Zu Audio Dirty Weekend Loading Resistors Upgrade


So, an engineering ponder from a non-engineer:

The Zu Dirty Weekend speakers offer an upgrade during the purchase process- 25 OHM SPEAKER LOADING RESISTORS for $20, or 10 OHM SPEAKER LOADING RESISTORS for $22.  I plan on attaching the DWs  to my PowerNode 2i.  Tony at BlueSound assures me the PowerNode 2i will do fine driving the 12 ohm DWs  (at 40 Watts, I might have to turn up the volume a little).  I am not familiar with resistors use with speakers.

1- Do resistors really make a noticeable improvement with speakers?

2- If so, should I get the 25 ohm or 10 ohm resistor?

Anyone out there have experience hooking up DWs to a BlueSound product?
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Showing 2 responses by whoopycat

The TL:DR version... skip the resistors.

Long answer, as someone who has used the resistors and owned DW's but has not used them together... the resistors are for amps that like a flatter impedance curve.  I used them with Druid V's.  I got the Druids after owning DW's, and the Druids seemed very dynamically restrained and light in the bass compared to the Dirty Weekends.  Sean suggested the resistors with my amps (which were mostly solid state).  They did make a small difference, the bass response improved slightly and a tiny bit of harshness went away as if the amp seemed happier with the speaker load.  But it wasn't a huge difference, you really had to listen for it.

I ran Omen DW's for about 18 months, and I can't imagine the resistors being that beneficial for Omens as the speaker is designed to work well with most amps.  You could always email Zu and ask them if they recommend resistors for your amp.  With Omen DW, I'd put the money toward the capacitor upgrade before buying resistors.