We love it when Sean Casey talks dirty. Success can kill a product in our small quadrant of the outer rim and that’s sorta what happened with the Zu Audio Dirty Weekend. Why did Zu have to pivot to something else considering the incredible amount of interest? Profitability. They became too expensive to make with not enough profit and that forced them to return to the drawing board.
Less than 10 months later, Casey and his talented team of designers based in Utah have come up with the newest iteration of the “Dirty Weekend” concept. Enter the Zu Audio DWX — which looks and feels even more enticing than the floorstanding loudspeaker that it has replaced. It is also rather affordable. The DWX start at $1,398 USD/pair; expect to pay more for different finishes and performance package upgrades. Upgrading to the walnut finish and Supreme upgrade package takes the price to $2,457 USD.
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap?
The Zu Audio DWX is a medium format monitor loudspeaker that shares all of the driver and internal components of the Dirty Weekend Six floor standing loudspeaker. The smaller cabinet size of DWX makes it more versatile in a way; one can use them as a stand mount, large bookshelf, low-slung floor standers, studio monitors, or even as a center channel loudspeaker.
In our experience, Zu’s monitor loudspeakers like the DWX make extremely capable center channel loudspeakers for those considering a 3.1 HT scenario.
The front-side port allows usage in confined spaces without degrading its performance.
DWX vs DW6 Size and Weight?
The DWX are rather large compared to some bookshelf loudspeakers and weigh almost 42 pounds.
Sound goals of DWX are essentially same as those of Dirty Weekend Six (DW6), in fact the drivers and internals are the same. DWX uses traditional bass reflex box/driver tuning and features a front-firing port. The front-side port allows for better timing of bass frequencies, it also allows DWX to be placed very near walls and in confined spaces without degrading performance due to port position. The large port size with radius flares keeps port turbulence to negligible levels.
Like most Zu loudspeakers, the DWX is efficient (95 dB-SPL @ 1W, 1m), broad-bandwidth (38 – 22k Hz, typical in-room response), has smooth off-axis transition, serves up a rather huge stereo image, is rugged and handsome; a loudspeaker that responds to your music with agility, precise timing and rich tone.
The original DW6 were tone mavens and we’re hoping that the DWX offer a very similar tonal balance.
The Zu DWX uses the same full-range driver as the older DW6; a 10-inch Zu260 full-range driver (FRD). This driver is a bit less less intense and utilizes an undercut/dynamically damped magnetics design; which means that it will sound smoother and slightly less aggressive than the older DW6 loudspeaker.
The crossover point between FRD and tweeter is 12kHz; which means that the full-range driver is covering almost 90% of the frequency range in this scenario.
Zu has also stepped up the finish level over the previous generation Omen speakers. Walnut and hickory are done to a finer/flatter surface finish, with interstage fine sanding between top coats, producing a deeper, more crafted looking wood finish.
Painted finishes are also cut to a flatter surface and also feature interstage sanding—results resemble monolithic fine-honed stone on the black satin.
Zu is also offering its Superfly (+$399) and Supreme (+$699) upgrade packages for the new DWX which includes higher graded drivers and tweeters, better quality capacitors in the tweeter’s high-pass network, upgraded internal wiring, and additional modifications.
Product Details
- Dimensions: 12 x 12 x 23 inches [30.5 x 30.5 x 58.5 cm]
- Weight: 42 pounds [19 kg]
- Packaged Weight: 50 pounds [23 kg]
- Packaged Dimensions: 17 x 18 x 28 inches [43 x 46 x 71 cm]
Shared Performance Specifications [DWX, DWX Superfly, DWX Supreme]
- Bandwidth: 38 – 22k Hz
- Sensitivity: 95 dB-SPL @ 2.8V, 1m
- Impedance: 12 ohm nominal full spectrum, 8 ohm baseline
- Wavefront: Virtual point source from 12k Hz and down
- Max SPL Program: 118 dB-Z (slow)
- Max Input Power: 200 W program
Amplifier Power Output Guidance
- 5 – 20 watts for low to moderate sound pressure levels
- 20 – 100 watts for moderate to very loud SPLs
- 100 – 500 watts for very loud to ear damagingly loud SPLs
Shared Build Specifications
- Full-Range Driver: Zu260FRD-ND
- 10” FRD paper/CNT cone neutral-hung 2” coil on paper/Kapton former
- Tweeter: Eminence ASD-1001
- High-Pass Network: single element mono pole filter
- Crossover: none, and no filter components on the full-range driver
- Cabinet: North American made composite wood, skinned with real wood veneer or epoxy composite
Price is for a matched pair. Select black or silver aluminum tweeter lens and driver trim ring during checkout (no up charge). Orders coming in today ship in 3 to 5 weeks depending on cabinet finish.
For more information: zuaudio.com/loudspeakers/dwx
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Mike Cornell
May 5, 2023 at 12:58 pm
From what I understand, the DWX is not replacing the DW6 but merely slotting under it in the lineup. As tone is very important to me, both are intriguing to me.
Charles Grashow
May 22, 2023 at 1:01 am
The price is per speaker NOT per pair
Ian White
May 22, 2023 at 10:40 am
Charles,
According to the Zu website, “Price is for a matched pair. Select black or silver aluminum tweeter lens and driver trim ring during checkout (no up charge). Orders coming in today ship in 3 to 5 weeks depending on cabinet finish.”
Perhaps they need to get their info correct.
Ian White