Why and how we build Omen

By Sean Casey

The Omen is about making good music accessible. We wanted to build a speaker that made the quality of sound Zu is famous for but manufactured and sold in such volume that would make ownership (and real high fidelity rockin' house parties) possible for nearly anybody with a job. This has been a motivating goal ever since we founded Zu back in 2000.

Adam and I grew up just like most normal kids, having to save every dollar for that new skateboard, snowboard or second-hand dirt bike, while saving enough money for that new album that you just had to have—and in that transition from kid to adult, a good car and a good stereo were high priorities. But somewhere in the '90s good sounding stereos got high jacked by overpriced, under-performing "hi-fi" and complicated home theater nightmares. Omen is the realization of a dream, to put real high fidelity back in the homes of the majority, into the hands of people like us that have to split their play money between their lifestyle inside and their lifestyle outside.

When you look at Omen you can see a huge amount of value: Zu's legendary 10" full-range driver complete with machined from 1/4" billet aluminum trim ring, composite super-tweeter also featuring a machined from billet lens, real maple veneer finished on all sides, and cutting-edge Zu technology in the guts of the cabinet. Getting all this performance and sex appeal into the Omen requires a huge effort in process engineering, a kick ass crew that has no tolerance for errors and really leveraging economies of scale. Boiled down, Omen owns the thousand-dollar-per-pair market in build quality, great looks, and set you back on your heels performance.