Friendly fire. It's what Zu just came under from their own Method trio. It takes no fluency in Zuni to recognize that ~€3'000 for a set of Method monitors, Q Acoustic stands and one Method sub now buys us the most bandwidth from Sean Casey south of €26K/pr for his Definition flagship. Looking up unusual words starting with zu, I came across zumbooruk as a small swivel-mounted cannon often fired from a rest on a camel's back. Sneaky; and a perfect stand-in for today's come-from-behind Method assault in genuine not watered-down Zu ammunition. With preset N°2's virtual default doing all the heavy 2.1 integration lifting, all that's left is seasoning with the Fusion amp's attenuator. Upgrading to 2.2 when additional funds free up could be a sensible but far from mandatory future indulgence. It's no secret. The current US administration hasn't been kind to business as usual. Here it's extra commendable how Zu's made-in-the-US credo can still pack this much value with their Method models whilst continuing to offer their signature customization options.
My award is expressively for a methodical trio—or quad. Regular readers know. For years I've been vocal about subwoofers for music; about purist external analogue crossovers from Lifesaver Audio, Sublime Acoustics and spl to avoid digital latency whilst high-passing the mains mirror-image style. Getting a one-brand turnkey solution this effective, attainable and décor-conscious with a wide range of skin options deserves recognition. Breaking down the trio or quartet appeal, three more things warrant repeating. One, the work sunk into developing a new 8" coax to finally get off the 10.3" platform shared across the range. Looking around the widebander niche, we just know that this wasn't easy. Two, opting for a he-man cellulose pro-audio woofer in an era that values visual shrinkage. It's no fashion-approved choice but one which doesn't compromise. Three, leaving the Hypex DSP options open, power users can program their own filters. Voilà, three auxiliary factors which made my award inescapable.
As regular Warsaw contributor Dawid Grzyb wrote in a recent review, "I've developed a soft spot for just about everything Cube Audio do. That wasn’t an overnight infatuation but a slow deliberate process born of repeat exposure and earned respect. Their approach to posh crossover-less widebanders did something quite unusual in a segment often defined by dogma and stubborn purism: it humanized the breed. Instead of treating single-driver speakers as an ascetic amplifier-hostile pursuit reserved for the most hardened of initiates, Cube showed that such designs could remain flexible, approachable and—crucially—compatible with a far broader range of amplification than commonly assumed. You didn’t need a shrine of flea-powered tube-infused exotica to make them sing. You just needed an amplifier with sufficiently high output impedance—and an open mind." The same could be said about Zu whilst still expanding amplifier options to low-Ω linear or switching power and support of hard musical genres well beyond the Polish widebanders. With the new Method clan, the socialization of widebanders pushes on whilst reining in the coin toss to well below pole-vault heights.
Granted, taking 13 pages to tell this tale was a bit excessive. But nothing about the actual product is. It's my fourth and final reason for the award.
Oppo Blu-ray player, Gold Note integrated with built-in DAC: very simple but effective 2.1 music/movie system with trio Method in N°2 preset with PEQ set to lift at 60Hz to be up 4dB at 20Hz then fall off rapidly.
