Zu Soul Superfly

I had dramatic burn-in for weeks and weeks and I thought too for a few days that I had lost my mind! How many hours do you have on them? I would recommend 400 solid hours as a minimum. I would also comment that the positioning is critical for bass especially as well as amplifier matching. I do not know Naim at all other than knowing they have a great reputation, but it is SS correct? The Superflys are designed with tube amplification in mind, unless I am mistaken as sometimes happens.

The Superflys I auditioned where not picky with positioning, the sound stage was out in front, engaging, and for lack of a better term, Intimate. They were paired with a Quad tube amp using KT-66 tubes.

Phil,

When I say the decorator arrived I simply mean I was having some of the house painted. He had doors and windows open all day so a big temperature drop. Didn't work in the living room at all but had the door open and did go in for a listen each morning as he's a big music fan and into hi-fi too. Can't believe he's done driver damage for example as presumably a lot more than bass would have gone. He certainly hasn't moved them and I should be clear, there is bass there but it's nowhere near what it was.

Yes Naim is SS but they work incredibly well with Zu and prior to getting Superfly I'd heard Druids, Essence, Presence and Definitions on Naim. Have been talking to Avonessence on this and he reckons burn-in can be quite erratic having had Druids and Essence and he found it especially so on the Druids. He thought the temperature drop may be of some significance. I'm deliberately not moving them until I have plenty of hours on them. Been doing 10 hours a day on medium volume since mid January so they've probably got 200-250 hours on top of the factory hours.

Can't see how it can be the bass loading. Would have to have gone on both speakers at once and as I said it has been accompanied by the loss of cuppy vocals and a gain in detail so it's not like the FRD has gone silent.

Further thoughts?

Mike

Any other thoughts.

The missing bit from my previous posts was that I don't think the positioning is an issue for the bass. Prior to this week it was just fabulous. There was a lack of upper mids and that was it.

Mike

The missing bit from my previous posts was that I don't think the positioning is an issue for the bass. Prior to this week it was just fabulous. There was a lack of upper mids and that was it.

Mike

It's not my experience that Zu break-in is anything other than progressive and uni-directional. That is, it's a one-way street with no backtracking wih the singular exception of significant thermal changes.

Zu itself has had the experience of doing 200-400 hours of intense factory break-in only to ship speakers from Utah in the winter months and have them arrive sounding stiff and not broken in. Sean has contended in the past that break-in of the internal cabling (especially the dielectrics) is actually more of a factor than limbering of the driver, but cold exposure can make the driver break-in paramount. I'm in Southern California, so I probably don't have the same range of temperature swings as you, even if I left my windows and doors wide open for weeks. If nothing else changed, I have to guess this is your issue, and it will be temporary. Also, if you are using vinyl, the same thermal factors can truncate bass response of a phono cartridge, too. Assuming nothing has happened to your amplification, it seems a temporary problem associated with an environmental change that a hundred hours of any band using a large Marshall stack can overcome.

Phil