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Zu Druid - myths and experiences (long)

Posted by chacodude (A) on February 4, 2007 at 12:23:32

Have been living with a pair of Zu Druid speakers and would like to share the ownership experience and information with others.

Many reports have been posted that the Druid has no bass
or that Zu should "confess to the real specs". Maybe this
has been the true life experience of some people, but there
would be reasoning behind this. Mainly the lack of proper
information maybe to get these fine speakers to the level
they are capable of. Let me push on to share and explain
a bit more on this speaker, living with and breaking them
in properly:

The Zu speakers need to be burned in properly to sound the
best and at full potential. They are also a speaker that
should be at a reasonable room temperature or allowed to
be before judging critically. With mine they had traveled
through very cold temps between Utah and myself including
several snow storms this winter in the west. Called to talk
with Sean at Zu prior to arrival when he made specific note
that my speakers should be allowed to come to temp after
this travel, and with in a few days should start to come
into being. And of course he was correct indeed! For mine,
it was 4 days with a hefty amp. More on that shortly.

Zu has a new in-house burn in process now for new speakers.
This process is equal to my understanding of 160 hrs of burn
in. Zu clearly states that reaching a crucial break-in point
is needed. The in-house process alleviates the end user from
having to use special burn-in type disks or go through the
painful and long process of full burn in. This does not mean
that they do not have a bit of a way to go still yet! The
manual states clearly that this break in time needs to be
with an amplifier capable of doing the job. SET owners might
want to find a Solid State amp (as the low power SET is NOT
going to do the job), and that playing at low level would
result in the need to double the amount of time to break-in
point.

Clear as mud?!

While the equivalent of 160hrs has been put on the speaker
at Zu, you can expect to reach 200 or preferably 250hrs total
in order to see the real potential of the Druid. It's up to
the owner to complete the break in process with a proper amp
if they want to hear what this speaker can do. My guess is
this may be primary reasoning why some people report that the
speaker is not what the articles at 6moons and others like
myself have experienced. If the Zu manual procedure is not
followed, then we can't say that it is Zu's or the speaker's
fault now can we?

From the manual it states:

50hrs of play: 50% break-in
100hrs of play: 80% break-in
250hrs of play: 95% break-in (approx. where the magic begins!)
1000hrs of play = 100% break-in

Now aren't you glad that Zu takes care of the main drudgery
at the factory now? I sure am! Speakers arrived at my door
in very well packaged protective boxes. I took them out and
hooked up a McCormack DNA-125 amplifier. Right out of the box,
my speakers sounded nice. They did NOT sound great. By that
evening they sounded horrid. Quite frankly I was very worried
as to what I may have put myself into, but then I did remember
the conversation with Sean. Sure enough, after reaching a
good temperature inside for a day or 2 and playing with my
hefty amp the Druids started to shine. From there it got
better.

Once my Druids began to shine, I placed them on the hardwood
spikes at 1/2" spacing (by manual is too much, should be 1/4")
set on top of a 1" granite block (on top of my house carpet).
This was a dramatic improvement placing onto a hard slight
raised surface in my large room.

It also became apparent that the speaker is reflective of
what gear is fed to it. In one move, I swapped a copper pair
of IC's out with another DH Labs BL1 (cardas RCA's) that I made
up and instantly my imaging came to life. Bass popped out even
better than I had from placing on the granite blocks. All
I can say is that if you still think the Zu Druids can't reach
the stated 35hz spec., then you have not heard mine! Unhooked
my dac and let my Harmon Kardon DVD22 with Wolfson chip do the
work and it was not shabby at all. In fact I am wondering if
I need a dac here now, whereas it was magic with the dac on
my old now gone Magnepan 1.6QR's. Another trick on bass I found
is by the cable means. Analysis Plus Oval 9 is the trick.

When I ordered my speakers after hearing the Zu line at a
local Knoxville Bottlehead gathering, I thought that we would
need a Sub after reading all the posts saying this speaker
does not have a good bass. Of course that was not what I
had heard myself the first audition, it's the reading afterward
and second guessing that made me think about a Sub. Now I
don't think a sub is needed at all unless for very dynamic
(i.e. Rock or synthetic) music. 2 other guys in our audio
group bought Druids before I did and both were happy
without a Sub. Both told me to be sure to try without
before passing judgement. Glad that I did and have to
say that I am now happy too without the real need for
a Sub. My 1.6QR was spec. at 40hz. The Druid is without
a doubt punching below this range very easily. I have
dynamic, punchy bass with the McCormack amplifier
and Bottlehead FP3 preamp (stock except Auricap outputs
and a Teflon V-Cap on OD3 bypass) on the Zu Druids.
If you listen to Jazz and natural instruments you will be
fine without a Sub if you follow the manual and break-in
properly as well as set up properly i your room. Only rock
fans or of deep electronic synthetic music will need to fill
in below 35hz. That's the beauty of Zu speakers: not only
so they sound fantastic, but they are versatile in what you
throw at them providing the recording is not complete junk
to begin with.

I sincerely hope that this information is helpful and
sheds light more into this fine Speaker. Highly recommend
as well as the bigger brother, the Zu Definition model.
Next step is to hook up my super sweet 2A3 amps...this
will take to a level far above where I am now for certain.
And to think I'm already happy with them. Have not even
touched on the awesome fit, finish, customer service aspects
of the Zu speakers. If you have been thinking about these,
you owe it to yourself to at least hear the best thing to
come along for long time in audio. When was the last time
you called a company and the design engineer answered the
phone and even talked to you? Very glad to have thrown my
support to a great little American company that you don't
seem to be able to find much of anymore.

Andrew

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