Method Sub

from $1,449.00

Price is for one.

Order-to-Ship Time [updated October 24th]
black satin - 2 weeks
white satin - 2 weeks
Nextel olive - 2 weeks
Nextel brown - 2 weeks
mercury orange - 3 weeks
rustic hickory - 3 weeks
ruby red hickory - 4 weeks
electric blue hickory - 4 weeks
American walnut - 4 weeks
Other finish - 5+ weeks (sky’s the limit on finishes, email for detail and quote)

Method Subwoofer is rooted in Zu’s interpretation of what a home high fidelity sub needs in order to recreate realistic and musical subcontrabass up through and including mid-bass, bass. Agility, clarity, wide linear bandwidth, able to play complex overtones and cliff-edge transient without dirting out or sliding into one note, brown note territory.

Go ahead, feed it bass signal that looks like Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains and what you get sounds as big, dramatic and craggy. Feed it noise and expect Zen, Ligeti’s Requiem and confront your mortality, Violent Femmes and hear the genius you’ve been missing. But it’s not all dramatic light and shadow all the time, for the same reason Method Sub can bridge foundational tone and harmonic rhythm it can easily tease out the feather on the fuzz. Method Sub makes realizing The Big Note possible.

Color:

Price is for one.

Order-to-Ship Time [updated October 24th]
black satin - 2 weeks
white satin - 2 weeks
Nextel olive - 2 weeks
Nextel brown - 2 weeks
mercury orange - 3 weeks
rustic hickory - 3 weeks
ruby red hickory - 4 weeks
electric blue hickory - 4 weeks
American walnut - 4 weeks
Other finish - 5+ weeks (sky’s the limit on finishes, email for detail and quote)

Method Subwoofer is rooted in Zu’s interpretation of what a home high fidelity sub needs in order to recreate realistic and musical subcontrabass up through and including mid-bass, bass. Agility, clarity, wide linear bandwidth, able to play complex overtones and cliff-edge transient without dirting out or sliding into one note, brown note territory.

Go ahead, feed it bass signal that looks like Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains and what you get sounds as big, dramatic and craggy. Feed it noise and expect Zen, Ligeti’s Requiem and confront your mortality, Violent Femmes and hear the genius you’ve been missing. But it’s not all dramatic light and shadow all the time, for the same reason Method Sub can bridge foundational tone and harmonic rhythm it can easily tease out the feather on the fuzz. Method Sub makes realizing The Big Note possible.

Expectations

Zu Method Sub is not the last word for massive pipe organ realism, in fact it falls several clicks short. The intensity and volume of subcontrabass pipe organ notes are simply not part of Method’s design profile. There are home hi-fi subs that can do this, our Undertone and Submission are in that short list. But where most subs stumble and fall is in the transitional region from deep bass to power bass—it’s in the transition and gradients, that’s where Method Sub lives and breaths.

While Method Subwoofer isn’t amazing at full-scale pipes, it will reclaim the foundations of tone and rhythm for the vast majority of recordings within systems that are bass shy. The necessary agility and precision are there in Method Sub to seamlessly integrate with your low-frequency limited monitor/stand-mount/bookshelf or high efficiency less-than-huge floor-standing loudspeakers. In such systems, where the focus is on bursty tone and mid-bass through treble resolution and timing, increased body is generally needed. Without this foundational bass to work against, the balance of the music gets a bit lost. Bursty enabled subs such as Method get you convincingly into the big bodied notes as well as the stage and venue, providing the ground and footing for your sound—this is the domain of Method Sub.

Reviews

First review is in the works: Srajan @ 6moons [production unit ships out Monday]: https://6moons.com/audioreview_articles/zu-method/

6moons’ review of the original Method Sub [2005]: https://6moons.com/audioreviews/zu3/method.html [see footnote 1]

Quick Details

Method Sub is a powered subwoofer system featuring Hypex Fusion amplification and an Eminence Delta-15LFA fifteen inch driver. It is housed in a sealed cabinet made from MDF-type composite and features significant internal reinforcement. Grille is easily removable and attached magnetically. Footer inserts are machined from brass and use 3/8–16 threads.

Most modern hi-fi subs are bloated and slow, making integration with agile and dynamically uninhibited systems a challenge. The preset filters (P1, P2 and P3) are designed to integrate with agility-preferenced systems, Zu Method Bookshelf based rigs being the reference the filters are built on.

Warranty
Five years on cabinet and finish
Five years on driver serviced through Zu Audio (DIY replaceable)
Lifetime on included cable
Two-years on Hypex Fusion amp serviced through Zu Audio (DIY replaceable)

Included In Box
1x Zu Audio Method Sub Mk.III powered subwoofer
4x stainless steel low profile oval-end footers and jam nuts (installed)
5x felt pads with pressure sensitive adhesive (use when on hard surface flooring)
1x Zu Option-PC power cable, 5ft [1.5m] length
1x Zu speaker-level two-channel signal cable, 8ft [2.5m] length

Mains Power
Universal (110 - 250 V, 50~60 Hz)

Signal Inputs
2x channel (left & right summing) RCA-type line-level
1x XLR-type Line-Level
2x channel (left & right summing) speaker-level via:
4-position “Phoenix” terminal block plug w/ 0.197” (5.0mm) pitch

Volume Control
Volume knob on face of amplifier

Signal Processing & Filters
3x preset filters: P1, P2, P3 - button selectable on face of amplifier
Fully user definable via PC laptop and Hypex Filter Design software [link]

Acoustic
Maximum system SPL w/o appreciable distortion @ 20 Hz = 95 dB-SPL
Raw system bandwidth 15–3k Hz
Group delay pre-filters < 5 ms

Physical Dimensions
Cabinet Size: 19 x 16 x 12.5 inches [48.3 x 40.7 x 31.5 cm]
Cabinet Weight: 36 pounds [16.4 kg]

Shipping Size: 25.5 x 21 x 17.5 [66 x 53.5 x 44.5 cm]
Shipping Weight: 44 pounds [20 kg]

Place of Origin
 Cabinet: Ogden, Utah - USA
Finish: Ogden, Utah - USA
Driver: Eminence, Kentucky - USA
Assembly: Ogden, Utah - USA
Amplification: Netherlands, global materials, assembled in Malaysia
Packaging: Utah - USA

  1. Zu’s first Method Sub launched back in 2005 and featured twin short-throw lightweight front-firing 15” drivers. In those days we lived in the workshop, we thought all audio freaks did, or a barn, at least a big basement. Now we know only a few live is such places and space is at a premium, so with Method Sub Mk.III we use just one fifteen inch driver.