So a little PSA for tube amp owners specifically using and or thinking about using ZU speakers. My PL has an 8 and 4 ohm tap for speakers, I recently picked up a set of Omen DW's from ZU's deal page, these particular DW's had an upgrade to the Druid Mk.IV Drivers. Knowing that the ZU's in general take a little time to run in properly and positioning is a bit of a trial and error to get them just right, I didn't panic (too much) that the sound was good, but not great at first.
Through all that, I could get the sound "better" but not completely to my liking, I had some sibilance issues as well as the sound being a little harsh/bright at times, but again, my mind set was to let everything just simmer in a while. I did reach out to the ZU Crew to get their take on the matter and they did explain that some tube amps are a bit finicky with the ZU's and prefer to work closer to the amps speaker ratings. The Druid drivers put my speakers at 16 ohms (DWs usually at 12), which in general, shouldn't be an issue with most amps according to ZU, but ZU does offer a solution.
ZU offers Load Resistors in a few "sizes" to basically plug and play your speakers down to a different ohm value. They recommended using a set of these resistors to bring the Druid drivers closer to 8 ohms (ends up at 7.7). Got them in the mail, installed them in literally 2 minutes and let the amp warm up for a little. You can find the resistor conversion chart at the bottom of
this page if your interested.
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These resistors were like Viagra for my system, cleaned up all the sibilance, harshness and even dug deeper into the low end. Very relieved it was a simple fix and kudos to the ZU Crew for getting back to me and taking my specific set up into consideration when offering a solution. I gotta admit I was starting to panic a little, you put so much into a system and then hear it going the wrong direction when adding quality upgrades can get nerve racking.
So all is well in the world, I can now really hear what the ZU's have to offer, we're probably going to join the Gold V3 group in the near future, I think the Gold's sound characteristics will round off the sound on my system nicely.
So again, just a PSA in case anyone happens into this dilemma