Best of 2013 Awards

Introduction

Legacy Audio is well-known in the A/V customs. They market speakers of all sizes from bookshelf to huge floor-standers, and they have been around for more than two decades. Their speakers are made in the USA, and since the company was founded in a cabinet-making store, the quality of the wood finish is a hallmark of their designs. The sound fits the looks, and I have wanted to examination a pair for quite a while. Legacy sent me their Focus SE's, which are floor-continuing speakers and are total-range. The SE stands for Silvery Edition, and it celebrates Legacy'southward 30th ceremony.

SPECIFICATIONS

  • Design: Vi Driver, Four-style, Ported Enclosure
  • Drivers: One 1″ Ribbon Super Tweeter, One four″ Ribbon Tweeter, Two 7″ Silver-Graphite Cone Midrange, Two 12″ Aluminum Cone Woofers
  • MFR: 18 Hz  – thirty kHz ± 2 dB
  • Crossover Frequencies: 120 Hz, 2.8 kHz, viii kHz
  • Nominal Impedance: 4 Ohms
  • Ii Sets of Binding Posts for Bi-wiring or Bi-amping
  • Dimensions: 55″ H x 14″ W 10 15.four″ D
  • Weight: 138 Pounds/each
  • MSRP: $9,650/pair USD; About $1,000 Additional for Special Forest
  • Legacy Audio
  • Tags: Legacy Sound, Speakers, Floor-standing Speakers, Sound

The Design

In a earth where manufacturers are looking to simplify their designs, maintain quality, but go along costs down, Legacy just builds speakers of various sizes, uses the best parts, and lets the price autumn where it may. The Focus SE'south, at only under ten grand, are non found in places like Best Buy, just the quality of their audio vs. the price, could make them a best buy, depending on what sort of audio experience you are trying to attain. I chose the Focus SE's considering they are in the middle of their product line and were the proper size for my living room.

This is a six-commuter, four-way pattern, and that makes them very complex. For example, the woofers don't simply cantankerous over at 120 Hz, they do it using a 6th lodge Butterworth filter. This means there is very niggling overlap between the audio coming from the woofers and the midrange drivers, because a 6th order crossover has a 36 dB/octave slope.

The woodworking is very high quality. Look at the joins on the front corner. It is very complicated to make all of the seams fit together this accurately.

Shown below is a close-up of the entire driver assortment. You lot tin meet the woven fibers of the silver-graphite midrange cones.

A close-up of the two tweeters illustrates their flat-panel (ribbon) pattern. The one on top is the super-tweeter.

The left and right sides of the enclosure, too as the tiptop and bottom, are not-parallel surfaces, which reduces standing waves in the enclosure. Two ports on the rear vent the woofers. The other drivers have their own enclosure within the master enclosure and are sealed off from the woofers.

The bounden posts are fix for bi-wiring or bi-amping, with iv posts and jumpers, shown below. The wood in the photograph is one of their exotic finishes and adds virtually $1,000 to the base price. My review pair were in natural carmine, shown in the photo on Page 1 of this review. Notice that there are two trim toggles, to reduce the high or depression frequencies by 2 dB, in case you prefer a audio with less brightness or deep bass. I liked them with the treble trimmed, just the bass left in the standard position (no trim).

In Use

I tested the Focus SE'south with an OPPO BDP-105 universal actor, Pass Labs XP-twenty preamplifier, and BAT VK-75SE power amplifier. Cables were Wireworld.

When we were in Rekjavic, Iceland, on vacation, we heard a beautiful female phonation playing every bit background music in a local shop. I asked the manager who it was, and she said, "Haley Westerna", and the album was Pure. Her ability to hit high notes, and I hateful really high, rivals Celine Dion. In fact, I'grand not sure Dion could striking some of the notes that Westerna does, and on this particular album, the tracks "Benedictus" and "Night Waltz" are simply astonishing. Listening to them on the Focus was mesmerizing, and when she hit those heaven loftier notes, I knew the album was named appropriately. The sound was smooth, and only seemed to sail across the room similar a silk scarf in a cakewalk to my ears.

Legacy

Michal Buble's album, Call Me Irresponsible, is an obvious tribute to Frank Sinatra, and many of his fans consider his voice to be very much similar Sinatra's, just I disagree. At that place is no one who could exist another Sinatra, just like at that place will never be some other Buddy Rich. Nevertheless, the album is very expert, with a male voice that is at least four octaves lower than Westerna's loftier notes. I felt very much at home with the audio. Information technology was comfortable, and like Westerna, smooth, simply smooth as Russian vodka cooled to 320 F, rather than a silk scarf.

Legacy

When i thinks of string quartets, chamber music without a distinct melody that distracts yous, comes to listen. This was the case for string quartet music of the Baroque era. But Tchaikovsky'southward string quartets, such as this DSD recording, String Quartet No. three, Op. 30 (Praga Digitals 7 94881-76266-eight) are much dissimilar. They audio like string quartets that have more of a symphonic nature, with a definite melody. It takes some getting used to, if you lot are a fan of string quartets from the Baroque era, as I am. Notwithstanding, I thoroughly enjoyed the tracks on this disc. The strings all remained quite singled-out, without any harshness, and the tonality was completely neutral.

Legacy

The trouble with Satellite radio is that I become several classical music channels, and I keep a notebook nearby when I hear something that I want to purchase. The notebook became full very quickly, and my collection grew in return. When I heard Mendelssohn's Konzert für Violine und Orchester e-moll, Op. 64 (Violin Concerto for Violin in E Small), the notebook came out, and the Amazon shipping envelope was on my doorstep a few days later on.

The concerto is extraordinary, and the soloist played beautifully. The Legacy Focus SE's did their function in reproducing the music which transported me to the state beyond, beyond. The orchestra had intense, detailed sound from the highs to the lows, and again, no harshness with the strings, no boominess or chesty bass. I cranked this one up pretty loud, and it was no problem for these 128 pound tigers in cherry wood.

Legacy

On the Demote

Baloney measurements were made within a 48 kHz bandwidth. The microphone was placed 1 pes from the speakers, except where noted, and pointed in between the respective pairs of drivers (tweeters, midrange, and woofers).

At 50 Hz (woofers), and ninety dB, distortion was simply 0.34%.

At xx Hz, distortion was at 10%, which is adequate in some demote test arenas. It would be nice to have it closer to five%, but really, full-range speakers just don't accept the enclosure size to allow major deep bass output at depression distortion. This is why a high quality (big) subwoofer is good to put in your audio system, even if you have full-range speakers like these.

At 5 kHz (midrange drivers), distortion was less than 0.5%, which is first-class operation.

And at 9 kHz (tweeters), there was only 0.33% THD+N.

The room frequency response was measured at 3 meters and 90 dB of white noise. The response was reasonably flat taking into account that at that place were room effects.

Impedance varied from a low of two ohms beneath 100 Hz to a high of 18 ohms at 3.nine kHz. Phase varied from + fifty0 to – 750, with the midrange frequencies having primarily inductive impedance and the depression frequencies and high frequencies having primarily capacitive impedance (inductive and capacitive impedance are called reactive impedance, which occurs at all frequencies except 0 Hz, which is DC). Because the impedance was very low (2 ohms) when the stage was only – twenty0, the speaker would be judged a moderately easy load. However, the 2 ohm impedance in the < 100 Hz range would rule out using a low-end mass market receiver.

Overall, these are impressive bench test results.

Conclusions

This is the first time I have listened to Legacy speakers in my own home, and I can say with full conscience, that they are truly amazing. Ability, merely details handled delicately, yet with authority. They are beautiful speakers to look at too, and my living room took to them very nicely. The calorie-free dark-brown wood end composite with the Williamsburg blue walls, which shook occasionally with the deep bass adequacy of two 12″ woofers playing such works as Copland's Fanfare for the Common Homo. The Legacy Focus SE'southward take my definite recommendation.