Yes, supertweeter is horn loaded though (little horn). looks same as Druid, not the ribbon on Essence. |
Sweet just saw the new homepage , Soul looks hot, looks like we find out tomorrow! |
Hope they sound less edgy and more involving than the Essence. Is this a step up from the Essence? If so may give it a 60 day. |
Mine are ordered. I am really excited. I think I will keep my Druids around in the near term for comparison. |
They sound very similar to the Druids. Definitely different than the Essence. If you have reeived the new issue of Stereophile, Zu is running a special on the first 60 pairs of soul that are sold. |
I don't get Stereophile anymore but am curious about the Souls. Can you share what that early adopter special is? |
whats the special? thanks |
Jsalte: very interested in what you see
Ton1313: really? have you tried them? they have essence driver so I am surprised sound i closer to druid. pls tell us more. |
I just went into autopilot when I saw the free superfly upgrade offering.
I'm excited to see what they can do. |
Regarding Soul: A friend of mine here in Los Angeles just took delivery of s/n 0001/0002 Soul speakers. His are Superfly. This speaker is better than a Druid Mk 4-08 in every way, for less cash. The FRD is below the supertweeter so that it would fit in the tapered cabinet while sticking to Zu's preference for packaging their sound in a 1 s.f. footprint. Zu extended what they learned in designing and building Essence -- their first full-Griewe implementation -- to a more economical structure and build process while further improving the Griewe model in practice. This speaker upends traditional notions of how to allocate system resources. It truly takes full advantage of high performance amplification and accentuates the reality that a system with Zu speakers moves the fulcrum for fidelity to the power amps. You'll see Soul Superfly systems with power amps that cost 5X and the resulting sound will be entirely legitimate. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that $9500 worth of the right power amplification on $2600 of Soul Superfly will sound better than a good budget amp on Definitions.
Phil |
They had the pre-production pair at my house back in November durring the tour. They are a little more "snappy/quick" than the Essence as they are more like the Druids, but have a deeper bass extension. For the price they are asking, its a lot of bang for the buck IMHO.
The Stereophile add mentioned that the first 30 pairs sold will be the upgraded version.
excerpt from their website
Soul (standard), with a global direct price of $1,800 for a matched pair.
Soul Superfly Edition, with a global direct price of $2,600 for a matched pair.
SALE! We are running an introductory special on the first 30 pair of Soul Superfly. Sale ends when they are sold. This intro promo saves you $800! You get the Superfly edition for the price of the standard, that's just $1,800 for a pair of superfly loudspeakers that will last a lifetime. |
I know some folks used the Firstwatt F1 with the Druids. Will it still be a suitable choice for the Souls? I just ordered a pair and am really hoping NOT to change amps. |
Never tried that one. I have tried with my Druids, Definitions, and Essence...Integra Research RDA7 HT amp at 150 watts/channel, Flying Mole monoblocks, Nuforca IA-7 integrated at 50 watts, and a Cayin A-50T 16 - 32 watts. All sounded great in their own respect. The speakers are flexible and are at home with many different wattages and types of amps. Many people have been enjoying low powered tube amps with great results. |
213Cobra: That's very cool. The tapered cabinet is interesting as it seems they have given up volume (and bass extension) for the taper. Personally, I did not like how Druids sounded at 60Hz, but I was surprised at how much port loading impacted the sound. So I am intrigued by these new cabinet design (although I still have reservations about the Essence woofer) and would be very interesting to see if it has better bass extension that the druid because it looks like it has less volume.
Gopher: I think if you use F1 for your druids and find them acceptable, then you should be OK with the souls. Personally, in my space I find I need more like 50W to get Druids to play properly. It isn't level, it is ease. I do not think Zu does themselves any favors by claiming they are good matches with flea amplification. |
The soul is really tempting. I was never sure the transiency of ribbon and FRD are perfect fit. This is what I'd like, a FRD w/ horn tweet. I'd like to see more reviews. Anyone?? |
Zanon: Soul gets *more* bass extension from the smaller cabinet than Druid, because of the Griewe model working inside a tapered cabinet. They've also eliminated, in a different way from Essence, the Druid's ultra-sensitivity to the floor-to-base gap when dialing in bass balance. You just set Soul down and roll some signal into them.
As for flea amplification on Zu: It does work. A 2w 45 amp will sound beautiful and be as or more dynamically suitable as any number of other HE Fostex or Lowther-based designs. But 2w are 2w. So the second watt gets you to 104db/w/m -- that doesn't mean you're getting ease and dynamic integrity. A solid 20-25w 845 amp will drive them fine in nearly any practical application, but not all 25w amps have the same apparent drive. A 25w PSET 300B amp will be dynamically less compelling but possibly tonally richer still. In a push-pull amp you might not be happy with less than 40w, but a pair os 15w Quad Classic II sound sublime and alive. Generally in solid state, you'll want more oomph unless the amp has an oversize power supply and lots of headroom for transient clarity. Yet despite the efficiency, a pair of McIntosh MC501s would not be out of place with any Zu speaker. It just depends on the actual behavior relationship between a given power amp and the Zu FRD. Just keep in mind in this case, the Soul's impedance is higher than prior Zu speakers. Up from the Druid's 12 ohms to 16.
Phil |
213cobra: I am very excited to hear them, and astonished that the smaller cabinet produces more low end extension as you say. They put measurements of the Soul on the website, and it is really flat (almost too flat) -- a stark contrast to the ragged Essence in Stereophile and the poorly measured Druid in something I forgets.
The plots look so good that I cannot beleive they are the real deal!
(Also, the very flat HF make me nervous because those tend not to sound good. but what can i say, if I was graph guy I would never try Druids which I do like).
As for amps, if I get PushPull frankly I might as well stick with solid state. The magic I hear is in SET, whether it is transistor or tube (which is why I like Nelson Pass -- they are interesting) but, although level is fine, I hear strain at 30W.
I had not realized impedence was even higher--wow! |
>> if I get PushPull frankly I might as well stick with solid state. The magic I hear is in SET<<
There's plenty of magic in a well-executed push-pull tube amp that is elusive in p-p solid state. The two devices are dynamically quite different, and tonally dissimilar - except when they're not. While I agree on the preference for SET, and especially love the synergy between 845 SET and the Zu FRD, you can get excellent results from exceptional p-p tube amps like a used Jadis, Quad Classic II, Quad Two-Forty, vintage Mac MC225 or MC40, MC30 monoblocks, MC240, EAR, Wright Sound, Luxman, lots of others, will yield a sound so distinctly different from p-p solid state as to be essentially unavailable from silicon. If you like silicon better, fine. But p-p topology doesn't make the difference between solid state and vacuum tubes moot. In solid state, Pass-designed amps tend to sound very fine. The current Luxman Class A integrated is a great match; 47 Labs, LFD, Valvet's power amps.
Phil |
thanks you for list of amps.
let me ask you, are any of them 50W+? |
thanks you for list of amps.
let me ask you, are any of them 50W+? |
Zanon,
I have not heard the Druids before, let alone own a pair. I use my First Watt F1 with a pair of Cain & Cain Abby speakers, but have read that this amp worked well with the Druids.
I guess I'll have to wait and see. I like how my system is sounding these days and hope this is a change I'm happy with. |
Very good gopher.
interested to hear what you think.
I believe you will like Zu more than Cain in Cain as I have found I prefer Zu driver to Fostex (although Fostex has nice elements too!) |
