Legacy Focus XD - will I ever upgrade?

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.

Thanks, will do. I would rather just have the wavelet as my pre amp but if there is no home theater bypass or similar, then the wavelet may have to become a device strictly used for its functionality for room correction, EQ, DAC, Punch etc and completely skip its pre amp capabilities which would be a shame.... almost pointless maybe as I assume I would also be walking away from its crossover capabilities also. That might require a whole different setup but with the Emotiva pre amp I can not only have HT bypass, I could also run the wavelet functions into a dedicated input on the pre amp, or, run it throught the pre amp "external processor loop"...... aargh, gets messy. Seems silly to spend 5k and NOT use something like that to the fullest, but what to do..... it still all needs to be dual purpose (home theater and 2 channel) unless i were to purchase cheaper smaller towers for HT and put them next to the Lagacy’s. Again, not optimal at all.

Not surprised at that reviewer’s findings in regard to the Legacy i.V2 amp. Having worked with 2 vs. 4 channels of the i.V4 Ultra, I would not be without the two additonal channels for use with any speaker, from efficient to more difficult to drive. Big difference in perfomance with the extra two channels, which brings up the resolution and refinement without penalty. It’s such a large improvement that I would not even consider running only two channels on any setup when 4 are availalble. Why starve a system from the extra 600wpc? :)

My review of the i.V4 Ultra (in fact, I reviewed a pair of them, offering up to 8 channels of amplification, 4,800 total wpc into 8 Ohms - I put such things to good use) is at Dagogo.com, and I have to say that the Whisper with the Legacy XTREME XD Subs in such a setup (12 fifteen inch drivers altogether) is otherwordly in terms of dynamics. Scary capacity to pressurize the room even at low listening level. Some of the best sessions of detecting and appreciating LF in any system I have heard. That made the Focus seem like a bookshelf speaker in comparison.

Imo, putting another pair of speakers in for mains for HT would be a misstep. If I recall correctly, I used the Outlaw Audio’s (I don’t put big money into HT) pre outputs into the Wavelet for HT. Calibrate for level, and you’re set.