Has anyone listened to Legacy speakers?

A few years back I had the opportunity to hear the Legacy's in Casselberry Florida (Bob Howard). Unfortunately the set-up was less than ideal. Low ceiling several columns and less than ideal positioning. I listened to both the Classics which I had read so much about for all these years and the Focus. He didn't have the Whispers there but at his home and I wasn't really interested in the Signatures because Bob really didn't seem too interested.

The Classics seemed ok but in that room how can you know. Imagine columns between the speakers and the listening position. What I was struck by and what Dds hifi noted was the midrange clarity on the Focus. Here you have this big system with what is it 6 or 7 drivers delivering very delicate subtle midrange clarity, very nice. Of course Bob had to crank it up so I could feel the bass but I got lost in the boom. He should have asked me first, I wasn't impressed. Maybe in a bigger room it might be ok. The Focus, a very nice midrange and that was my lasting impression.

I have some news on an excellent amp for use with the Legacy speakers. I have been searching for an amp that is fast, with good control of bass lines and liquid smooth in the mids and highs. The trouble is that it has to be cheap. Fixed incomes are torture for us old folks that like good equipment. The amp that I found is a real jewel. It is an intergrated, 100 watt per channel, all tube unit from Jolida. The model is the JD-1000a. It uses 8 EL-84's, 2 12ax7's and 2 12at7's. It is all that I had hoped for. It is smooth, open, controled and detailed without rasp or metalic edginess. It works wonders on my Legacy Convergence and should be just the ticket for anyone with other models. Since I just got it, I have to spend more time with it and will go into more detail, providing anyoone wants to hear more about the amp. The sure sign of a good amp for me, is when the music just dosen't come out into the room and involve you. It is when each individual instrument seems to pull on you to bring you into the space of the soundstage that it is in. Kind of like the Vulcan "mind meld' that Spock used to pull off when he couldn't be satisfied with a just normal answer to stupid questions about the universe.

Test only

Owned a pair of the Focus. They could not touch My Apogee Mini Grands. So i sold them! Infact, none of the so called dynamic speakers that i have tried have been able to come close.

I own a pair of Legacy Whispers and have discovered many good and bad things about all of Legacy's speaker offerings and their design guidlines.

The good news:
Legacy's speakers seem to offer more bang for the buck in terms of thier quality of drivers, than anyone else out there. Additionaly, when you buy Legacys used, you really seem to be getting the most bang for the buck. I know of no other speaker manufacturer that offers more air moving bass
ability for the money.

The bad news:
Legacy has really blown it on a couple of design errors, which drastically effect the overall performance of their speakers. Most of their speakers are wired with horrible sounding green wiring, that looks like the original monster cable wire from 1981! (except in a green semi transparent jacket). I personally purchaced some of this wire from Legacy, to determine how it may be limiting my own personal speakers. To say that it was worse sounding than I ever imagined, is an understatement. With this in mind, you can tell that Legacy does not do their homework to refine their speaker designs.Additionaly, they are also a bit behind on understanding High end digital. Many of their shows, and even at their factory they demo their speakers with an extremely meager sounding Pioneer CD player, that has all of the typical difital problems (grainy highs, limited sound stage depth and mechanical sounding bass). They also use that horrible Green wire, hooked up to their speakers.

The above aformentioned oversights leads me to believe that Legacy is not truley aware of high end sound capabilites, and the various sonic refinements associated with carefull component and wire selection .

As a tweaker though, you can really "go to town" (as stated in another post) with a Legacy designed speaker. I think of it as a unfinished "platform", which with the design oversights fixed, cannot be touched at the price which they cost. (Remember, the drivers and the cabinets are first rate, so you have alot of "good" to work with).

This is my opinion and experience with Legacy. Think of them as good guys that just could produce killer products,
if they just were a little more informed.