Did you ever wish for a speaker with the immediacy of a single driver, the physicality of a multi-way, and the low end wallop of a powered sub? The Zu Definition 6 comes strikingly close to delivering just that.
One reason for the Definition 6’s single driver sound is those two proprietary 10” drivers sitting MTM style over and under the Eminence N151M super tweeter are run full range, and hand off the low end to the powered Eminence LAB-12 subwoofer at around 35Hz. And that sub extends the bottom end down to a Barn rattling 24Hz.
Those 10” drivers rely on an interesting scheme to allow the internal energy generated by those 10” drivers to escape the cabinet through a series of 8 equally-sized slots in the back of the cabinet that’s covered by 29” long (black) board, leaving a small gap between it and those slots, that do not function like a typical port.
From Zu:
Completely new are the cabinet construction and first application of the Griewe driver-to-room acoustic impedance adaptive scheme in a Definition loudspeaker. Cabinet construction will borrow from the engineering investment in Soul 6, using a stiff, relatively lightweight internal superstructure to manage energy dissipation and thwart cabinet talk with less bulk than in Definitions past. Definition 6 is significantly lighter than Definition 4.
All prior Definitions have been sealed box speakers, with powered subwoofer sections. The subwoofer reappears, of course, but for the first time, a version of the Griewe scheme used in every other Zu floorstanding speaker will be applied to each of the two full-range drivers in Definition 6. We’ve engineered an innovative new way to implement Griewe so that the acoustic impedance adaptive interface is via the rear of the speaker, rather than floor-facing. And we’ve incorporated an internal “Griewe Gap” adjustment. Incorporating Griewe in Definition 6 means that the Zu full-range drivers will have useful response down to 35 Hz, so the subwoofer can more precisely be assigned its true, specialty task.
Each speaker’s subwoofer can be optimized for in-room response using the rear mounted controls that include Volume, Low-Pass (Hz), PEQ (“Parametric EQ”) Gain (dB), PEQ Frequency (Hz), and Phase. I did fiddle with these knobs but ended up finding a set it and forget it setting. I’ve seen what the temptation looks like to jump up and adjust sub settings per track!, and it’s not a pretty sight. I also like my bass to sound like the things that make it while feeling part of the rest of the music and I had no problem dialing in this type of performance from the Definition 6. And while we’re here, I spent real time getting the Zu’s singing at their best in Barn through careful speaker positioning. I cannot overstate the importance of speaker position as one of the most effective (and free) system tweaks.
The Zu Definition 6 is a large speaker, standing 54” tall, and the black drivers and surrounds stand in stark contrast to the review pair’s upgraded Mirror Gloss White finish and I have the feeling those looks may give some people a sense of their sonics (without ever having heard them). And I just want to say, don’t judge a speaker by its cover. I understand this gloss finish is very time consuming, “show-level hotrod quality and require about two months of labor and curing”, and it’s a costly upgrade at $10k. Of course this is what we in the industry call “a Choice” and based on photos alone, I’d be inclined to go with the standard Black Dye Okoume. Your taste, and budget, may vary.
My initial plan was to try a number of different amps with the Zu, and I did listen to the recently reviewed Octave V16 for some time and the V 16’s 8 Watts offered plenty of power, but once I leashed my Leben CS600 to ‘em, all bets were off as this combination made me smile such a big smile my ears hurt. This is one those speaker/amp pairings that brought out the best of both, which to my mind meant they placed 100% of my attention on the music and nothing but the music with as much thrills and chills as I’ve had the pleasure to listen through during the Definition 6’s 2 and half month Barn stay. And I want to stress that during this time, I put a lot of hours on the Zu and it was only after about 3 weeks that I heard a relaxing of their sound, a slight ease in and around the midrange that I’d attribute to those 10” drivers fully breaking in. You could say I broke in and the speakers remained the same if that makes you happy.
Front end duties came courtesy of the Barn resident Auralic ARIES G1.1 (review) feeding the totaldac d1-unity (review) as well as the review Technics SL-G700M2 Network/SACD Player (review) and the Ayre CX-8 CD Player (more info). The Definition 6’s powered subs were plugged into an AudioQuest PowerQuest power conditioner (full system details).
I’ve been enjoying A.A. Williams’ Songs From Isolation, a lovely quiet collection of covers. So much so, that I’ve been digging into her other records and 2022’s As The Moon Rests with its gothic metal grunt has fit nicely with my aural desires of late. Nearly anthemic in scale, Songs From Isolation keeps Williams vocals in front of power guitar, strings, and mayhem and this is one of the Zu Definition 6’s standout qualities—recreating a fully formed, perfectly sculpted singer standing in the Barn in vivid, dramatic relief.
This is where the single driver quality comes into play, which I spent some years focusing on many moons ago, reviewing and writing about Lamhorns, Carfrae Little Big Horns, Auditorium 23 SoloVox, Cain & Cain Abby, and more. A single-driver speaker’s ability to carve out the human voice in room can be entirely captivating and addictive, I owned a few of the speakers listed, but the rub with many is their (in)ability to bring the rest of the frequency range to the table in as convincing a manner. While the Definition 6 are not single driver speakers, one look is all you need to know, and they do offer full-range performance to boot, their way with the human voice is as captivating as I’ve heard. Reach out and touch it real.
Of course this finely materialized quality isn’t restricted to the human voice. Recently deceased, much too young, trumpeter Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)), released on International Anthem on August 25th of this year, is rich, fertile fierce music that defies genre-fication. This is deeply groovy music, infectious as fuck and impossible to sit still through. Here, the Zu Definition 6’s full range of qualities came into full display, and delight, lighting up the Barn with exotic sounds, Caribbean-inspired time, and Branch & Co.’s free, oh so free, singing. There’s a number of acoustic instruments on display throughout Fly or Die and the Definition 6 reproduced the full voice and force of trumpet, trombone, flute, cello, double bass and more with finely realized clarity and color.
Turned up loud with the lights out, the Barn became exotic and unfamiliar, as if the music coming through the Zu had transformed the space itself into something much more vast and dangerous. The Definition 6 disappear as music’s source with ease, and throw out a sound image as large, lush, believable and boundless as music itself.
Early on in my Definition 6 time, I heard some hardness in the midrange, what felt like an over-emphasis that gave some frequencies more prominence than they deserved. This was apparent on Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold As Love, a record I know so well I wear it like a tattoo, where Jimi’s guitar on “If 6 Was 9” (that’s the tattoo) jumped into the Barn with extra force. Then, over time, two things happened—I moved the Definition 6 into their rightful place in Barn, a matter of inches but very important inches, and the aforementioned break-in occurred. Once properly placed with the correct amount of toe-in for my taste and their comparatively more relaxed sound, Jimi and his guitar, Noel, and Mitch were back together. I bring this up, once again, to highlight the importance of time spent and proper placement. If I had written this review after just a week or so of listening, my conclusions would have been very different from what they are now, and I dare say not representative of what the Zu Definition 6 can do.
I got tuned in and turned on to Hendrix way back in high school by a friend, someone I still hang out with who wears the bird from Crash Landing as a tattoo he got while stationed in the Philippines. Back then, there was no internet so he asked me to send him a watercolor of that bird for the tattoo artist to work from. While his Hendrix bird has faded over time, my connection to Hendrix’s music is as strong as ever so it means a lot to me, a lot, to be able to get fully lost in Axis: Bold As Love as loud as I care to go and the Zu Definition 6 do loud proud while never sounded congested, confused, or the least bit muddy.
Jesca Hoop’s Memories Are Now from 2017 is a study in the unexpected, with traces of folk lining these adventurous delightful songs.
From the liner notes:
The defiance that permeates Memories Are Now is both a product and necessity of a career that has been independently driven and self-funded from the beginning. “All of my successes have been won by the bootstraps, on the grassroots level, with handshakes and hugs from great people who believe in me,” says Hoop, more than a decade into her career and with new paths to forge. As she sings in the title track, “I’ve lived enough life, I’ve earned my stripes. That’s my knife in the ground, this is mine.”
Plucked strings bounced out into the Barn with startling buoyancy, strange sounds flickered with life-like clarity (is that a typewrite?), bass grounds and pounded out the layered rhythms, with Hoop’s sprightly vocals living and breathing in space with nearly eerie weight and dimension. This is the kind of reproduction, from the Zu/Leben/Auralic/totaldac system that opens the door to the complete musical picture as wide as I’ve had the pleasure to enter. All handshakes and hugs.
I have a secret to share—before I begin writing a review, I think about what I’m going to write and I don’t start until I feel I know the thing under review well enough to do it justice. Well enough to be confident in its sound and of greater importance how deeply that sound connects me to music, all manner of music, over weeks and weeks of time. Day and night, night and day. It’s not a hard job, but someone’s got to do it. With the Definition 6, that connection only happened after the aforementioned weeks of time when everything settled into place.
And I can tell you that the Zu Definition 6 are wholly captivating in every way I want a loudspeaker to be, offering a sense of reach out and touch it intimacy, stunning clarity that recreates the human voice in seemingly material form, the speed and slam one expects from a high(er) efficiency speaker, and the power, force and low end reach of a true full range speaker. I’ve been tasting the speakers from Utah’s Zu Audio for more than a decade at hifi shows and always came away thinking. . .more. Spending real time living with and listening through the Zu Definition 6 proved to be intoxicating and spellbinding with unrestrained music as elixir. Bravo!
Zu Audio Definition 6 Loudspeakers
Price: starts at $25,000/pair in standard finish, review pair +$10,000/pair in Mirror Gloss White (see the Zu website for other options)
Company Website: Zu Audio
