Zu Druids

[Brap]

Thanks Joe!  In your set up, what is the room size and speaker placement please?

[jbtrio]

My new room is W 22.5',D 18.5', H 13'. They are spaced 10' apart from center of tweeter and 4' from front baffle to front wall.

I sit about 11' away.

[rollo]

My new room is W 22.5',D 18.5', H 13'. They are spaced 10' apart from center of tweeter and 4' from front baffle to front wall.

I sit about 11' away.

   Now that is a room. Did you move ?


charles

[jbtrio]

Yeah Charles,
I moved a few months ago!

[Brap]

Well, set up a temporary room in the basement. Moved the flat panel, ran conduit and now have an area where I'll have the speakers about 8 feet apart, 2 feet from front and side walls and listening position about 8-9 feet back.  Small but that's all I have for now. Found some of wife's 4' x 4' panels for her artwork that are covered in felt.  Have them set up as temporary "walls" in the corners and across the whole front wall. They extend about 4' along the long wall, then the area is open. Speakers and OTL being delivered today so potentially listening tonight!

[Brap]

Well, all arrived. Waiting for my OTL which will be back tomorrow. I really like these thus far.  Initial thoughts are "smack in your face" dynamics and surprisingly enough bass is there without a sub. 

Gear used is Oppo -105 to Transcendent Halo P5 via XLR,  Blue Jeans cable to the ST-70 and Libtec cables to the Druids. Had to go through on screen set-up on the Oppo. Lowest value for low end cut of was 40Hz but I have to see if this can be totally defeated since I am running without my sub for now. You can see from the picture that I have a make shift room set-up in our unfinished basement.  Listening area is 12' wide by  unlimited long and the listening area is about 13' away.  I found some panels my wife had for a display she had years ago that are covered in felt and fabric which I placed on the front wall to simulate a make shift room. Thought this would be better than the concrete walls. Floor is concrete and I have the Druids spaced up between 5/16" and 1/4".

Put in the Chesky Ultimate Demonstration disc.  Moved the speakers around a bit and have them about 9' apart with roughly 26" off the sides and front wall. Initially had them straight but now are toed in about 15 degrees. Good soundstage and going through the demo disc I was able to hear most all of the effects that are discussed on the disc. The  dynamics demos sound excellent especially the "transients" and "visceral impact" tracks.  The holographic track was not as what I imagined but this is all due to the room and more messing around with placement is needed.

Then Ray Brown Trio which I use as a master when auditioning speakers, sounded awesome. Very nice bass and the Gene Harris piano jumped out at me.  I am hoping that the OTL amp may be a bit quicker which I also expect from my comparisons of the ST-70  / OTL with my Klipsch Fortes.  Also the bass should be improved a bit too.

Can really appreciate good recordings and prefer Blu-Ray audio discs which is now on my Christmas list!.  Handel sounded wonderful and so did excerpts from Vivaldi. Vinyl is next on tap and then some Master vinyl I recorded on my Teac RTR. Last but not least will be I-tunes / cable box for Christmas background music.

Finish on these is gorgeous. I was afraid that with the amounts of cut / polished gloss layers they would appear "plastic" but this is not the case.  Installed some PAR 50's on a made up trak system to show their sparkle.

Will continue with the burn in process but thus far, they are what I imagined and remember from Axpona. Any suggestions you have to the above is appreciated!!!

[tmazz]

One suggestion I would have is to sit hack and just enjoy them for a couple of weeks. Anything you do to tweak them right now can just get changed and/or undone as the speakers go through the break in cycle. Just get them to the point where they sound decent and then sit back and listen for a while. This will do two things. One, it will give you a stable platform to work with once you do start to optimize them allowing you to know that any changes that occer were the cause of what you just did to them as oppsed to the break in process itself. And two, it will give to a chane to learn and become morefamiliar with the sound of the new speakers, which will make it easier to pick out he sonic changes as you eventually do start to optimized them.

And oh by the way, it is also fun to just kick back and and appriciate your latest aquisition.

One question for you - which Ray Brown album do you use as an audution tool?

[Brap]

Tmazz -- great suggestion just to kick back and start my "baseline". I use "Bassics" as my audition disc. "The Real Blues" and "That's All" are the main tracks.

[richidoo]

Brap, congrats. The speakers look beautiful and it's fun to hear your excitement.

To turn off the Oppo bass management (and the 40Hz rolloff) just change the speaker size from small to large. I would also change the subwoofer setting to off, and set the other surround speakers to off.

From the manual:

1. Size: The following speaker size parameters control bass filtering for the speakers.

     x Large – All audio content is passed to the appropriate speaker.

     x Small – All audio content, except for bass frequencies, is passed to the appropriate speaker.
The purpose is to reduce possible distortion. If a subwoofer is available, bass frequencies are redirected
to the subwoofer, otherwise, they are discarded. The bass frequency upper limit is set
by the Crossover Frequency selection in the Setup Menu (see page 73 for details).

     x Off – Speaker for the corresponding position does not exist. Audio for the missing speaker is
redirected to other speakers or discarded if redirection is not possible.

     x On (for Subwoofer only) – Specifies that a subwoofer is available.

[Brap]

Thanks Richidoo.  Did change them to large but probably did not pay attention to see if the 40hz I chose prior was no longer highlighted. I'll double check this evening and make sure (thought I did) turn sub to off.

[tmazz]

Tmazz -- great suggestion just to kick back and start my "baseline". I use "Bassics" as my audition disc. "The Real Blues" and "That's All" are the main tracks.

Damn, I searched the online library catalogs and there is not a single Library on Long Island or NYC that has that album.   

Looks like a good collection. I might have to break down and buy this one.

[Brap]

$17.00 on Amazon - 2 disc set.  Well worth it to bring along to friends homes too for comparison or if you are in the market to destroy some "salesmen's" opinions of speakers at B&M stores!!

[tmazz]

I already have a number of discs to do that with, but a few more never hurts. 

[Brap]

Well, the OTL amp and Druids are truly a wonderful combination. Soundstage is excellent but I still need to play with speaker placement a bit more. Decided to move them out a bit more to the side wall and will use this as my baseline.  Very fast, dynamic and plenty of juice for a 15 watt amp.  Going to be a excellent Holiday listening!   

[Brap]

Happy New Year to all.  Well, many hours of listening and I really like the set-up.  Cardas site had a nice write up on speaker placement and using that along with the Chesky Ultimate demo disc, I have things pretty well placed in my make shift room.  Extended family really enjoyed the music. Eagles Farwell Tour 1 is most excellent. Kick drums really jump  :yay2:and the system is very fast and dynamic.  Decided to add a sub for movies just for a bit more thump. DONT NEED any surround speakers at all. Teac 3340S got a work out with recording some nice blues / jazz too. Upgraded to a Rega RP3 and vinyl never sounded so good. Thanks for all your help and wisdom. Ever in the western suburbs of Chicago, love to give your ears a test ride for your thoughts. Cold ones on me