Funny question, 170lb speaker and foam base, how to remove?.

Extra bodies is the only safe answer.  I thought your "dealer" was going to deal with the setup?

Yikes!, have to get three bodies to try to lift it few inches so I can remove the base?. 

Well I do not understand the "dealer" is going to do this by himself. Is he going to come with extra bodies just for this?. 

I wanted to try placement and setup initial at two different areas in the room, decide and then call him. 

You can put down blankets and with help carefully lay them over to the side and remove the styrofoam and put the feet on then stand them back up.  I did this with Nola KO's that weighed over a hundred pounds. Also you need to go to Walmart type store and buy the biggest pack of four gliders you can find for each speaker.  Makes life a whole lot easier and then put the feet/spikes on after they are in place. I am really surprised that with all the discussions about auxiliary equipment you didn't consider the logistics of getting what you purchased in place in your room. Far more important than how many Benchmark amps you needed to buy. 

Whenever I unpacked speakers from their original boxes if there was no instructions I would unpack them in a high ceiling room. By placing the boxed speaker upside down and undoing the flaps on the bottom and removing foam. The speaker is now standing upside down with it’s feet or platform in the air. Then with the flaps folded back on the box and help from friends carefully lower the speaker to it’s side and move it close to where it will be and place it right side up with the feet carefully on the floor. Now all you have to do is undo the flaps on the top and take out foam. Lastly lift the box up and off the speaker. For very tall speakers, you must have ceiling room to do this, otherwise do as jackd mentioned with the speaker on it’s side. It is always good to get those carpeted furniture rollers as Jacd  mentioned, because they really help a lot with placement and movement.

If a local dealer sold them to you, the local dealer is certainly responsible for set up. Including helping you at least for an hour or so finding a good spot for placement. And yeah he should be sending a couple of guys to help.

And they shouldn't destroy any of the packing in the process.

When I unboxed my T Refs (140 pounds), I laid them on their side over a padded bench in the living room and removed the foam from the base. Easy peasy. 

I'd get a bunch of couch cushions and lay the speakers down on them.  Then slide the speaker out onto a blanket or tip the box back up with the speaker still inside and then slide the box off the top.  I'm guessing you should have put the box sideways and taken the foam base off before standing them up.

The speakers are packaged in way that there is like a door. I had to slide them out of the packaging. No way turn them upside down and even if I did the ceiling is not high enough.

The dealer is quite a ways away like few hundred miles.

I am planning on spending more than few hours with various placement options before he shows up. 

You should post a pic on Virtual Systems. It would give us an idea of what is going on.
B

Buy you a set of these, or something similar. Will make your life much easier for this task, and safer than trying to lean it on its end or side.

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200055024_200055024?gclid=Cj0KCQiArqPgBRCRARIsAPwlHo...


but I agree with the others that if you bought from a dealer, you should have had an option of white glove delivery, if not included, then at least as an up Charge.

I was expecting white glove but I realized when they arrived I am on my own. I am still unable to understand it. But decided to deal with it for the love of sound.

@douglas_schroeder I am so glad my significant other liked the sound so much that they won't be returned!!.

Going to wrestle with them safely to get rid if the base, I am going to put the top and mid foam on and lower the speaker flat and remove the base. Not quite sure if I can get them upright safely after however. We will see!!.

What is the speaker that weighs 170 LBS?

This is why at 55 I still workout.

Also, interested in what you got.

This is the speaker: https://legacyaudio.com/products/view/aeris/

@rocknss funny!!

Sweet, I am actually considering the Aeris.

Question, were you able to haggle price at all? 

I got a good discount and purchased them at RMAF this year. Perhaps it was RMAF, I got a good discount. I did not ask for more after they offered me discount, free shipping. You should ask. 

Yeah, I haven't gotten over to listen to them yet. Was planning on driving over this fall (I have a nephew that lives in Springfield, I'm by Indianapols), but never made it.

I have been dreaming about a pair of Legacy speakers for twenty years, since first reading about the Whisper.

I think you should be able to place them on there side to get the bottom foam off. I have installed speakers weighing 215 each with the help of just my wife! Once they are upright walk them into place.

ozzy

@rocknss you should definitely take a listen, look for dealer near by. I listened to many speakers at RMAF some obscenely pricey!!.

To me only Sanders system sounded better when compared to many others. Legacy sound is a also quite consistent across the range. There is a level of engineering effort into these speakers that I like and less of Voodoo stuff which I prefer.

I think full range, actively amplified with room correction with sound leaning towards neutral but effortless listening for hours on end is really what I was going for. But at this price there is no match in my opinion, if you can live with the size of them(they are big!!) I would go for Aeris else Focus XD(just a tad smaller), Signature SE and the new Calibre XDs are really good. You can notice the difference however as you listen to each speaker but I would have liked to spend more hours critically listening to each setup, similar configured(level matched sound and using same electronics, correction and room etc) before deciding if I could do over.

@ozzy I going to try the same :) thanks for boosting my confidence in handling them.

Wow. I have heard these are truly great speakers. Great choice. Don’t they come with some kind of room EQ device? I am sure you will really like them...

@2psyop They come with room correction in the price but can be upgraded to Legacy Wavelet with SUT implementation. The Wavelet also serves as Preamp, DAC. The DAC is good as far as I can tell I could not make out any difference to my reference DAC Audio-gd Master 6 yet!. 

You got the Wavelet, correct?

I think when the Aeris first came out it was standard, but somewhere along the line got optioned.

@rocknss Yes I did upgrade the processor to Wavelet. Aeris comes with Wavelaunch Processor by default which you can upgrade to Wavelet.

The upgrade is strongly recommended when buying a speaker at this price point. I did not have a preamp so I got the upgrade.

geek101,

The previous advice about using sofa cushions under the speakers as you lie them down on their sides will help and also help in lifting them back up.

Put any spikes on after you find the best listening spot. Install them by tilting the speaker to one side, screw the spikes in, then do the same for the other side. Make sure you have someone help you tilt them to the side.

ozzy

Congratulations on the AERIS and Wavelet! Let me know if you need any help with setup as I've had AERIS + WAVELET for 2 years (I was the first AERIS owner that moved from Xilica 4080 to Wavelet) and am glad to help.

Unboxing: The best way to get the speakers out of the box is in fact to lay the shipping cartons on their side and slide the speakers out (onto sofa cushions as pointed out on the thread or a thick blanket is an excellent idea).  No other way to do it; trying to lift the speaker
vertically out of the cradle at the bottom will leave you frustrated....It's safe, I've done it several times with Focus HD, Focus SE and AERIS for unboxing/boxing (in reverse of course, slide them in then get the foam cradle situated, then seal the crate and stand it up) and it works like a charm.

And most importantly....ENJOY!!! After 275-350 hours of break in when the bass drivers and large mid limber up and get tight, you will be even more amazed than the day 1 experience you will have very soon!

Mark

Thanks everyone I followed the instructions of putting the boxes on and laying the speaker flat and removing the base. Just two of us were able to pull it off without any problem. 

@zephyr24069 Thanks for the offer, I will take it up soon. Still setting up and trying different spots. How far apart are the Aeris when you set it up and how far from each speaker do you sit when listening?.

I've setup AERIS on 7ft, 8ft, 9ft and 10ft centers, all with great results. Essential to have the back of the speaker at least 1 foot and preferably 2 feet or more out from back wall so this big drivers and open top end can 'breath'. Toe is pointing the tweeters at a spot directly beyond your head at the listening position.  I found 9-12 ft from speaker to listening position to work well though I've seen these with much greater distances in larger rooms

@zephyr24069 cool, I have set them up at 8.5ft apart and sitting 10ft from them. Left speaker is 2 ft from side wall and 3 ft from back wall however. 

How did you integrate with home theater ? or did u not?. The marquis XD center is big! , I mean it is huge. Need to find a way to conceal it, lol! else it might not survive!.

8.5 feet apart and sitting 10 feet back with ample breathing room for speakers at the head end is a great config, all should work out great for you. I’ve not integrated Wavelet and Aeris or Wavelet and other things into a home theater related system as while I used to have what I considered an over the top 7.1 ch & 2-ch hybrid HT and audio system, I moved past all the insanity of HT complexities and following ever-evolving/changing standards a few years ago as I found myself constantly pausing or stopping movies despite how good they sounded to go back to 2-channel listening. For me this worked as I’ve been able to ’obsess’ about please only 1 demon, that being 2-channel listening. The 2 definitely got the best of me :-) !d

I will say that if you keep the HT you should definitely keep the Marquis HD; it is one of the finest if not the finest center channels I've ever heard in a couple of systems years ago.  Talk to Bill at Legacy about how to integrate Aeris with Wavelet into your HT.  Wavelet has the ability to have multiple units slaved into 1 master I believe for home theater and complex system build-outs. You'll find this in the new Wavelet configuration menus using the web-based front end though I've never done it and you are best to check with Bill.  Let me know what you learn....

Made it over to Springfield this past Sunday and spent three hours with  Bill Dudleston (thanks for taking the time out of your Sunday morning) auditioning the Whisper & Aeris with the Wavelet processor.

Down payment for the Whisper/Wavelet to be sent out shortly. Waited twenty years to get here, now I will be able to enjoy them for the next twenty plus.

@geek101  Did you get everything integrated with your home theater alright.

I have been back and forth with Bill over this and even though not entirely certain on the details, I am confident that it will work out.

@rocknss congrats. I did integrate into my HT. I use wavelet for 2.1 channels, wavelet 
correction is always on. Reciver calibration is done with a preset volume on Wavelet. There are two inputs on wavelet you can use for left and right from reciever. My 2 channel bliss is via USB input. So bypassing the reciever path for it. 

The sub gets two inputs one from wavelet and other from reciever. 

I hope this helps. 

Thanks geek101

Yeah, Bill sent me a bit more info that cleared things up. What I couldn't figure out was what was going to control the volume. 

HT Receiver pre-outs L/R go to analog inputs on Wavelet. Then Wavelet has a Theater setting that locks in the Wavelet volume ant the HT Receiver controls volume of all channels and Wavelet does dsp on L/R.

Like you I will be using USB for 2 channel audio. Phoned in my down payment this morning, so about a month.