My best advice.

Hook em up again to MAKE SURE of your fears(of which I have no doubt are grounded in the truth), put all your AES stuff on Audiogon,  and get a proper preamp(Decware of course).

THE ZEN TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE!!!!    :D
Happy hunting,               Bill

Congrats on the scores.  You've got two of the Zen friendlier speakers to use with them.

As I recall, echo15's speakers are from David Ducks (change "u" to "i" as YABB won't allow a proper spelling) and do use Lowthers.

Opinions of these floorstanding bass reflex speakers that use either Lowther or Fostex FE206E drivers and of the developer vary widely.

I'll try to be nice and not share my opinion of David or his speakers, but more power to echo15 if he has managed to make them work for him.