Chatting with Sean I learnt that besides speakers and cables sold through their web shop, his team do large custom commissions including giant horn speakers. There's Zu's public business and there are secret projects. Those so inclined now know enough. It explains Zu's love of finish options. Their infrastructure blurs the line between regular production line and custom shop. As to my going-in prediction for higher midrange resolution from Method's smaller driver, Zu made it fait accompli. "It does have improved midrange resolution over our DWX and DW6 and doesn't lean into warmth as they do. That's due to a smaller driver's reduced cone-mode distortion over a 10" driver when used at typical domestic power levels. Also, the much smaller driver-to-cabinet area ratio has you hear less of the cabinet's contribution and more of the driven membrane." I had a final question for Sean. As mentioned, ported bass rolls off at 24dB/oct. so a steep 4th-order function. Why did he code his sub's entry far lazier at either 6dB/1st or 12dB/2nd order?
Soul VI with 2 x 15" cardioid sub, frontal risers beneath speakers to align their coax with my taller seat.
My UPS tracker for Sean's shipment announced a single box of 22kg. Once the package left Salt Lake City and stopped over in Louisville, it landed in Köln 36 hours later. Calling fabled German punctuality a lie, it then sat there a full three days before making the skip over the wet to Dublin then westward to Galway. Once it knocked on my door after a week in transit, it also knocked these DMAX P61 DSP actives off their perches. From time-corrected studio-type monitors to Zu's Method, how would the gestalt of my playback change? To find out meant adding speaker cables and Enleum's AMP-23R whose dimensions ideally suit my setup below, whose 25wpc Zu's sensitivity.
Delivered in the brand's usual super-sturdy cardboard, the goods stepped out wearing protective cling wrap. Once relieved of their suffocating plastic skins, the culture shock of a grilled Zu hit home. Did these rebels finally achieve the good housekeeping seal of domesticated approval?
Left grilled, right raw. Mothers with teenage girls should definitely prefer the more demure over the nekkid look of that enormous bore. Adolescent boys will worship full frontal. The rest of us could probably go either way. Having the choice is the point.
A sturdy build and two decades of paint booth experience come standard as well, with the four small baffle posts acting as the magnetized grill's receivers. The only thing my eyes called cheap were the hard foam rings surrounding the drivers in lieu of Zu's usual aluminium trim. I'm too set in my ways. For my desktop I had two DACs with analogue volume to rotate: my resident iFi Pro iDSD Signature and a visiting Luxsin X9. The metal dress plate of the speaker terminals specifies 100W power handling; and 250 watts when high-passed at 65Hz. For every low octave less, driver excursion demands shrink by a factor of four. Eliminating 20-65Hz from presenting at the 8-incher's voice coil means six times lower stroke. Now it can tolerate still higher signal voltages. In my nearfield, the 25wpc Enleum sat at only 9:30 on its dial with the iFi's RCA outputs set to fixed when I had my loudness fill. The output capabilities Zu build into their speakers should exceed what most consumers will ever attempt. They certainly eclipse mine. To put a week's worth of work on these, after downstairs proof of life they hoofed it up the stairs into my secondary system where at somewhat subdued SPL they could play all day long whilst I worked the office.
