Review: Zeta Zero Venus Picolla

 Structure 

  All Zeta loudspeakers look similar in their outside appearance and all of them were based on the same technical solution. At the top there is a triple ribbon loudspeaker section designed and manufactured by the same company and only for its own usage, at the bottom there is a single subwoofer being a remastered and improved version  by an outside manufacterer. Its membrane is made of carbon fiber. As a result every Zeta is narrower and slimmer in the upper part, and wider at the bottom, which, along with a slight narrowing in the middle, gives them a sensual, feminine shape, subconsciously stimulating your imagination.

It finds its reflection in the name itself, for it was called Venus, directly relating to a woman’s beauty captured by paleolitical sculptors. In this reference to the human bodily beauty not only shape of the sillouette matters, but also the fact that the whole case is free from any sharp edges, it gently angles from one surface to another. According to the producer it is also supposed to remind one of the shape of musical instruments, and what is most important, the way the sound spreads on objects, which is more pleasurable for the listener while being free from any interference and difractions of parallel surfaces and sharp drops.

From the finishing point of view, the manufacturing work is a masterpiece and its polish finishing fulfills all demands. It allows its owner to submerse into luxury in its highest form. No MDF or plywood were used. All cases are made from multiple layers of solid wood connected with screws and glue, where the former ones are screwed under specific angle and the latter was of a very special kind. Just like in the old days, the ship makers making ships, similarly nowadays carpenters working for Zeta have to provide the wooden structure with a smooth shape through proper profiling and careful matching of connecting surfaces, as to make it freely move through the waves. In the first example meaning sea waves and in the second, sound waves.

Consequently the process of making cases is very time consuming taking into consideration the fact that wood needs to be seasoned and the polish has to properly dry. All of that is ensured by a special carpenter shop while  Tomasz focuses strictly on the loudspeakers themselves. He has been focusing on them for the last ten years, as it is the length of time that was needed for research and developmental stage of the Zeta program. Loudspeakers obtained as a result of that, are even more extraordinary than their cases, making them one of a kind. Triple section of ribbon converters covering the whole band above the lowest tones is entirely Zeta’s solution, which no one else has ever been able to obtain so far, and the company itself, despite very lucrative offers has not agreed to share its patents to anyone. There is some very advanced technology behind the project, and it is based on vacuum generating of composites, being many times stronger than aluminium, from which usually ribbon membranes are made. Using the ribbons themselves is not in any case coincidental, for they are considered to be the fastest in sending impulses and almost entirely free from any acoustic disproportions out of all models of loudspeaker’s membranes. Thanks to the proper material technology Zeta’s ribbons are also very resistant to any damage both mechanical, and thermal, so that their future owner does not have to worry about their accidental damage by applying too strong of a signal or some kind components’ failure. In addition to that the user also gets an unusual acoustic converter, the only one of such kind in the world, which allows for obtaining the widest ever spectrum free from distortions. The extent of advancement of this triple channel ribbon loudspeaker can be supported by the fact that it consists of over five hundred elements, among which one can find those being worldly unique, and a product manufactured in a high vacuum conditions of a space technology kind. The completion of  ribbons is a single high force subwoofer, which is capable of carrying the lowest frequencies with high effectiveness and a proper power. Only in the most advanced structure of the Edition model it is accompanied by an extra middletone loudspeaker.

It is a curious and an interesting fact that the loudspeakers, similarly to a passenger or an army plane are equipped with their own black boxes which register their parameters of work, thus allowing to read the conditions in which they were used. What is more, they also have active cooling systems and anti overload protection, putting it in brief, it would be very hard to damage them without an axe or a chainsaw. The producer himself foresaw, that they would require their own amplifiers of nominal strength as high as 5 kW (provided that two monoblocks are used per each channel). To sum it up, it is sooner that your house electrical instal will be damaged than the loudspeaker itself. On top of all those advantages there is also a smooth high tone adjustment nob hidden in the bass reflex channel, and it allows to tune them accordingly to induvidual tastes, or connecting in a bi-wiring way, which is known to be better than the standard one. As if that was not enough the company offers their own loudspeaker cables as an addition to the loudspeakers themselves. Cables, which consist of over eight thousand twisted silver wires. And, it is given free of charge.

The Venus Series includes three models each of whom is manufactured in four different finishings – Mahogany, Sand of Sahara, Black, and Transparent. Models differ in shape of the lower part and the position of a subwoofer in case of the highest model Edition, with a different strength and, as I have mentioned before, additionally supported by a middletone loudspeaker.