In my modest video system sourced by an Oppo BluRay deck, I usually have the analog 50Hz bass boost of Gold Note's top integrated at 'high'. Zu's widebander here is limited by cab size and loading not mechanics. It responds very willingly. For this occasion that obviously defeated. Were the Method sub to stay, I'd rejig the layout to feel less crowded. To transcend Hollywood mayhem, I also spun up concert videos like this Brahms Piano Concerto. With classical music, the addition of an ill-adjusted sub instantly tells. Alas, I had perfect silence on the misbehaviour score. At P2 with its attenuator barely open, I had beautiful continuousness and more bottom-octave cover than with the goosed Soul VI. Because this is my casual movie system where sound is second to visual distractions, the real test…

… came upstairs. Here the Method replaced a sealed 2 x 9½" sub from Dynaudio's Pro division. The Dane's 2.5ms latency has it sit forward. Sean's box took pride of place front-row centre. A Pál Nagy autoformer passive preamp with twin outputs generated unfiltered outputs for the mains and sub. Against the sealed monitors' acoustic roll-off, P2's 2nd-order segue was the perfect mirror image. Critical ears-only mode stumbled nowhere. I had sub-bass cover where appropriate including barely-there 25Hz synth pedals for moody atmospherics on Nordic tribal numbers. I had no sing-alone drone when the music contained no low frequencies. Club beats on DJ remixes cracked without resonant debris. Given my usual setup, this wasn't real news. But something was different. I sunk less pressure into the room. I must drive Dynaudio's sub with its smaller drivers harder to achieve equivalent loudness. That's because its location versus my seat causes some suck-out cancellation. Its smaller drivers also need to move more. Meanwhile Method accomplished the same with clearly less effort. Priced virtually identical, I already preferred the Zu for its lack of audible latency. Like downstairs, I much rather have a music sub between its speakers than take up wall space farther out in the room.

But I wasn't done yet. Chasing percentages is the audiophile disease and I'm a virulent carrier. I now replaced the standard icOn 4Pro preamp with my special edition which builds in an active hi/lo-pass filter to relieve the mains of seeing any low bass and enforce the most symmetrical handover. I moved my two Hifistay racks apart to give the sub optics more room rather than cover things up. Now being on a suspended upper floor, I also swapped out Sean's already rather effective rubber footers for a set of weight-rated Stack Audio Auva SW.

Particularly at higher SPL and raunchier fare like Patrick Chartol's Istanbul with his meandering e-bass or DJ remixes like Kalya Scintilla, the filtered monitors really performed best. That set the Hypex Fusion amp back to P3 for 4th-order filter symmetry. At this stage the Method performed clearly superior to my prior Dynaudio. Greater cone surface that looked straight at me seemed to time even better and the shock value of powerful bass transients was higher. Also, LF sweeps embedded in certain ambient tracks really followed all the way through into the pure pressure zone where hearing stops and skin sensing begins.

With three successful installs under my belt, I now downloaded and installed the Hypex filter design software suite on my Win 11/64 workstation, then connected the sub to it via USB. I wanted to look at the input sensitivity settings.

Sean had fixed the input sensitivity of preset #3 well below the other two so I raised it. Whilst inside the software I also entered EQ mode for the unfiltered preset to first build in a very shallow 3dB/10Hz lift then increased it to 6dB. Easy. Then it occurred to me that one can easily rotate the sub by 90° to make it look a bit wider but squatter. With Stack Audio's optional flat plates, their Auva SW will accommodate that 'lowrider' orientation without bolts. Or use Sean's supplied rubber footers.

At this stage, Year's End was near. With it came my customary shortlist of Favourite Finds. For that I canvassed our 2025 archives to identify six products that stood out the most. Having by then lived with the Method sub in my upstairs system for quite a few weeks, it easily made that list. Not only that, it wouldn't go back to Utah. I had found my new low-frequency haymaker for upstairs. Often size doesn't matter. In this case it does. Zu's 15" Pro-audio woofer which barely moves does something my smaller Dynaudio woofers with burly rubber-roll surrounds cannot. Hearing it for myself settled that conclusively; and not wanting to be without it. But I still hadn't heard two because the holiday season had delayed my second sample. I told Sean that I could easily revise my narrative to eliminate any mention of two subs and wrap up this already lengthy very late tome. But he was keen for me to experience two subwoofers. By February 1st a full year past Method launch, that time had come.