Attention all Legacy Whisper owners ??

I'd second Douglas’s response. Why not contact Dudleston directly because I bet he's tried it already and he'd share his experience with you. It would save you time, money and potential damage. I've spoken with him before and he was very helpful, even with my lame-brained ideas.

I currently have a pair of Whispers and asked these same questions. Here is what I was told. The woofer has a resistor so it can better function as a rear absorber of rear unwanted bass energy outside of the speaker. The resistor puts a load on the woofer when it absorbs rear waves around the outside of the speaker, allowing it to dynamically "brake" better than if it was otherwise not connected to a resistor. (If you recall, one of the unique attributes of the Legacy Whisper is that it is much less sensitive to room boundary placement than most other speaker designs). As far as the shield on the woofer, this allows the woofer's magnetics to have less electrical interactivity with the inside of speaker's crossover guts (which are in close proximity to this particular woofer's rear side). IMHO these are all great design concepts that were well thought out. Way to go Bill D. !!

I am constantly amazed by what I hear with my Whispers...very pleasantly so. I've had them for several years now and I never get tired of them.

Whispers and the focus 20/20s are the best out there in musical enjoyment!

Except if you own other speakers.