Legacy Focus 20/20 Speaker amp

I demoed a pair of 20/20's using a CJ Premier 11a in my home. Although the speakers are rated 96dB/W/m, they like power to control those 12" drivers.

The 20/20's sounded wonderful w/ the CJ @ lower volume. When pushed, the CJ started to break up a bit.

Hope this helps.

Hat

Hat's experience makes sense. Although the 20/20s are efficient, they really thrive on current (amps) which tubes don't typically deliver. At least this is my experience.

I have the 20/20s, and each amp improvement I have experienced seemed to coincide with big current delivery. I started with a Bryston 4B NRB, then a Legacy (Coda) Powerbloc2, then Legacy (Coda) Ultra Monoblocs, and now a McIntosh MC-352. Each step was an improvement.

I did try an Art Audio Concerto II once (a valve amp). And although the mids at low level were very nice and believable, I couldn't push the volume very hard before clipping.

The Focus is a great speaker, but its impedance dips make it sometimes challenging for amps. I guess it all depends on what you value more…your amp, or the potential sound from the Focus 20/20s.

You could always bi-amp with the CJ up top and a SS amp for the Bass.

Best of Luck!

I have to disagree. With my experience a good amplifier with 120 watts is more then enough to drive these at rock levels. I went from 600 x 2, to 120 x 2 and didnt notice any lack of bass,dynamics. And I still drove them till they hurt my ears at 11 ft away. I finially moved to a all ayre system with the v-5xe amp. Still sounds wonderful and powerful. I havent tried a 70 watt tube, but I would imagine unless you want rock concert level, it would do fine. If you cant use tubes on 96db speakers, what can you use them on?

I owned the older Focus(not the 20/20) for many years. They were very fine speakers, just became too big for my current room set up.
I found that power Amps like Krell or Pass really get the bass performance out of the Legacy's.
Because of the impedence dip, the bass speakers require that extra push.
Others have stated that lower power Amps work fine with them, but I still think you will not get the potential bass they can provide.

So, try it with your Amp and perhaps, eventually, get another Amp like what has been suggested for bi-Amping.