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Zu Soul Supreme Recap -- Owners, what are your preferred system pairings with them?

I'll save a long backstory, but in short I've got the Zu Soul Supremes and I absolutely love them for what they do, at least in my relatively small (13x15x9) listening room.  I've had them a couple years as a follow-on to previous Zu speakers (Unions and Cubes, which I still own).  Those followed some vintage Altec horns (16 ohm Valencias and 19s)--which I love, but love the Zus more for daily listening.  Sean recommended the Supremes over the Druids at the time for the size of my listening room, although I suspect the Druids would have been as good or better regardless.

My interest is to hear from other Zu Soul Supreme owners...not may posts in this forum from owners that I can find.  I'd prefer to focus this discussion on the Soul Supremes, as there is a lot of great info already on the Druids and Definitions (which I assume are more prevalent in the wild), even though I'm sure have a ton of overlap in system synergy.

So...

What system components are you finding to be great/phenomenal matches to the Soul Supremes, what have you compared them to, and what hasn't worked as well?   Anyone running them with what you consider to be really high-end gear?  I'm super curious to see how far these speakers can go before a speaker upgrade makes way more sense.

Jay
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hifi-buck
8 posts
 
So are you still enjoying your ZU Soul Supreme's?
parsons's avatar
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parsons OP
149 posts
 
Yeah, I still own them in spite of having sold almost all my other Zus (including the Druid 6s I "replaced" them with).  They are great little speakers for their size and purpose and really respond well to amp changes.  In the right room (slightly smaller rooms) they are extremely musical, but in too large of a room they may struggle to sound massive.  They do benefit a lot from a good sub in my opinion.

I may sell them someday, but for now they are a nice reminder of why I was really into Zus and high-efficiency speakers...I learned a lot from them and they have greatly influenced my speaker choices today.
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parsons OP
149 posts
 
Since this thread is still going, I will throw out a couple of additional amps that are phenomenal pairings.

I got a hold of a custom 71a amp.  At 3/4 wpc it's sings way bigger and better than it should possibly be able to.  The tubes should be Cunninghams as I find them to sound the biggest and best.  I also found the 80 rectifier in my amp to make a giant difference in the sound...Cunningham was great there as well.

For an even bigger sound, and this is where I'm at in my main system now...a well designed PX4 amp.  The tubes are very hard to find, but I find them to be a little more neutral than top 300Bs, yet still giant sounding with all the benefits you want from tubes.  They are more nuanced and magical than 845s, all else equal.

The Decware SEPs and SETs are still quite good, but I would give the nod to the other tubes above with great iron and SET designs.
cat_doorman
236 posts
 
@parsons what was it that had you keep the Soul Supremes over the Druid V? My current room is a little bigger than yours 22x19x10avg but opens into other spaces so it feels bigger. I might move to a smaller more symmetric space that is easier to treat eventually. I’m planning to upgrade from the Omen DW during the 100% trade up period. I keep going back and forth between Omen Def, Soul Supreme, and I even saw some used Druid V listed, all at around the same price to make it more difficult.
Interested in what factored into your choice. I’m primarily using a Primaluna DPHP  
hifi-buck
8 posts
 
I’m glad to see that my first post on this forum resurrected the Soul Supreme thread. Not a lot of threads out there on these speakers. I’m a big fan of ZU Audio. Have had my Dirty Weekends for nearly 3 years and have powered them with everything for low powered SET amps to high powered SS Monoblock amps that I am presently using. And in my experience, the more power, as long as it’s also quality power, the more they have responded and the better they sound. Straight from the man himself, Sean said that his ZU’s love high power. 
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