Translations:

Music constantly changes from being very soft to very loud, from loud to a little louder or quieter and all combinations in between.

When a single musician, such as a pianist hits one key harder or softer than the previous key it is a deliberate choice and an essential part of the music making. These are known as dynamic contrasts.

If an audio system cannot track these dynamic swings, the intent of the music is lost. The system may be making a pleasant noise that reminds you of music; but the meaning of the music as composed or improvised by the musician will not be conveyed. As a music lover you may well already be familiar with such terms as ‘Pianoforte’ and ‘Pianissimo’.

In Audio we speak about Macro and Micro Dynamic contrasts. They are as important to music as contrast is to photography.

The differences between light and dark are how all the details are expressed in a photograph. If you have a computer with software for altering digital photographs, try turning the contrast level down on a favorite photograph with lots of detail. As you watch the details disappearing reflect on how your HiFi system could be doing the same thing to the music on every disc you play. Unless it can capture all the dynamic contrasts.

Zu Speakers are champions at conveying dynamic contrasts. They allow you to hear those initial loud transients, when a percussion instrument is struck or a guitar string plucked as well as the decay as these sounds and their secondary harmonics gradually fade out. ‘Speed, Immediacy and lightning fast reflexes are qualities Zu speakers have in spades’.

Their ‘Druid MKIV’ became an instant classic after its review by Srajan Ebean, the editor of 6Moons, who bestowed on it their highest ‘blue moon’ award.

This ‘edge of the seat’ excitement is in large part due to the custom wide bandwidth drivers that Zu designers Sean Casey and Adam Decaria employ. Yet despite its diminutive and domestically acceptable size of only 28cm x 16cm x 127cm WxDxH, the Druid can reach down to as low as 40hz in the bass without any loss of output. Which means it is wide-bandwidth enough for most music.

If you are a fan of music that reaches lower than that, Zu have the answer in their matching ‘Method’ subwoofer. Speakers which are so fast, immediate and dynamic can lack tonal warmth. The biggest surprise for Srajan though was how ‘gutsy, fleshy and full-bodied the Zu’s are’.

Their tonal warmth also allows them to correctly reproduce the natural timbre of musical instruments.

Zu speakers also incorporate a super tweeter which handles all frequencies above 12khz, so you certainly won’t be missing anything in the high frequencies either.

As if their achievements in speaker design weren’t enough, Zu also make some of the finest cables currently available, which have additionally been highly praised in 6Moons and elsewhere. In fact their own speaker cables are connected directly to the Zu Druid drivers for the purest speaker cable connection possible. Visit Zu