Country of Origin
Reviewer: Srajan Ebaen
Financial interests: click here
Main system: Sources: Retina 5K 27" iMac (i5, 256GB SSD, 40GB RAM, Sonoma 14), 4TB external SSD with Thunderbolt 3, Audirvana Studio, Qobuz Sublime, Singxer SU-6 USB bridge, LHY Audio SW-8 & SW-6 switch, Sonnet Pasithea, COS Engineering D1, Laiv Audio Harmony; Active filter: Lifesaver Audio Gradient Box 2; Power amplifiers: Kinki Studio EX-B7 monos & Gold Note monos on subwoofer; Headamp: Enleum AMP-23R; Phones: Raal 1995 Immanis; Loudspeakers: Qualio IQ [on loan] Cables: Exact Express Flame, Furutech; Power delivery: 2 x Kinki/Vinshine Tai Hang on amps and source stack, Furutech DPS-4.1 between wall and conditioners; Equipment rack: Artesanía Audio Exoteryc double-wide 3-tier with optional glass shelves, Exoteryc amp stands; Sundry accessories: Acoustic System resonators, AudioQuest FogLifters; Room: 6 x 8m with open door behind listening seat; Room treatment: 2 x PSI Audio AVAA C214 active bass traps
2nd system: Source: FiiO R7 into Soundaware D300Ref SD transport to Cen.Grand DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe with POW; Preamp/filter: Lifesaver Audio Gradient Box 2; Amplifier: Kinki Studio EX-M7; Loudspeakers: ModalAkustik MusikBoxx + Dynaudio S18 sub; Cable loom: Exact Express Earth; Power delivery: Vibex Granada/Alhambra, Akiko Audio Corelli Corundum & Castello Solo; Equipment rack: Hifistay Mythology Transform X-Frame [on extended loan]; Sundry accessories: Furutech cable lifts, Furutech NFC Clear Lines; Room: ~3.5 x 8m
2nd headfi system: DAC: Cen.Grand DSDAC 1.0 Deluxe with POW; Headamp: Cen.Grand Silver Fox; Headphones: Raal 1995 Magna, HifiMan Susvara
Desktop system: Source: HP Z2 work station Win11/64; USB bridge: Singxer SU-2; DAC/headamp: iFi iDSD Pro Signature; Speakers: DMAX P61 Headphones: Final D-8000, aune SR7000
Upstairs headfi system: FiiO R7; Headphones: Meze 109 Pro, Fiio FT3
2-channel video system: Source: Oppo BDP-105; All-in-One: Gold Note IS-1000 Deluxe; Loudspeakers: Zu Soul VI; Subwoofer: Zu Submission; Power delivery: Furutech eTP-8, Room: ~6x4m
Review component retail: $1'399/pr for bookshelf in black satin or white, $1'449 for sub in stock colours
The Method bookshelf forgoes Zu's signature milled-from-solid aluminium trim ring. Click on image to open a big version of the subwoofer back panel.
The Book of Method not Mormon. It's Zu's monitor the Method. Unexpected are its dims: 15" tall, 11" deep, 8.75" wide. The last figure gives it away. The company's signature 10.3" driver doesn't fit. Instead we're getting a new dual-motor 8" coax of 94dB sensitivity that's front-ported. The main cone runs wide open, the Eminence ASD-1101 tweeter in its throat high-passes at 5kHz¹. Method acting with minimal effort? Observers of the niche know different. Shrinking violets and widebanders isn't easy. After ~15 years of playing it bigger, Voxativ managed to scale down to 5" which in 2024 I heard in their compact rear-horn Hagen². Cube still only work at 10" and 8". Rethm offer smaller but add active woofers. Camerton specialize at 5" ported, period. Mark Audio offer 4" and 5" units in their Alpair range which I heard to excellent nearfield effect in Lindemann's ported Move Mini, Move and isobarically in the MonAcoustics SuperMon Mini. sound|kaos' smallest is a 4" Enviée filtered to hand over to a Raal ribbon on top and dual 5" horizontally-opposed carbon-fibre woofers loaded by slot port on the bottom. It's what Ivette listened to on her desktop, my Warsaw correspondent Dawid still uses in his main system. Where widebander adherents resist multi-way temptations, a war of inches plays out on the battlefield of bandwidth vs resolution. The bigger and heavier the cone, the more bass it does but soon treble suffers. The lighter and smaller the cone, the more of an outsized tweeter it becomes. Flying a widbander solo, most designers in this tiny sector opt for 8" or 10" whizzer cones in a big tapered quarter-wave cab. That seems to be the default. For a good 20 year, Zu have stubbornly refined their Eminence-based 10.3" bi-cone. For certain models, this eventually added a Radian 850 2" compression tweeter down its throat to go classic if custom coax out to 18kHz. Working between the rubber bands of cubic volume, lower bandwidth and modern monitor demands where smaller stands taller, the DWX with separate lens-loaded tweeter and front port is more lardy than underweight. Standing 23" tall on a one-foot cross section, it's no modern mini but closer to burly British vintage boxes. Could boss Sean Casey do smaller without minting a wallflower he'd not want his name on? We appreciate how quickly small is beautiful becomes maybe not if beyond physical shrinkage the sonics lighten up too much. LF reach. Tone density. Resolution in the upper mid to lower treble. Air. Space. What's lost, what's gained?
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¹ Careful readers recognize how this is a good octave lower than Zu's traditional handover to their tweeters. Hence this smaller dual-concentric driver needs no whizzer. We expect a different HF presentation when a smaller main driver's upper bandwidth alone should already be superior to a larger one, never mind giving an add-on tweeter more to do.
Our 2005 system in a Taos earthship with Zanden, ModWright and FirstWatt electronics, Walker Velocitor AC distributor and Grand Prix Audio rack. Our next stop was Cyprus.
Minimal acting argues that Zu's house sound—robust, dense, dynamic, friendly, slightly dark—relies on how their trademark beefy bi-cone sets those values. To get them at such potency naturally pushes raw resolution, air, insight and separation backward. If we prioritize the latter, we might want a 6.5" latest-gen Accuton and dipole Mundorf AMT like in my upstairs ModalAkustik MusikBoxx. Oil and water don't mix? I expected that Method would lean on that question without deforming the overall sonic gestalt which would make it no longer a recognizable Zu. The basic specs are 8Ω impedance, 60Hz-20kHz in-room bandwidth plus the Zu specials of 100 years of daily home-use estimated life span; and a 5-year warranty. The companion Method sub adds bandwidth. Zu keepers of elephantine memory remember the first Method sub above whose styling the later triangular-footprint Presence mirrored. In 2005 that sub was $2'500 and married two 15" woofers behind a floating baffle to a 100Wrms plate amp. As such the 2025 Method is a reincarnation. How do its styling, build, driver complement and electronics mirror 20 years of interim progress? And who still remembers the Druid Credenza which Ivette cherished in this candy purple gloss in her top-floor studio overlooking Lake Geneva? Zu have had various wideband monitors in their portfolio for ages – including the aptly named Cube and Tone.
Until I learnt the full math of how Method squared adds up in 2.1 or 2.2 scenarios, I wagered a guess tied to a methodical theme of shrinkage. The new sub would use a single driver and aim it at the floor for extra boundary gain; or use two smaller force-cancelling ones. Then there was this: "Thor came to be in a burst of anger and immense dissatisfaction whilst listening to widebanders in the bass". It's from Aurai Audio's Alain Pratali in Marseilles. He adores the old Supravox widebanders and designed speakers around custom Supravox cones. Today all of his floorstanders have discontinued in favour of 6.5" and 8" two-way monitors plus the 4th-order bandpass isobaric Thor subwoofer with 350W class D. As reader Fred put it, "I thought you might get a chuckle, having promoted monitors and subs for years now. Alain too seems to have come around to your way of thinking." It's why Voxativ and sound|kaos have RiPol subs, Cube sealed versions, Rethm active isobaric bass, Zu the Undertone and Submission. Making taut low bass commensurate with the demands of modern music is a very tall order for light-coned widebanders even loaded into large folded rear horns.
"If we add a woofer and tweeter, why stick to such archaic drivers?"
"To let the main cone run wide open on either end."
Across the lion's share of the musical bandwidth, this avoids electrical high and low-pass filters. The latter typically sits between 1-3kHz where human hearing is most critical. A 5kHz-or-higher filter on an auxiliary tweeter instead operates beyond all fundamentals in pure overtone country to be less egregious. Meanwhile a 40-80Hz sub entry executes in the active domain to avoid a 3-way's passive high-pass on its midrange. So the short answer why widebanders walk on is the old Camel smokers preference:
"Don't filter to enjoy the stronger better taste."
