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Clearly, the Presence is an evolutionary, not revolutionary product. Just like BMW's horizontally opposed motorcyle Boxer engine today is directly related to beemers from decades before but refined and evolved, the Presence adopts Zu's trademark recipe as it was first expressed in the original Druid, just tweaked. Curiously, rather than intensiyfing the polarization that has spawned many a forum feud on the Zu Sound -- from "best I've heard" to "design bomb with bullshit claims and truly sad measurements" -- the refinements in Zu's Presence undermine this polarization a goodly bit. Certain traditional complaints by the anti brigade especially against the Druid have been addressed, perhaps not such as to completely win over the naysayers but clearly positioning the Presence for more universal luv.
By nudging themselves a bit closer to mainstream hifi expectations, the Zuists have also crafted a better speaker without stepping on their core strengths of tone and timing. Mellowed rebellion has led to a bridge package -- pinstripe jacket over torn jeans and tattoos -- that acknowledges modern hifi desires for resolution and separation and then wraps them in the vintage values that gave us low-power tube amps, large paper drivers in broad-shouldered cabinets and a denser, more textured sound than is the current fashion. The Presence treble still isn't as filigreed and airy as a classy ribbon nor as energetic as many a modern Titanium unit. Yet it's clearly smoother, more open and communicative than prior Zu incarnations. I think Zu has probably maximized now what to get from this particular tweeter part. What a Raal ribbon might do whose sensitivity was properly matched is a most tantalizing conjecture indeed. (It's well possible though that the lesser weightiness of a ribbon's sound would create a textural discontinuity.)
The central Zu choice of 10.3" widebander is necessarily the overriding determinant of the final sound. One simply cannot expect the same degree of upper midrange hyper resolution as the 6" Lowther is not only capable of but arguably lives for. The latter's speed is obvious in how it magnifies inflective hues in a singer's delivery and the tiniest turns and twists inside a note. It's also a leaner sound. Some relate to it as stripped of tonal richness. That's the
Marten Design Form Series
critical difference to Zu. Their driver communicates (makes?) tone in a fantastic fashion, reminding me of a big vintage Tannoy presentation of the Churchill with its V slot I heard once and was brought to tears by at the Inner Ear CES exhibit. Where my Lowthers are quite critical of amplifier diet to clothe their naked purity in tonal density, the Presence gifts even lesser amps with tone without sounding threadbare.


Inherent in that equation is that overtly buxom amplifiers on the Presence will be less ideal than my crystalline 45s (if only those had push/pull drive). Good choices would be 300Bs and 2A3s in push/pull circuits which cancel out most of the 2nd-order padding and drive down impedance for jumpier reflexes and control. Back in bi-amp setup to try out the Red Wine Signature 30.2 on the top while arranging for some 8' interconnects to also feed the Hypex RCA inputs, that amplifier's very robust current delivery proved the perfect counterpart to its very own tonefulness. My Peter Daniel chip amps held down the fort on the woofers.

Truth be told, the Melody/Hypex versus the Red Wine/AudioSector combos (the latter through WLM's outboard xover) were astonishingly similar. If I were reviewing those components, I'd make the effort to split hairs but for today's purposes, it absolutely suffices to say that - a/ in this particular sub 80Hz application, the Hypex amps play no second fiddle to very good traditional class A/B designs of equivalent power; b/ the Presence cottons to appropriate valve or transistor amps alike with nary a change in gestalt; c/ offboarding on this level of expenditure and component quality doesn't really buy you much if anything.


True, "c" in this instance overlooks the ability for DSP equalization which could be inserted between preamp and outboard bass amp but in most other regards and for sanely sized rooms, it holds. Into 4 ohms, the Hypex modules deliver 160 watts and the woofer load is 94dB sensitive. You can do the math to appreciate that for linear listening, the Presence is packaged with all the headroom the not-yet deaf should require. That's not to say a 500-watt brute with current delivery to mandate its own dedicated line couldn't give better results. The point is, the built-in performance should make most folks plenty happy to be far more than a mere hold-over. Most vital for my biases is that unlike certain class D designs that tout 4-figure damping factors and indeed sound overly damped and dry in the bass, this Hypex solution doesn't. Its bass gestalt is not ripped brutality hewn from unyielding rock to differ from the remainder of the spectrum. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to distinguish the Hypex amps from my Pateks (and having done a similar comparison with the WLM Duo amp -- a class D solution of Chinese origins -- I then had a preference for my chip amps). In short, even if you believe that class D is good for subwoofing only, Zu's got you covered. Subwoofing is all this class D amp does.

Then I learned that contrary to uCD's own warning or my limited read thereof, the 30.2 could successfully be leashed to the jumpered Presence after all. Vetting a flurry of e-mails between me, Sean and Vinnie with open ccs, I learned that the black high-level inputs of the plate amps do not tie to ground through the Hypex amps' AC connection, thus the latter needn't even be floated. Good times turn sour only were one silly enough to connect both the high-level and low-level inputs simultaneously. Why anyone would is the question du jour but it's still a useful warning not to do redundant backup just because hard drives have trained us to. If you don't double strap, Vinnie Rossi's $2,500 plain box miracle is an ideal Presence amp. It works both in jumpered mode (driving upstairs and plate amps) or in offboard mode (variable RCA outputs into either Zu's forthcoming high-power Hypex + DSP + attenuator box or into an active low-pass filter + bass amp/s) - and all that without the need for a separate preamp. For sheer value/performance muscle, no-fuss convenience and excellent sonics, this would have to be my top combo recommendation.


So what is the Zu Sound?
If you favor the kind of sound many speakers with ceramic drivers like Kharma and Marten Design often make, you'll accuse the Presence for a lack of transient incision. If you want to hear rain on a tin roof like a spit-fire tattoo of very sharply pecking percussion whereby the background noise recedes and the emphasis is squarely on the impact ticks, you'll want a different speaker. My Rethms don't venture too deep into this transient-led approach but they do it more than the Zus. If you like to hear all of the fizz on cymbals or the uncut energy inside a woman's high but forced voice where some hoarseness mixes in, all Zus will seem to tone that down a bit or not fully peel it out from the surroundings. If you thrive on popping smacks and sharp sssibilants, the Presence will seem slightly soft.


This holds true for the bass as well. There's no lack of power or definition. The hard-hitting ppopp-ppopp rattattatt which I find brutal but others thrilling is simply a bit warmer just like the rest. Again, the emphasis is on density and power. When a cellist really saws across the strings while the other hand goes blurry from intense vibrato, this speaker doesn't focus on the raspy aspects but the pressure inside the vibrato that makes this instrument so closely related to human song. Hand in hand with that goes dynamic pressurization or follow-through, with the core strength not the capture of the truly micro scale like the DX55 Lowthers but the medium-small to upper macro stuff. Again, the image of connecting with a boxer's shoulder behind the glove seems most appropriate.


A term I've often seen used for this combination of qualities is "comfort speaker". A part of that seems accurate here. The possible implication of actual fuzziness or ponderousness is not. I haven't heard a Vandersteen in far too long to be certain but I did start my audiophile journey with a pair of used 2ci. Based on that now faint recollection, the Zu sound should be far more related to Vandys than, say Wilson or JMlab. Former collaborator Chip Stern might brandish the meat 'n' potatoes or red wine simile to capture the upshot of long-term listenability with excellent but not annoyingly energetic jump factor, grand lateral staging, better throw and layering of depth than earlier Zus, more top-end openness and a strong rooting in the low bass.

It's not a ravishingly airy sound on the wings of Mercury. It's grounded; about controlled mass and density; the fullness of tone; great scaling when things get loud and big; and the improved ability to separate out things inside that fullness. Perhaps it's fitting to call this non-metallic sound a bottom-to-top paper sound? Worse offenses have been committed than stating the obvious. Which begs for seconds then. Even though my introduction gave the Zuists room to present their case for the Presence hull -- i.e. the implied claims for a quieter cabinet were set up well prior to delivery -- a comparison to my Definition Pros would have plainly noted the concomitant inter-note tightening (or the sloughing off of some minor dross). I might not have suspected what made it so but hearing it is quite apparent. Lastly, I suspect that the broader baffle also has something to do with it but I'm not technically astute enough to sort out its contributions. What is blatant about that bit is how not detrimental to deep-into-the-corners soundstaging it is. It's fashionable to equate speaker disappearance with narrow baffles. The Presence would question the implied truism. It stages just as vastly as the far narrower Saadhana.