Meet Adrianne and Eel. They're going to give us a tour of their sound setup for CNET's Show Us Yours series. This tour has been put together by Steve Guttenberg, CNET's Audiophiliac columnist.
Adrianne is a musician and Eel is an audiophile and an avid collector of Zu Audio speakers. That's an understatement, he currently has 11 pairs of Zus! Eel's audiophile journey started with a single pair of Zu Druid MKIV speakers back in 2008, which he still has. His small New York City apartment in Chinatown is packed with really interesting audio (and non-audio) gear.
Hey, some guys collect Corvettes or guns, Eel collects Zu speakers because he really likes the sound and the company!
The small gray ones on the upper left are the Druid Credenzas. The one on the right is the Omen Def. The matte red one on the lower left is the Soul Mk II.
From the top to the bottom, a Bent Audio Tap X preamp, a Musical Fidelity A1 integrated amp from around 2008, Modwright SWL 9.0 SE preamp and Wyred 4 Sound amps -- one is a ST-250 and the other is a ST-500. At the bottom of the stack is a Musical Fidelity A5 CD player.
This stack has a pair of First Watt active speaker crossover networks sitting on a PS Audio NuWave phono preamplifier. Asking Eel why he has so much audio, he says, "That's just the kind of guy I am, I was the same way with cars."
The Zu Essence speakers looked a little lonely sitting over there, away from the other Zus. Eel didn't have all 11 pairs in the apartment, some are loaned out to his sisters.
The Linear Tube Audio MicroZOTL tube headphone amp can also be used as a stereo preamplifier. Eel also has the a ZOLT power amp. He has a lot of gear, but he goes though long periods without buying anything, and then in one month he'll splurge.
