This post is no longer a placeholder. Our new Zu Druid Mk5 speakers finally arrived in early March of 2013. We have them fully burned in, set up and ready to listen, for clients from as near as Seattle or as far as Vancouver, Portland or Idaho. Zu Audio designs and manufactures brilliant speakers, with enough bass to do Black Sabbath and enough finesse to do Vivaldi. You won’t encounter many speakers that can do both, which is why we chose the Druids as our reference. We’re very proud to offer Zu Audio products as one of 5 Zu dealers in the USA. Call our toll free number to come by and listen to these amazing creations.
These have the black matte finish upgrade, which I think looks really cool and has slightly better damping properties than a wood finish. For clients who are on the fence about what finish to go with, I recommend going with the stock veneer cabinets (which are very attractive) if you’re really focused on controlling the budget and consider the upgrades if you have the money to spend and you have to have that finish.
The Duelund cap upgrade presents the same question as the finish. Because of the high demand for the Duelund and the company’s limited production capacity took a few extra months to deliver our speakers and they’re not cheap. However, with this newest generation of Zu speakers the tweeter is playing a much larger role in the sound (I’d say 40-50% of the sound). My feeling is that when spending this kind of money on a pair of Druids or even more on the Definitions it makes sense to reach for the pinnacle of performance. We do offer a DIY kit from Zu for the caps if you decide to add them down the road, but it takes some doing to remove and replace the main drivers.
http://6moons.com/audioreviews/zu20/1.html