No love for Legacy Audio

I owned a pair of Signature SEs for a few years. I thought they would be my end game speaker. I was particularly impressed with their air motion tweeter and ability to be placed close to the wall due to their sealed enclosure. Over time they seemed to be missing something. For large speakers with two big woofers they seemed to be lacking in bass. Also the lower mid-range seemed to have a hole in it. I experimented  with placement but they sounded the same. I was driving them with a 400 watt McIntosh amp.

One day after owning them for 3 years or so, I pulled out my old Green Mountain Chromas from storage. These are stand mounted monitors

Much, much better in every respect but the tweeter. I sold the Signature SEs. Eventually I bought Kef Reference 1s and used the Chromas in another system. I wondered what I was thinking when I bought them. I wanted to like them

I always try to chime in to Legacy threads and say the same things.  I've only owned Legacy since I began my hi-fi journey over 25 years ago.  Before that, I had tried a pair of low-end Yamahas, B&W and Wharfedale.  I still own a pair of vintage B&W DM2000s and they still sound very good but they're distant spares, so I rarely listen to them anymore.  Otherwise, I am all Legacy.  Started with OG Classics in the latter 90s, moved up to OG Focus years later and now current model Focus SEs.  The Focus have gotten smaller over the years but I get why some say they're still big speakers.  I am fortunate to have a large-ish listening room so they can really breathe.  I also have Legacy's Silverscreen HD center channel and my Classics now serve as surrounds.  No surround rot or anything after 26 years!  And so far, I have two Studio HDs for Atmos.  The Studio HDs are really difficult to find out in the wild. I am looking for another pair to complete my setup.  But not budgeting $2400/pair for Atmos speakers, no way.  Legacy are all-around good speakers.  Great for 2-channel and just as great, if not even greater for 5.1 music and full HT speakers.  I've always been about 70/30 HT to music but it can go as low as 50/50 depending on where I'm at in tweaks or whatever motivates me.

One thing to note is their resale value is poor in the beginning.  I think it takes a good 10-15 years to finally hit bottom and then start climbing back up.  But I couldn't care less about resale.  I suspect I am in the minority there as I don't flip speakers very often.  

I got into high-end audio 8yrs ago.  Legacy speaker reviews and maybe hearing them at audio shows never resounded with me, unlike Magico and YG.  So it could simply be a preference difference or that Legacy doesn’t compete well with newer products.  

kennyc:

  " or that Legacy doesn’t compete well with newer products.  ".... At least 4 of their models just got 2024 Product of the Year awards from TAS, so I think they are competing....

@steve59 I once had a pair of the VMPS tower II special editions and I loved them. One of the most stunningly competent speakers I have ever heard. The Focus SEs appear to me from just comparing the speaker complement and specs to be as close to them in performance as is possible out of what is available on todays market. Though since the SEs are a more updated design, they are probably noticeably better than the VMPS