Zu Audio is a consumer tech brand founded in Ogden, Utah, in 2000.
The tweeter in Zu Audio's Druid V weighs 15 pounds, according to Positive Feedback's 2014 review. It is the part that plays the high notes. Zu makes its speakers in Ogden, where it incorporated in 2000 after Sean Casey spent twenty years chasing a sound. A decade with hundreds of drivers had talked him out of the smooth frequency graphs he trusted in his twenties.
His answer was a high-efficiency full-range driver centered on the human voice and built on 1930s RCA work, much of it by Harry Olson. Zu pairs it with bass loading Casey developed with Ron Griewe in the 1990s. Zu says the first Druid, in 2001, coupled straight to the amplifier with no crossover.
Casey has said big audio dealers would never gamble on an unfunded startup, so Zu sold direct. "Zu was an old school, punk rock band from the beginning," he says on Zu's site. Non-custom passive speakers carry a five-year warranty. Zu refunds returns within 60 days, though custom colors typically get 80 percent back.
The Method Bookshelf starts at $719 and the Definition 6 at $27,000. Zu builds both in Ogden, the city its site credits with raising the band.
Zu's own archive notes that versions III through V of its Soul loudspeaker were never built, and the line went straight to the Soul 6.
