Zu Libtec, despite its humble size, is a high conductance loudspeaker cable designed to compliment all hi-fi and studio loudspeaker/amplifier applications. It excels in match ups as diverse as very low power vacuum tube/very high efficiency loudspeaker pairings as well as ultra power hungry high current combinations. Libtec has a very linear and uniform tone response and will not hide problems in a system, yet will not introduce or reveal unwanted character either. If you like the sound and timbre of your system, but you are looking for increased top to bottom resolution with improved stereophonic recreation and possibly increased dynamics and texture, Libtec is your solution.
Production: 2003–current
Manufacturer: Zu Audio, Ogden, Utah, USA
Archetype: ZuB3
Metallurgy: pure copper & silver
Dielectric: PE/Teflon/air/Cu/carbon/PET
Conducting Area: 11 AWG [4.1 mm2] (each charge, balanced)
Rs: 0.04 Ω
Cp: 500 pF
Ls: 2500 pH
RoHS: compliment
Libtec was our second loudspeaker cable to feature our ZuB3™ E&M cable design; the first was Wax which was introduced a year or so prior, back in 2001. Wax was an all copper conductor design and didn’t use any exotic insulation materials. With Libtec we wanted to reduce noise and improve bandwidth and linearity of capacitive and inductive reactance which were realized with further revisions to the conductive circuits characteristic impedance as well as dielectrics.
Q: How about the name Libtec, where did that come from?
A: Libtec is a compound of Liberace and technology—a clever way to say you are really good at making stuff with your hands. We love the expression, it resonates with us, still does. Back in those early days our cable machine was primitive, plywood and bent steel, and required more human power and elbow grease than electricity. Liberace technology was not coined by us, we stole it from Mike Olson, founder of Mervin Manufacturing (Lib Tech & Gnu snowboards). Not sure if Mike coined it but it’s a great name.
Libtec is Zu’s only cable to have been manufactured in all locations: Sean’s garage, The Historic Ogden Kiesel Building, the Old Ogden Post Office, Zu Plant Nº 1 and now Zu Plant Nº 2, both in the Ogden Commercial Industrial Park. In Sean’s garage cable was made on our original planetary cable machine that Adam Decaria designed and built from common materials: plywood, aluminum and steel. While this was primitive it could lay down high precision cable, just not all that fast. Current Libtec cable making machine was designed and built by Randy Sandman back in 2006. Randy’s machine is a precision, servo controlled planetary machine capable of high precision and high production and likely to remain in service for a very long time (Randy always does it right, and always over builds). Thephoto herein is Randy and his newly finished semi-automated planetary machine c. summer 2007. Manning the machine and production of Libtec cable is nearly exclusively James Read. Termination and quality assurance has been controlled by Cable Superstar Stefanie Casey since 2010—you can thank her for the cables stunning fit and finish and overall build quality.