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Zu

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if audiophiles are going to complain about MP3s maybe they should get a speaker first that doesn't have an inverse equal loudness curve of peaking around 3.15k hz before rolling off the high end with the exception of a nasty spike at 15k hz.
 
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barredowl said:
Unpack this for me then John:

"After offering up some freshly made pizza and hauling the Druid back into the main system, we spent the next two hours listening, staring at each other in disbelief and generally laughing and scratching about how these little boxes (we're used to much bigger cabinets) could deliver so much presence, punch, stage, tone and pace."

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/zu6/druid.html

From what I can see it's a bunch of b.s. to hype a speaker that measures like:

frequency_on1530.gif


(Source of graphs: http://www.soundstagemagazine.com/measurements/zucable_druid/)

I have seen way too much of that in the "high end" to take it seriously.
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That's the thing with reviews..it's all subjective and like anything, you have to take it on a one for one basis. (and 6moons is often full of crap but that's just my opinion based on hating some things they gloat over). One wrong review for one speaker doesn't damn the entire industry. I have friends in the industry, if I smelled a rat I'd tell you but most companies are simply charging what they can. It's not collusion, it's a free market. Blame the audiophile if you want, as some do seem to equate cost with performance regardless of any other evidence, but the industry is not full of men in top hats scooting off to a night on the town in their Dusenbergs. It's a very competitive industry where even at the highest costs, performance can dictate price. Wilson just lowered the price of it's current version of what was the Watt Puppy in the face of a similarly priced speaker from Magico that was simply, by all accounts, better at that price point. Which was around $25,000 I think. But it's also an industry driven by prejudice and hype, I will give you that. Which is why products should be taken at face value. Read the review, perhaps, to get a rough idea..then go out an listen for yourself. By what you've written, I get the impression that you've actually not heard a lot of this stuff.

Anyway... in the best cases, reviews aren't some giant marketing scheme out to destroy the audio community. In the worst, namely..on the internet and 'review blogs', they can have an agenda or exist to attract advertising. That is why people don't give all reviews the same weight. It's why The Absolute Sound and Stereophile are by and large trusted by the audiophile community, and internet blog sites aren't.

But I work in marketing, there is much less evil-scheming than you imagine. Not to mention that most organizations are so loose, and so poorly organized, that you could never keep it a secret anyway. Certainly it does happen..Bose will sue the crap out of anybody who says anything bad about there product and they spend more on marketing than design,I'm sure...but they aren't high end and are a joke because of it. And...they don't ever offer up stuff for reviews. But the buyer of Bose is not in the high end market (though they may think they are). But the industry itself is probably as legit, on average, as any other. Just don't start thinking that magic stones or room cones or whatever is something every audiophile is into. That stuff is even made fun of in Stereophile, actually.
 
"The ear is not a microphone, the brain is not a tape recorder, and measurements are limited in describing subjective quality." Nelson Pass


Which doesn't mean they're useless in describing quality. Measurements may miss nuances but when a capitalist makes an objective claim of 30hz for a speaker and it doesn't I think it's usefull to know that. It's good to know when somebody is bullshitting you, don't you agree?

And I'm pretty sure your ears would tell the same thing the measurements did in such a case.
 
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So John; what about companies that simply lie? Such as saying speakers have objective performence they do not and cannot have?
 
In regards, again, to gear you mentioned earlier, there's no substitute for hands on experience. It's like the endless Technics 1200 vs. The World threads that often pop up in turntables. I have no interest in their outcome because I have two 1200s (1210 mkIIs) and a big VPI and Clearaudio belt drive. You see those threads and its just an endless throwing around of specs and whatnot, but most of the people haven't even heard what they think the 1200 is better than. They just ASSUME based on a few specifications. Well, I tried out the competition for myself and it wasn't a contest, despite the endless onslaught of opinions, it takes all of a few songs to hear what it's all about. The high end (Zu Druids, too) is the same way. You HAVE to hear this stuff. If you form an argument based solely on what you think it is, you have no context for what the other side is trying to say. Passing around assumptions is not debate. Debate is an educated assessment of two viewpoints based on facts.
 
"The ear is not a microphone, the brain is not a tape recorder, and measurements are limited in describing subjective quality." Nelson Pass

Beautiful.
 
Zu's published specs are absolutely ridiculous, I don't think anyone could legitimately defend them. I don't think John is defending Zu's garbage, specifically.
 
Tom Brennan said:
So John; what about companies that simply lie? Such as saying speakers have objective performence they do not and cannot have?
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Such as who? Zu? Bose? If they are outright lying and it can be proven that they do not, in fact, have that performance you can take them to court over it and they will probably be hit with a cease and desist order upon their advertising. So who wants to take Zu to court over it? I have yet to see an ad from them that I remember, anyway. It seems they got some positive press and then word of mouth. Some people must have liked the things for whatever reason.

I've certainly heard some speakers RAVED about on AK that sounded like crap to me. How is that different? How is the Zu's success any different than the wild-fire of obsession that burns under HPM-100s?

I'm not saying companies don't lie. But I also said nobody pays attention to ads from high end companies, at least nobody I know and I run into a lot of folks who dip their feet into some expensive gear. My good friend who's a rep for some of these companies forms his opinion at the trade shows, in first hand listening. And his opinion often influences mine because I trust it, and know his taste. First hand experience (auditioning), word of mouth, reviews, internet discussion, advertising. That is how I'd rate the common influencers of purchase in the high end.
 
dnewma04 said:
Zu's published specs are absolutely ridiculous, I don't think anyone could legitimately defend them.
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Which is why I have more respect for Bose who doesn't post specs or make objective claims; if you like them fine and if you don't it's all the same.

If someone like Zu speakers that's their affair; I can't tell people what to like. But I can resent being bullshitted by some businessman.
 
Druid down *30* dbs at 35 hz, nice! For you non math types that 300 TIMES quieter than it is in the middle frequencies. Dbs are a logarithmic scale.

Ironically I consider myself an artsy type and would rather just hear the music and not have to know this dull crap, but the best way to have that happen accurately and delivered at a cheap price is to let engineers design the hardware and tell the b.s. marketers and zine publishers to take a hike! If the market were producing good outcomes, I could just listen, sigh!
 
I want to further elaborate on the HPM-100 that I just brought up. That is not a terrifically measuring speaker. Certainly it doesn't sound like it would be. Yet it is wildly popular and people are genuinely thrilled upon getting them, even though there are cheaper speakers out there that measure better and would probably even sound much better to these same people if they heard them.

So...does this mean that there is a conspiracy to push the HPM-100? Absolutely not. Nobody stands to profit except a few flippers. Pioneer certainly could care less, they've moved on to making $50,000 TAD speakers which, apparently, sound amazing for what it's worth (maybe not worth 50k).

So, if a speaker is hyped into having performance it can't back up, an there's no conspiracy, what has lead to it? It could be any number of things. Most likely its a complete lack of first hand experience and people sharing their opinion on it with no context for how it sounds in relation to what else is out there. Is the Zu even available in showrooms? It would surprise me if it was, because usually a speaker that is available for easy comparison with others, that sucks, fails miserably. Notice how Bose is always off in it's separate listening area. They NEVER allow their speakers to be auditioned next to others.
 
HPM-100 is a nostalgia trip from what I can see, there are all sort of routes to bad sound, that's certainly another one.
 
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