I put them together and placed them in the same location where my Orpheus were positioned. First thing, the photographs on the Daedalus site do not represent the true size of these speakers. They are massive. After I put them together I just sat on the couch and looked at them and thought "Geez, what did I do?", lol. And like everything else Daedalus, they look better in person.
For break-in, I use the REL subwoofer break-in method first, I took care of that yesterday. After that I ran the Nordost Speaker break-in track at normal listening levels for a few hours.
Last night I moved them closer to the sidewalls and increased toe-in until the tweeters were firing at my shoulders (Photo is of original placement). After a couple weeks, I will go back to speaker positioning with the Master Set method. After listening last night, I think I am in the ballpark.
- First thing I noticed was not the bass, compared to the Orpheus but the highs and mid-range. There is much more resolution. This was really the goal of this change. Keep the naturalness of the Orpheus but increase resolution. Imaging has improved as well. If you have an older pair of Daedalus, send them in for the new tweeters and mid-range (new 2021 mid-range). For the cost, no brainer.
- Still need to work with the subs but I prefer them with the Zeus. Although I feel the Zeus goes low the BOWs add that kick to the kick drum. I A/B'd with and without and every time appreciated what the BOWs do. I need to take measurements too. The BOW crossover is set to 50Hz?, which paired perfectly with the Orpheus. Since the Zeus go lower I want to measure to see how much overlap is there. May have to look at getting the crossover modified for a lower value.
- They seem to be quite a bit more sensitive than my Orpheus. Although the specs are within 1 db/m, I am running 2.5db more attenuation to achieve my normal listening volumes. This makes me more comfortable for my inevitable move back to SET amps. Lamm ML2.x?
- I will post more critical listening thoughts after full break-in and setup. So far, there is a ton of potential.
Still a lot more work to do but having fun.