Anyone listen to Zu Audio's Definition Mk3?

Yes, Glory has it right. I've been too busy listening to my Def4s to take time to write about them. I bought about 50 more CDs and vinyl discs since they were delivered, and I'm plowing through my thousands of existing discs. It's cutting into my work productivity!

Here are the short strokes, while I get my full narrative together:

To understand Def 4 you have to know Def 1 and 2. I'll write about this later. The basics however are apparent regardless of your historical exposure to Zu.

1/ Top to bottom, Def 4 is for the first time a Definition-archtecture speaker that has the holistic charcter of Druid, with Definition's accuracy and scale. Its tone, speed and dynamic characteristics are now fully uniform top to bottom. In prior versions, the dual FRDs, super tweeter and the sub-bass array left traces of their independence. No more.

2/ Def4 soundstage is as wide and deep as your room allows, and will go beyond to serve the dimensional characteristics of the music performance recorded. For anything from a Blu-ray movie soundtrack to a full orchestra to a trio or solo performer in an intimate space, spatial representations are closer to the perception of live performance than in any Zu speaker to-date (though I haven't yet heard Dominance).

3/ Even in a tricky room, the new 12" cast-basket down-firing sub-bass driver and its driving amplifier more evenly loads a room with bass, with fewer resonance, bass-piling and reflective problems than the older and once-excellent 4x10" back-firing sub-bass line array on Def 1&2. Most of the bass resonance problems that I've in the past just had to listen through in my main room, are mitigated to the point of irrelevance. Bass is prodigious when the recording calls for it, but in all cases is reproduced with higher definition and charcter unique to the given bass instrument and the player's style, than in prior versions.

4/ Top to bottom transient uniformity is unprecedented for a dynamic speaker. Def4 has electrostatic-like speed and uniformity, while retaining the punchy heft of a responsive magnet-motor cone speaker.

5/ The inclusion of the Radian compression supertweeter is a very large advance over prior Definitions, if your high frequency hearing is still intact. It is extended, liquid-smooth, fast and not beamy. It is what Definition needed from Day 1. Similarly, the nano-treated main drivers are responsive and transparent to a new level of revelation because even further stiffness has been achieved in the cones, with only a fraction of the added mass of prior treatments. As I understand it, only around a gram or less of treatment compound is used now per driver. You hear it, in speed, attack, articulation and tone.

6/ As I'll elaborate in a more complete assessment, cabinet talk is suppressed yet again over the prior version, sharply reducing the tonal artifacts introduced by high SPLs in prior Definitions.

7/ An unexpected consequence of all this attention to advancement: somehow and counterintuitive to landing a more revealing speaker, regular Redbook CDs are more listenable and satisfying than ever before, without any change to my sources. I expected a more transparent transducer to render older, or more compressed or generally poor CDs to challenge my tolerance for listening to them. But the reverse is true. These speakers have me mining deeper into my CD collection than in quite awhile. Vinyl gets its due but I have a lot of music unavailable on vinyl, and I'm enjoying all of it more.

8/ Tonal integrity and holistic realism remain evident in the bursty, one-voice Zu way, but beyond what anyone has experienced who hasn't heard Dominance or Def4. This is not an incremental iteration of Defintion.

I''ll get more tapped into text tomorrow or Monday.

Phil

I agree 100% but couldn't you get into more detail; just kidding. The Mk4 is a total different level than the 2 or 3 and it should be at the price point they sell for. I will say that after owning a ton of speakers I don’t understand why this speaker doesn’t retail at $20K plus.

I have really dug my Def2s over the 5 years I've owned them, even more so with the SpatialComputer Black Hole sorting out bass integration issues in my room.
My main issue with them has always been the tweeter, which I feel has restricted the spkrs' microdynamic capabilities wrt to it's amazing macrodynamic prowess, leading to a dark tonal balance only lightened by bursts of treble when in the recorded material.
So, I'm so pleased that 213Cobra and Musicxyz have confirmed that treble extension is up there with the best, and not at the expense of the FRD magic macrodynamic picture, and opening up the microdynamic universe in music played.
Btw, to Musicxyz, do you think you're finally off your spkr merry-go-round and will stick with the Def4s? Can you resist the Dominances ( 3 FRD's, 2 supertweeters, 15" sub bass)?

Definition 1.5 was a livelier speaker than Def2, and its tonal center of gravity was shifted toward the upper midrange compared to Def2. The downside of Def1.5 was the MDF structure and the "cabinet talk" resulting from it at high SPLs. With Def2, Zu dramatically reduced the cabinet talk of the Definition architecture, giving it even more useful dynamic range, but one of the costs of tuning out the glare in Def1.5 was the slightly overdamped sound of Def2 (only in comparison to the incredibly jumpy Def1.5). The supertweeter network was improved as well, to tune out some of the older speaker's false sparkle evident in the supertweeter's anomalies. Def2 went as high, but it just didn't have all the tickle that Def1.5 had, along with that speaker's very top end distortions.

Def4 resolves the difference completely. Def3 should mostly. All of the liveliness of Def1.5 is restored in Def4, and then some. And all of the discipline and accuracy of Def2 is retained, and then some. The speed and openness of the nano-FRDs coupled to the tonal illumination provided by the smoothly extended Radian supertweeter eliminates the dark-tilt evident in Def2.

Solid State amps on Def2 went a long way to lifting the trace darkness in its tone, as did objective tube amps with extended top ends and bursty dynamic traits, but now that character isn't just mitigated. It's gone from the Def4 design and should be very much reduced in Def3's Def2 roots as well, since the nano-drivers are significantly responsible for the change (not the Radian alone). Def2s upgraded with 2010 HO FRDs pretty much lost the Def2 dark tilt anyway, so consider the small Def2 "overcorrection" to be adjusted out regardless which upgrade path you take.

Phil

My only technical query re Def4s is that the sub bass is downward firing into the floor. I know this is an established practice since many dedicated subs work the same way, but it all seems counterintuitive. Can anyone put me right on the pros of such an arrangement?
Musicxyz, you are adamant that a quality cable choice must be made for good audio, and same make used thruout system, a statement I agree with.
The Def4s have internal Event wiring which with Neutrik Speak-On connectors form a continuous loom with the Event spkr cables.
Does this mean that you are going to switch to Event from your current choice, and by consequence wire your whole system with Event?
Marc