armstdav
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Earthbound,
I own Zu Druid Vs, which have the same drivers as your Soul Supremes in a different box. I also own a pair of home built (by 4krow) DNAs, which I'll talk about in a bit.
I ran the Druids for almost a year with a Torii Mk IV. They started out bright for me too, but I was able to dial things in by making a few changes.
The biggest change was toeing them out so they triangulated to a point about 4 feet behind my listening chair. Remember that the Zus cross over at 12 khz, so the Radian functions mostly as a supertweeter; 90% or more of what you're hearing is coming from the FRD. In the range where you're hearing ringing, most of the energy is coming from the whizzer cone which is definitely subject to beaming. If you have them aimed directly at your ears, they will almost always overload the midrange. Pointing them behind your chair puts them enough off axis to take the edge off, while still sounding great to my ears.
Second biggest change was running KT66s in my Torii. I tried EL34s, 6550s, KT88s, and KT77s and the 66s had just the right tonal balance for the Druids. Input tube rolling made less of a difference, although I ended up with 6SN7s and adapters, mostly because I have a big stash of 6SN7s.
Third in importance was speaker cables. I found the Zus pretty bright with all amps using generic cables or my Speltz Anti-cables. They were much better after I lucked into an affordable pair of Zu Libtec cables, which I believe are roughly equivalent to their current Event cables.
Fourth was using 25 ohm parallel resistors to bring the nominal impedance of the Zus down to 8 ohms. Zu sells them but I bought them online way cheaper. I found the Torii very much preferred seeing an 8 ohm load; with other amps it didn't always make a difference.
About the DNAs: I love them and ran them for a long while in my second system, but they just didn't have the extension at either end of the frequency spectrum to match the Druids. They definitely wouldn't qualify as bright, though. I just didn't like them nearly as much as the Zus for my main system.
One other speaker to consider: the DNAs in my second system ended up being replaced by a pair of Caintuck Lii 15s. They have many of the traits I love about the Zus while not not taking up as much space and not being bright with any amp or any placement. I tried them in the main rig and still didn't like them as much as the Zus, but I'm guessing Steve's Zen Masters with the bigger baffle may come even closer. Definitely worth consideration.
Bottom line, before you dump the Zus I would recommend trying all the above, or even call Zu and talk to Sean Casey. He's as accessible, knowledgable, and personable as Steve, has vast experience, and will be completely honest about his own products and others.
The reason I've owned Decware, Zu, Don Sachs, Modwright, Caintuck, George Wright, Hagerman, Atma-sphere and others is because you can talk directly to the designers/owners. Their collective wisdom and experience has been invaluable in my audio journey.
David
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