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Zu Omen standard - help with set up..

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Posted on July 9, 2014 at 16:07:30
mr9iron
Audiophile

Posts: 454
Joined: March 13, 2002
inmates,

help me save my Zu Omens I don't want to give up on them yet... :)

Are their any Omens Standard owners who can lend any advice or offer suggestions on placement, set up and or tweaks I am.having problems with lack of "tight" mid- bass.

My apologies for posting multiple times about the same topic, but I want to see if I can get any help...I am thinking differently about my speakers. Asking the question from a different standpoint basically..

I keep reading many positive descriptions about Zu Omen sound and in particular the area which I am struggling with (bass) is supposed to be quite good and tight as reported by some inmates and read on other forums. So I think I have some other issue in my set up. I was actually thinking of searching out another product, or as some suggested in the last post, was investigate sub woofers..(probably wont do that)

I found some posts that mention the venting port on the bottom and hardwood floors (which I am on). The Instructions from Zu say to leave a space on the bottom about the thickness of a CD and I have my hardwood spikes at the highest limit it seems about 3/8 to 1/2 an inch raised off the floor..

Some users say they used bolts to get as much as 3 inches off the floor and moved their speakers a number of feet away from the wall (I may not be able to do this due to room constraints) and that these moves improved the bass, made it less boomy and tighter. This may be the problem I am having, however, unless I don't understand the venting theory (room loading) I thought that all those ideas would actually make the bass less tight.. I thought moving closer to a wall or corner would make it more tight and less floor gap on the room loading would be preferable for tight bass.

I want to emphasize like in my last post, that there is no "lack of bass," and in fact I sense good articulate bass, but it just seems like that mid bass portion is not there, there is no kick or "punch" However as I said before, it seems like from what everyone describes, is that these speakers are actually quite tight in the bass region, so I am scratching my head...

I am using a push pull 6l6 amp about 40-50 watts I have tried both 8 ohm and 16 ohm taps, not sure if I can sense any difference there. I have also set it up with an el84 push pull 20 watt amp, with only minor differences in sound, just different dynamics really no huge change in the bass response. The room is quite small maybe barely 200 square feet?

Any ideas or similar problems to report on these speakers would be appreciated. I am not good with speakers, rarely am I in this forum, my knowledge is more about vintage tube gear than speakers..

thanks in advance

J

 

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RE: Zu Omen standard - help with set up.., posted on July 9, 2014 at 22:16:46
freddyi
Audiophile

Posts: 3852
Joined: December 6, 2001
some years ago,I made a guess of the old Druid for some early Eminence B102 laying around - in that case the MLTL is around 1.3 cubic feet in air volume and bass tightness was pretty good. Is your 6l6 push pull parallel? does it have a 4 ohm tap to try? A modest solid state amp could sound tighter - the room might be part of the problem. If you wanted to kill some of the floor vent's output then you might put some polyfil in the gap between the base and floor.

at some point raising the cabinet from the floor should raise significantly raise fb. You could try pieces of wood, tile, etc. to carefully elevate the cabinet and listen. Did your tube amp ever sound flabby with other speakers?

here's an outdoor graph of my cheap toy showing the effect on ground plane response of adjusting the height within two points.

this form factor of MLTL works pretty well with a cheap ($28) Visaton BG20 8" fullrange driver.


Karlson Evangelist

 

RE: Zu Omen standard - help with set up.., posted on July 9, 2014 at 23:02:55
mr9iron
Audiophile

Posts: 454
Joined: March 13, 2002
Hi,

thanks for the response, the amp is a push pull parallel amp. It does have 4ohm 8ohm and 16ohm tap. Not sure with the odd 12 ohm load of the Omen, which would be the best option here.

Not that I have tried a ton of speakers with this amp, but non of them were ever flabby. Prior to the Omens I had the amp driving my "work horse speakers", I use them when I restore amps etc. They are a modest TMM design, Polk rt55i, 92 db, not great audiophile sound but they were super punchy and quite robust in this same set up. The Omen speakers, though a completely different design, pale in comparison as far as "punch" goes.. Quite shocking honestly..

Jeff

 

RE: Zu Omen standard - help with set up.., posted on July 10, 2014 at 03:56:03
Ozzy
Audiophile

Posts: 7588
Joined: September 21, 1999
Your best bet to dial in these speakers is placement in the room. And I'm not just talking about where the speakers are, but where YOU are in relationship to them as well. With highly resolving speakers mere inches can be the difference between good and great. Lots of trial and error and patience.

So you need to have some flexibility on placement. If you have constraints here, you might not ever hear what the speakers are capable of.

Oz


Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill

 

RE: Zu Omen standard - help with set up.., posted on July 10, 2014 at 09:19:19
mr9iron
Audiophile

Posts: 454
Joined: March 13, 2002
update,

This morning I tried lifting up the speaker using coasters. This was something one user tried... I have the front lifted up almost 2 inches and the rear about 1 inch.. so it is tilted upward with more space between the vent and the floor.

To my surprise, so far I notice quite a big difference, the "thump" "toe tapping" beat seems to be present now...

Does anyone know why this is so? - and why such an improvement considering we are way way outside of Zu's recommendation of a quarter inch gap between vent and floor..?

I guess I don't understand this "room loading" theory on the vent system, but seems like the driver has woken up a bit.. and seems to be flexing out much better bass response...

The speaker is still mere inches from the back wall it also sounds much nicer if I am bit closer to the speakers say by a foot, this was not so before..

I may be headed to Home Depot to investigate threaded feet options that can get me this wider gap..

I'll keep evaluating, but seems there is some stock into what the one poster tried, though it seems quite extreme and a little funny looking...

Anyone know why this result occurs?

J

 

RE: Zu Omen standard - help with set up.., posted on October 7, 2014 at 13:52:56
Bones13
Audiophile

Posts: 296
Location: L.A. (Lower Alabama)
Joined: July 4, 2009
I have similar speakers (Zu Audio Essence) and have used a PP EL34 35Watt amp, and now a DIY Aleph J (20 watt). I now have a rather small room (9.5 x 14 feet) I do have the front of my speakers about 2 feet from the back wall and nearly the same from the sides.

I did some room measurments with REW and the uMic device. There is a 40Hz mode in my room, which makes the 40hz kick very palpable. Friends have asked me where the sub is.

I then treated the room with corner bass absorbers, and a large back bass panel from GIK acoustics. I have not wanted to give up the space for first reflection side panels, but have one on the ceiling.

Room treatment made a pretty big difference to me. The sound is very much smoother, and the mid and treble are much clearer. To treat my room for the 40hz spike would entail 6-8 tuned absorbers which would be 2x2 foot square and nearly a foot thick, each.

My speakers have a fixed gap at the bottom, with a plate mounted at the bottom, so I cannot comment on that part of your question. Reading the Omen owners manual, they have a lot of information on "fine tuning" your speaker, including the bass.

Well a couple of things to look into for you.

 

RE: Zu Omen standard - help with set up.., posted on October 8, 2014 at 10:12:13
Joseph Crowe
Audiophile

Posts: 53
Location: Ontario
Joined: February 19, 2014
Considering the polks did fine in the same room I would be moving the speakers out from the wall a few more inches.

 

RE: Zu Omen standard - help with set up.., posted on October 10, 2014 at 02:46:31
Posts: 12
Joined: December 19, 2010
This is Driver problem, you cant do nothing all full range driver not
just Zu get louck energy in 300-400 Hz-very important midbase , if you
want to check, get any acvaluzer and boosted this freg to 5-6 DB Greg

 

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