Zu Soul Superfly

I agree with Mike, this thread seems to have been somewhat derailed.

From my perspective I took a punt on the Soul Superfly, being located at the arse end of the world it was really quite a big punt. Shipping cost alone was about $450 and another $300 on taxes once landed! So I don't really have the luxury of taking advantage of the 60 day return policy. Why did I take the punt, I've previously owned Zu cables and like the company philosophy, etc. Have long wanted to try their speakers and this was a great (albeit risky) opportunity.

I do care about sound and in an ideal world would love to optimise room placement, etc however in the real world with wife and children this is often not the case. Having bought them unheard and unseen, I appreciated comments from Phil on the unfussiness of the Soul. These will be a second system in a small spare room. With little flexibility on placement, I realise I might not get 100% from the speakers but life is about compromise. If Phil is right, real world speakers for real people. Am I an audiophile? Probably describe myself as aspiring audiophile but really want to get back to enjoying music and off the gear treadmill. I think the audiophile trap is getting to worried about the gear and forgetting about the music. I've enjoyed Gopher's and Phil's comments about SOul Superfly and look forward to more.

Personally, I have the opportunity to buy VTL Tiny Triode, early edition with red chassis and no ability to switch from triode to tetrode (that I am aware of) and that thinking was based on comments that EL84 would be a nice match for Soul. I already have (and will be using) a GTA 300B MkII Special Edition. Somewhere in the garage is a GTA SE-40 (uses 5881) which needs some TLC which I can also resurrect. Just wanted to keep my options open.

So like Mike, I'd like to read more about Soul Superfly ;)

Phil: I take sound-centric position, not gear centric position. Placement and room is how your low MF, upper bass, and bass will sound, regardless of amps. I also have not heard good results with some of the amps you recommend AND I disagree with your pre-amp suggestion.

Soul is "big tent" speaker but so is $500 polks. Frankly, I like them more than most hi-fi speakers costing 10x. But to each their own. $500 polk floorstander will sound better than plastic earbud when playing mp3

Mike: Soul is a mystery because so few people have heard them. We have Phil's description (which, despite fact Phil and I disagree on other things I am grateful for) and a happy customer in Gopher.

We can also only make comparison to Essence and Druid. Essence has similar FRD, but clearly it is very different as anechoic reading on Zu site for Soul is so different from same reading in stereophile for Essence. So even though they look the same, it seems they are quite different. Supertweeter is welcome return to Druid. Port loading is closer to Essence than Druid, but most different.

Based on just these, I cannot say soul is easier to setup than druid. With Druid you needed to care about port loading and toe in. Its very directional FRD meant you did not need to worry about first order reflection. With Soul you can forget about port loading, but supertweeter still needs toe in care and it has wider FRD, so now you need to care about first order reflection when before you didn't.

Keithr: Nothing silly about caring about sound and paying attention to room. What is silly is paying $1000 for cables and arguing about pre-amps while you have 120Hz suckout, left channel 5db louder than right, and massive timesmear. We listen to a combination of speakers + rooms and the industry has yet to create a speaker system that manages rooms in a truly easy way. It would be, I imagine, something with omni bass, plus very directional HF, plus some kind of automatic dEQ. I do not like dipole bass (which can get pretty omni) nor do I like dEQ, but this would be true "plop it down" system. Bose I imagine might have something like this but I have no interest in them either.

>>Placement and room is how your low MF, upper bass, and bass will sound, regardless of amps.<<

Nope, don't agree. Especially with tube amps the range of driver control has a large effect on the full spectrum of low-frequency sound. Lots of minor, non-audiophile ways to mitigate room behavior, but the amp/speaker interface is set and with Zu, no amount of room optimization will change the character imposed by the amp/FRD synergy (or not). With Zu, it overwhelms room factors as a first order priority and driver for what you'll hear.

>>We listen to a combination of speakers + rooms and the industry has yet to create a speaker system that manages rooms in a truly easy way. It would be, I imagine, something with omni bass, plus very directional HF, plus some kind of automatic dEQ. I do not like dipole bass (which can get pretty omni) nor do I like dEQ, but this would be true "plop it down" system. Bose I imagine might have something like this but I have no interest in them either.<<

No one hears music in a perfect room, not even the primary performance. I am close to the investors in Audyssey, and have heard their consumer, commercial and behind-the-scenes developments. They'll "correct" your room. Whether doing so sounds better is debatable. It's not that they don't make the corrections they claim to make, it's what they have to do to the original signal to make them.

I've heard treated rooms, "advanced" acoustics concert halls. All of it disappointing. Anyone old enough to have heard a performance in the allegedly "perfect" for its time Avery Fisher Hall? Despite referencing attributes of Symphony Hall in Boston, BBN hosed the sound. It never really got fixed.

Rooms have acoustic anomalies. They can be mitigated with minor adjustment and normal furnishings. If someone wants to go further, have at it. Not me. There's another way: live within the room. I want hi-fi out in the open living spaces. I want people to be able to relate to it in their own homes. Obsessive audiophilia is knifing hi-fi for a steady bleed-out. Do what you want to optimize your Superfly installation, but don't fear you can't get good sound if you don't. Wire them up; place them logically; start having fun. They work with anything from a $300 HK receiver to $25,000 SET amps to big McIntosh power. It's as worry-free as a speaker gets in 2010. Have fun.

Phil

I contacted zu about possible upgrades to my Mk408 Druids. Sean said the new soul frd would provide more mid presence at the expense of a liitle bass output. 12 ohms vs 16 ohms means my mundorf 1.0 cap and 12 ohm duelund resistor will need to be changed to a Duelund 10 ohm resistor.

So it's worth the gamble...... I think......

The Druids play dynamics like no other.... But I have mini methods filling the bass.

I will see if the wider dispersion of the soul frd interferes with the room. I disagree that the soul bass output will be more true than I have now. My bass is amazing at the moment from 40hz and lower.

Great hobby to be able to do these experiments and hear any results!!!

The comments/experience on this thread are very interesting.

For me Zu have not produced a poor speaker, of the ones that I have owned Druid and Essence and others heard extensively the Presence and Definitions.

The Essence speaker to me is more or less a plonk and play speaker, it can be improved by fine placement, and with my current system is a very good match/balance with the other components, I can just plonk any CD on and really enjoy the music.

My experience with the Druids is that the system components need to be carefully matched, and the speakers do need time investing to get the best out of them (placement). Get the components wrong and you will be chasing the speakers around the room trying to get to the best sound, which IME can never be achieved, believe me I have spent months just doing that. Putting the Essence on the same system resolved some of the problems exhibited by the system with the Druids, but were not a complete fix, changing the system components did provide the solutions to the problems experienced with the Druids and partnering equipment.

I totally agree with Phil's findings re the power amp signature and matching with the Zu speakers, as I have experienced such, if the amp is dark sounding then the Zu speakers will show this, the same can be said of source components, dark sounding CD players IME do not work with the Druids, but are a better match for the Essence.
Zu speakers IME produce what is given to them they do not add or subtract to the music, they are the purest transducer of music that I have come across to date.

There will be times when people will say that they do not like what the speakers are doing, my question to this is "are you sure that it is the speakers, or are they highlighting a problem or less than appropriate matching of source components/amplification?"

Still waiting for the Zu Soul Superfly's to land in the UK, as so far anything from Zu has lived upto expectations.