Decision between Zu Definition OR VS DB99

Phil, do you think the Druids combined with the large subwoofer would be an upgrade over my Hale Design T-5's?

Dawgbyte,
My name is Desmond. I am Mr. Phil's factotum. He told me to ask you if your speaker has a crossover. Good Evening, Sir.

I'm a dealer, but sell neither Zu nor Von Schweikert speakers. Not even sure I can spell the latter.

I'm also a longtime amateur speaker builder and shorttime speaker manufacturer. I have some experience with fullrange drivers.

In nearly every case I have found fullrange drivers to benefit from a response-shaping network of some kind, and/or rolling off the bass to allow a dedicated woofer to handle the bottom octaves, and/or augmenting the top octave or so with a supertweeter. Compared with the anomalies and distortions typically present in drivers, in my experience the minor distortions introduced by high quality capacitors, inductors, and resistors is trivial.

In my opinion the relatively un-speakerlike sound of the Zus is related to something other than freedom from capacitors, resistors, and inductors in or parallel to the signal path. I believe it is related to their unusually uniform radiation pattern through the midrange region, where most speakers have severe radiation pattern anomalies. So yes the crossoverlessness is beneficial, but I think for different reasons than are normally put forth.

That being said, I do have some reservations about the Druid and Definition; in my experience they do some things well, and some things not as well as I'd like.

Duke

I have been pondering high sensitivity speakers to match my SET amps for a while. You guys have convinced me to audition the definitions, they are now available in the UK.

Duke,
I appreciate your evenhanded approach to this topic. Could you specify what you like and don't like about the Druid and Definition separately as they are a bit different? The Defs, for instance, do receive subwoofer support from below the mid array. The Druids, on the other hand, achieve their bass response from a downward firing transmission line, a sort of bass horn.