Legacy Focus XD - will I ever upgrade?

mikekollar, my ceiling height in the room is 7.5' and the dimensions are 13' x 23',  so unless your room has a very low ceiling it will work. If you look at my system images you can see that I do not adhere to the received wisdom that you cannot use oversize speakers. 

The holistic sound quality of larger (upper end) speakers is definitively superior to lower end models, and that is true generally no matter the brand. I

My Whisper DSW speakers were the first of its kind, a hybrid that can be run in 3 modes; Entirely passive iwth as few as two channels of amplificaiton and tri-wiring, or combination of passive midrange and treble with active bass using the Wavelet for bass, or fully active with Wavelet. Over the years I have varied between setups. You'll read about it in the articles I have done about the Whisper. 

I upgraded from a pair of original Focus to the Aeris and have found the difference to be quite astounding. The upgrade from the XD, since it is a newer version, might not be as compelling. The most improvement was with vocals and mid-range. I tried a few different amplifiers to drive the top end. I tried Ps Audio that I didn't care for, and a PL Evo 400 which sounded great on midrange but seemed to run out of gas on louder passages. It also seemed to roll off the top end somewhat. I ended up getting a pair of Pass Labs x-260 mono blocks and haven't looked back. My listening room is 24x40 with 9 foot cielings (open concept). As far as the physical size, there is not much difference between the Aeris and XD. The wavelet is the real deal. In my quest for the best sound I tried many different permutations with pre-amps (tube and SS), speaker placement, DACs, etc. and found the wavelet to be the best performer. Setup was a snap and toggling between room correction and no correction is very noticeable. It works for me and I am still smitten with my setup. My only issue is this nagging feeling that the V's may be in my future. No compelling reason to upgrade further as I am more than pleased but I can't help but wonder. Maybe a road trip to Springfield would help this sickness. 

Lots of great and accurate feedback in this thread, unusual for Audiogon.

For those that don't have the budget for Pass, I would recommend Coda (slightly better for less) or highly recommend Legacy's own i.V2 (really an Ultra) or the i.V4 Ultra to bi-amp. Great review from douglas s above. And here's the latest:

Legacy i.V2 Amp Review

Hi Steve, that was very helpful. Given that the dealer I purchased the Focus XD speakers from went on and on about how my next purchase needed to be the wavelet, I think maybe that would be the next place to start actually. I have a question for you on that. My current preamp is an Emotiva XSP-1 (i think thats the model number). I specifically bought this pre amp because it was one of a few that has a terrific "home theater bypass" function leaving the volume controls of the main speakers up to the Yamaha 9.1 system for TV and movie night. I have one of those "best of both world" systems where I have an isolated 2 channel sytem that can be switched out to home theater and back again with a push of a button. I keep hearing "home theater function" as it pertains to the wavelet but I cannot find any documentation on that. Can you give me any insight to that functionality of the wavelet (off topic a bit here but I need to know).

Hi Mike, I can't really comment on it for home theater with the ability to bypass, but I do remember a disusion some time ago on here about that subject. You may elect to email Brice Auxier at Legacy for more specific and accurate information.