ESSENCE BOOKSHELF
CABLE
Z U A U D I O
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Z U A U D I O
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Z U A U D I O
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] WWW.ZUAUDIO.COM
Z U A U D I O
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WIRE AND CABLE
The most common abuse in hi-fi is to use cable as a form of tone control. Doing so usually leads
to frustration and further loss of fidelity. When cable affects timbre it affects timing, phase,
frequency response, and so on. Avoid using cables as tone controls.
Timbre problems are usually solved with loudspeaker break-in and correct loudspeaker
placement. If the cable has good properties relative to phase, gain, group delay, impedance,
and bandwidth, it will likely convey with fidelity the transmitted emotion and color. As an aside,
avoid taking other people’s opinions on cable as gospel—just because a reviewer makes blanket
statements about cable “sound” means little relative to your rig and your ears. So trust your own
ears, they’re yours for a reason. Also, bear in mind that just because you had a good sound with
cable A on loudspeaker X does not mean that cable A will be a good system match for Essence
loudspeakers.
For best stereophonic imaging you should run matched pairs of left / right cable of the same
length. If tone is more your thing and stereophonic effect is not so important then length
matching of left / right channels is not critical.
While insulation, jacket materials, pigments, conductor shape, metallurgy and structure are
important (yep, they really are), all pale into insignificance compared to the influence of
electrostatic / electromagnetic forces, virtual ground plane, and conductor relational geometry.
It is the E&M model, or cable geometry, that largely determines a cable’s measured attributes.
Improvements that will be noticed from well engineered cables such as ours should include:
enhanced bass depth and resolution, lower system noise floor, richer harmonic structure and
timbre, faster attack, greater stereophonic accuracy and an overall ease of listening—simply a
lot closer to real and satisfying and a lot further from typical hi-fi animation. But this assumes
you are striving for the natural. Preferences in playback are just that, and individual enjoyment
really is the goal, and not some ideal of what playback should be. Yes you can strongly feel our
hepcat bias, but that’s just us—do what makes you happy, and hopefully it includes some Zu.
GRILLE
The grille on the Essence Bookshelf is designed to offer true protection for the drivers. Unlike
basic cloth grilles which are largely cosmetic; the aluminum grilles, with the ball and socket
fastening, look great and keep everything safe from all sorts of accidents. To put the grille on,
simply line up the pins with the sockets and press. To remove, unplug one socket corner at a
time. If the grille becomes bent simply reform it by hand and it’s good to go.
