Acoustic Zen Adagio, How Good Are They?

I am just waiting for somone to ask this question. The direct answer to your question is that they sound Exceptional....

I have not seen any reviews on these speakers but here are my initial assessements after 45 hours of continuous playing time. Here is a quick snap shot and I will go into greater details later. I do not have the owner's manual for my samples so I dont know that is the recommended break-in period is but I expected to be longer than 40+ hours. If you're in the market for a pair of speakers in this price range, do not buy until you have a chance to audition these speakers.

The Adagio is beautiful, sonically and cosmetically. It stands about ~50 inches tall... You can get the specs from AZ.

Created a very good three-dimensional space, wide, deep, and very stable with a large sweet spot. Female voices such as Diana Krall, Salena Jones, Partrica Barber... never sounded better. The highs are so extended, airy and detailed that I actually hear a lot more stuffs that I have not heard before with my reference speakers, the Andra II. The integration of the drivers/crossover are very seamless across the entire sound spectrum. The decay of transient is unbeleivable when listened to the pluck of the guitar string on the SACD, Friday Night In San Franciso and the crash of a cymbal on track 11 of Particia Barber, Blue cafe. Anyway, I have to take my kids to baseball now but will be back later..... I am not exactly sure what the heck is the under-hung driver
Happy Listening,
AnThuan

Anthuan.In the June/July issue of The Absolute Sound Sallie reynolds has a review of the Adagio. She says these speakers are so good they're difficult to write about. Her only minor pick is they don't do 16hz but only because there not sopposed to. In the same issue she also did a review of Tyler Linbrook System II. She had some small picks on these. I was dissapointed that she did not make any direct comparrisons between the two since they both are in the same issue and about the same price.Can you tell us more about how your Andra II and the Adagio compare? Are you one of the lucky people who have two systems or do you swap out speakers in the same room?

they are very good. I heard them. They require about a week of continues play to break in to a degree that they become listenable though. After that, it just gets better.

Recommend tube electronics with them. I heard them with Bel Canto integrated and Blue Circle integrated and Blue Circle hybrid integrated sounded better, although Bel Canto was no slouch.

Speakers are beuatifully finished, they look great.

At the time, I found no shortcomings for a speaker with a proce tag of $3700, but now I heard the price went up. I don't know how much they cost anymore.

I think these speakers are suitable for a wide selection of music, including classical, jazz and rock.

I would not hesitate to recommend these speakers.

check out this other post I left some comments on right after I auditioned these speakers. My memory was fresher then than it is now about how they sounded.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1136561626&read&keyw&zznew+acoustic+zen