Anyone listen to Zu Audio's Definition Mk3?

Some interesting assertions here:

>>SET amps are good for what they do but there are other amps that from top to bottom will out run them. <<

Bring me one.

There are a LOT of SET amp choices but they aren't all equally good. You don't have to go all the way to an Audio Note Ongaku. Until you specifically hear an Audion silver content Black Shadow (845 SET) or Golden Dream (300B PSET) monoblock pair on Defintion 4, you won't know whether anything allegedly SOTA can meet or exceed it. People who have heard this next to ARC REF seris, Dartzheel, Nagra, etc. who prefer the Audion aren't compromising for SET. So, sure, at any given point of time maybe there's something new that beats a stellar SET amp on a Zu crossoverless speaker. Could be. But no push-pull tube amp at any price has shown me ability to hide its crossover grunge. No SS amp at any price has shown the holistic tone of highly developed SET. But I'm open to the discovery.

>>I have found a huge upgrade in Footers by Equarack/Stillpoint Ultra under the Def2 that transforms the sound of the speaker.<<

Definitely easy to accept. Foundations are inflential on resonance management. The effects are specifically unpredictable dependent on other system, room and resting surface factors but it's certainly worth investigation to determine the right upgrade for your environment.

>>...but if you have the Def2 with the new Nano drivers and SOTA gear you just might have better tunes than the Def4 owners with lesser gear.<<

Look, I'm the last person to push people into premature upgrades or to encourage upgrades beyond an individual's ability to spend. Def2 by any measure remains an excellent speaker and plenty of people with more expensive but less capable speakers today would be thrilled with it, along with people who can suddenly buy Definition architecture on the used market at an accessible price.

But until you hear how large the improvements are in Def4 over Def2, the sentiment that Def2 with state-of-the-art gear and a nano-drivers upgrade will be "better" than Def4 with lesser gear, is uninformed conjecture. At some level of comparison, sure. But consider that I and others have noted that CDs are more listenable and enjoyable on Def4 than on Def2, despite Def4 being more revealing in every way, and you can see that the listenability quotient applies as well to modest amps, modest sources, modest cables, modest analog. The smooth extension and spatial openness of the supertweeter plus the surprisingly upgraded bass definition, discipline, room loading and clarity have profound effects on your perception of imaging, midrange performance and tonal engagement.

Somewhere in the mix of SOTA gear on Def2s vs more modest gear in Def4 the proposition might become tenable, and certainly in past Zu speakers I'd have agreed. The equalization in performance between fab gear in Def2 v. acceptable gear in Def4 isn't the slam-dunk given you'd imagine, IMO, which I illustrated to myself a couple of weeks ago. My Quad II push-pull amps designed in 1951 sound on my Def4s superior to my 4X the cost 845 silver content SET amps driving Def2s, but the same 845 SET amps on Def4s blow away all comers thus far and the Quads, good as they are, can't compete.

If you have Def2s and need to stick with them for the forseeable future, be confident you still have a genre-defining speaker that can satisfy you for years to come, especially with Zu's willingness to sell you nano drivers to install in them. Just don't listen to a Def4 until you're prepared to buy them. Or send your Def2s back to become Def3s, to get yourself halfwat way there.

Phil

Agear,

You wrote "Zus are not impervious to associated gear." That's certainly correct and if anything I wrote was inferred by others to mean otherwise, I certainly didn't intend it. I've lost count of all the cables types I've heard on my Zu systems over the past seven years I've owned Zu speakers, let alone all the cables I've ever heard. But I'll mention a few that bracket the discussion: JPS Aluminata, Audience, 47 Labs OTA, Kimber, Audioquest Everest, Zu Variel, Ibis, Event, Mission. For the moment, let's stick to speaker cables.

I'll also add that I have heard an ASR amp on Definition 2, and while I understand why that brand's amplification is well regarded, it's not an amp I consider musically convincing. It has a lower noise floor than top tier 845 SET amps, though my Audion amps aren't noisier enough that their noise floor is obscuring to the point of allowing the ASR to reveal anything I can't hear via the tube amps for that reason. The ASR is a "better microscope" than the 845, but not a better microscope than my Audion Golden Dream PSET with its high silver content, including in the OTs. Certainly it's possible that a given listener prefers something akin to the ASR amplification over what I listen to, and certainly the complementary or compensatory properties I would want from cable would be affected by the amp I listen to. When I want to hear cable contributions, I aurally dissect using the Golden Dream amps first.

In the compass points of cable in the examples I've mentioned above, there are several design approaches. JPS prioritizes noise elimination and shielding through brute force material density and mass. Audience emphasizes time domain. 47 Labs emphasizes coherence and speed. Kimber emphasizes RF rejection and magnetic behaviors. Audioquest strives for transparency. Zu seeks coherence and balance. Auditorium targets convincing tonality.

Some of these cable choices are mass-intensive. Others eschew mass every way they can. There's a long-running debate about the sonic benefits of very low mass connectors vs. metal-intensive termination. So in brief terms, JPS Aluminata is quiet and good at preserving and presenting dimension, but I don't have significant cable-induced noise, so everything is pretty quiet anyway. I did not find any collapse of dimensioning going from JPS to Zu Ibis, but I did find the JPS to be less dynamic, certainly smooth but not as fast as Ibis. More to the point, it wasn't as coherent and resolving as the 47 Labs OTA, which counterintuitively uses single-strand conductors. But I can understand how the JPS can be heard as fleshing out a leaner audio device chain. Of the cables I mentioned, the various Audioquests had no advantage over anything else, so set all AQ aside for this discussion. Auditorium 23 cables are the most reliably musical regardless of source material of this group. Kimber never makes a misstep but it doesn't equal the best of the group in tone, transparency, resolution or dimensioning. It's a safe choice. Audience is incisive and precise. Zu delivers total balance with the silver content cables matching anyone's resolution. In some significant properties of sheer musicality, I liked Auditorium and 47 Labs best, and both emphasize low mass, particularly at termination. I would take either over JPS. I came back to Zu Ibis (and I can equally endorse Event, which is actually more forgiving than Ibis) for its well-rounded ability to be exceptional on speed, bursty dynamics, tonal coherence and event coherence.

I've tried many more cables than this, including Cardas and Nordost, and I haven't even gotten into ICs and power cords. But there's another dimension to the discussion. How much money should be allocated to cables in a system, or how much is needed for the system to be musically convincing?

All of the speaker cables I mention above were quite good on Definitions, in varying ways. None made the system unpleasant to listen to. But with a cable as good as Ibis or Event, I can drive larger positive deltas in musical performance by upgrading elsewhere with the thousands of dollars not spent on cable if Zu, Auditorium and 47 Labs are chosen instead of JPS Aluminata or the upper line AQs, for example. And if you prefer the more moderate cost lines, then standing pat on cables to put money into other areas or just buy more music, or pursue another interest in life can be the better choice. I can spend $6000 on speaker cables, but I won't if the results aren't compelling. I haven't heard compelling from JPS, as an example. I've heard "good" that didn't win against alternatives. But someone else like Glory who may hear differently or whom has different criteria for being convinced of a system's musical thruthfulness might prioritize his resources differently.

But I repeat that with Def4 restoring the Speakon connector for B3 geometry pass-through to the amp, the benefits of leveraging that via a Zu cable are significant and not exactly matched by other good cables that can't continue B3 to the amp output terminals.

Phil

231 writes,

It's more important to preserved Zu's B3 all the way to the amp than it is to futz with alternate cables, for getting the most out of Def4.

Did that and you are wrong! Your writings will appeal to the budget minded Zu owners but for those who are wanting the best sound out of our Zu speakers we will trash your thoughts.

Your ideas on gear and P&P reminds me of a person owning a high $$$ sports car that can not take his car on the race track but has been limited to driving on city roads in a 45 MPH zone. Your noisy 845/211/300b will do 0/60 in 10 seconds and take turns like my old '65 Mustang. Have at it if you will but I want my Def2 on the race track and not just do city driving.

Gear/room means everything from the wall to the room where your  speakers are placed. Your speakers are only telling you how you have done on building the rest of your system.

Truth is not found in  huge amounts of written words on paper with ideas that are one's opinions. Truth is in the hearing and your take on wire is not what I heard to be true by a long shot in my system.

Have fun with your city driving LoL.

213Cobra, I am v.sure that the Def4s with more even room loading will mean less reliance on the Black Hole, but it has been SO beneficial to revealing the Def2s performance envelope that the move to Def 4s is less of an overall necessity, but a v. nice choice to have. I would really recommend it to all Def2 owners because of the bass management issues I'm sure we all have in all types of rooms. And all for just $1250 more.
My main dilemma (are you reading, dear girlfriend!) is whether to go for Cosmic Carbon (light speckled grey which varies appearance in different ambient light situations), True Matte Black, which like it says on the tin, is totally light absorbent, or Gloss Black, which is so drop dead gorgeous, but I'm really unsure how watching a film from a PJ onto an 88" wide screen directly btwn the spkrs will distract with reflections.

Spirit, Clayton Shaw is clever and his spatial systems are worth considering particularly if your speakers use a digital xover. The Black Hole concept is not new. Nelson Pass and others have attempted similar manipulations in the past (http://www.stereophile.com/content/phantom-acoustics-shadow-active-low-frequency-acoustic-control-page-2)

Cobra, it looks like you have done your homework to a degree. I am not surprised that you have silver wire in your rig. Most SET owners seem to navigate towards silver. Like Glory, I wonder about your source. Did you demo the ASR or was it in someone else's system?

I know Glory has evolved from Audio Note SETs to Atma-sphere OTLs to Tenor OTLs and now to the ASR Emitter I exclusive. He has the most musically convincing system to date. Go figure....