. The room characteristics were terrible in all respects. In the Zu room, the Druids exhibited flashes of the character I know them to have but most of what I heard was far below what I get out of my own Druids. Compared to what could be heard in other rooms, Zu's setup was competitive but not as convincing as it should have been. Sean and Adam also bring music strongly skewed to what they like, which is energetic, often musically dense and sometimes not well recorded. Their music choices are always fun, however, so people hang out and enjoy the content with not much obsessing about the gear itself. Also, the hotel carpet turned out to be thicker than usual for hotel carpet. On Saturday at VTV, the Druids in the Zu room didn't have the proper spike height for the conditions, which of course affects performance. This was corrected on Sunday with the arrival of taller spikes. Zu is still getting their act together with respect to refining their show configuration and practices.

Zu also uses a pro audio dac which they like alot. I've heard it twice now and I don't share their enthusiasm for it. It seems to bleed character from music, to me.

They did not bring Definitions because they knew the room would be too small for a proper demo. You really have to be able to locate your ears at least 10' from the Def to hear its sound integrate. It is definitely not a near-field speaker.

On the other hand, when Zu had their own demo session in L.A. in August in a ground-floor room with stable floor, 24' x 32' space, and all their speakers present, they were able to show stellar sound quality.

I did not like the sound quality in the Shindo room. It was clean but dry and bleached of character. The VRS front end may have been a factor in addition to the room itself, and the Shindo amps were an unknown to me.

I also don't know how broken-in either pair of VTV show Druids were. There's no substitute for getting then in your house and breaking them in for a month. I know Zu put the exhibited Druids through the factory blast for break-in, but it's also known not to be enough for a new speaker that is then packed up and shipped.

General reaction nevertheless by listeners in the Zu room was highly favorable and while I think the essential qualities were communicated by the demo, the startling qualities that give Druids a sense of intimate ultra-reality were not vivid except on a few occasions when a highly-energetic, dynamic, recording that was also nicely recorded was used. The room was just a black hole for acoustic energy.

Phil

Phil wrote:

Zu also uses a pro audio dac which they like alot. I've heard it twice now and I don't share their enthusiasm for it. It seems to bleed character from music, to me.

I agree wholeheartedly. At the Zu Audio LA demo, they started off using a computer transport and the pro DAC. IMO, the music came to life when they switched to a Consonance Droplet CD player.

Also, I quite like the music Zu Audio chooses for their demonstrations. So, while it may not be ideal for some audiophiles, it is right up my alley, and therefore the music is not a factor in any less-than-favorable impressions I have had of the Druids.

I thought the Edgarhorn/Brenneman room and Dehavilland room were among the best of the VTV rooms, although I couldn't quite figure the speaker placement in the Dehavilland room.

Phil,

As you know from our many discussions, your impeccable taste in amplifiers and their respective sonic nature mirrors mine. Or should I say, it mentors mine. Furthermore, I'm terribly jealous that you actually own the penultimate versions of some of those very amplifiers! As such, I was both surprised by what I heard from the Druids at VTV, and convinced that you (and other fans) must be getting something different out of these speakers. Because frankly, although I thought the music selection in the Zu room was both a perfect showcase for any speaker, as well as just plain catchy, my physical reaction to the sound made me re-think attending another audio show, ever. Hopefully, I'll get the chance to make it down to LA again for a home-cooked listening session of these speakers you obviously love so much. And once more, thank you for all of the valuable feedback you've offered over the past month regarding audio equipment in general.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving, everyone.

I heard the Druids last week at my local dealer. They sounded ok but I felt the tweeter seemed to draw attention to itself (in a big way). I was expecting a lot better given the rave reviews.

They are sensitive so perhaps the amp being used was not well suited. The dealer agreed. They are going to set them up with different amplification and I look forward to hearing them again.

At VTV, one recording Sean and Adam played in the Zu room delivered what I thought Druids are capable of, and that was a Chinese recording using a combination of western and Chinese instruments, and I don't know the name of the recording or the performer(s). Everything else played while I was in the room, while interesting and fun musically, impressed many people but did not deliver what I hear from my Druids every day. Zu did use the Consonance Droplet CDP but on Saturday was sending its digital output to the dbx DAC. On Sunday, when I wasn't there, they apparently spent some of the time demo'ing from the Droplet's analog outputs to the Melody preamp. I'll go so far as to say that if I'd heard Druids in that Arcadia hotel room before buying them -- and that includes in both the Zu and Shindo rooms -- I might not have followed through on the purchase. The truly impressive demo was listening to how much dynamic energy at decent tonal quality was available from the miniscule Z.Vex ImpAmp. Now that was a motivator because it made clear how much amplifier latitude one has with Druids.

I have tried many amps on the Druids and I don't find them especially sensitive to amp topologies, but certainly revealing of their character. A 300B amp with flabby bass will be revealed for holographic tonally rich midrange, smooth spray on top and, well...flabby bass. The absence of a crossover makes the loss of focus and detail in an otherwise good push-pull tube amp starkly evident compared to a good SET. A tonally neutral, smooth and unfatiguing solid state amp like a Red Wine comes through as exactly that while a high power silicon beast delivers tons of slam indelicately. An 845 SET sounds more objective and punchy than an equivalent 300B. Differences between EL34 and KT88 are obvious. There is lots of room for preference. BUT, in every environment except those Arcadia hotel rooms (and apparently at the Marriott in Denver) the Druid has an aliveness, tonal richness frequency accuracy and utter lack of fatigue that seems elusive to reproduce in the massively dysfunctional hotel setting. I wish it were otherwise. How Zu will create customer touch points in environments like shows where they can't control their circumstances remains a marketing problem to solve for them. Again, in my opinion, everyone at VTV was similarly handicapped and nothing there sounded good enough to me to compel a purchase if I had only those demos to go on. In general, the manufacturers in the industry should theoretically benefit from the direct exposure to customers, but it's possible that these hotel room shows for the public (as opposed to the dealers in the trade) actually slow decisions to buy, on products that absolutely require listening for evaluation.

I am willing to evangelize Zu speakers not because they are perfect, but because they solve in one stroke an intersection of many problems commonly cited here and elsewhere by audiophiles as causes for dissatisfaction. The catalytic effect of a 101db/w/m speaker that is frequency accurate, missing the shout of most HE designs, crossoverless overall and filterless 40Hz - 12kHz and with extended treble and bass with uniform transient behavior top to bottom transforms system character and makes the power amp the center of gravity of the system. You will find a lot of dissatisfaction and fatigue factors you might have once ascribed to sources and cable, preamp and power amp, have actually been instigated by crossovers in the mid-band of your speakers, along with speaker inefficiency and wild loads cornering you into restricted amp choices. The Zu design sets you free of all that, but frankly by far the best way to realize the benefits is to take the 60 day money-back offer. For me months later I am near the end of changes having cascaded through 2 systems because of Zu, and I have to ascribe to their speaker designs and my patience in assimilating all the downstream effects they drive, the greatest leap forward in fidelity I've been able to create in 30 years of making good choices. Someone else might bias their equipment array to steer their Zu system to have some different traits from mine, but that essential holistic character will be unmistakable. I just haven't heard it simulated in a hotel lodging room. Perhaps it can't be.

If you hear Druids or Definitions in my house and you don't like them, well then it's settled -- you just don't like them. Zu gives you the opportunity to settle the issue in the room you know best -- your own.

Phil