The Legacy Convergence crossover. It is very well done.
In terms of quality, structural integrity and/or workmanship the Legacy crossover is as good (or better) than you will ever see in many Hi-End speaker systems. With regard to the construction techniques and material, I have not seen anything that surpasses (at least by any wide margin) the quality of the Legacy crossover (that covers much turf after 35 years of this rabid hobby).
After pulling the top woofer out of the cabinet and removing the absorbing material, I was immediately surprised by the large dimensions and impressed by the obvious high quality of the crossover. Not just on "one" side .. but on "both" sides of the cabinet. Firmly attached by screws and starwashers are two 10" by 10" enamelled layout boards.
The woofer section is attached to the right side and holds three very large coils (about half the size of beer cans). Also mounted on that board are Sprague capacitors and the "star" termination for the Kimber wiring. The left side holds another 10" by 10" enamelled layout board for the mids and highs. There is one large coil, three medium size coils and the capacitor arrays. The capacitors are (once again) Sprague and also (to my amazement) Sidereal (!). Again, the terminations were "star" grouped. Where they were soldered, it was all done with silver solder. All junctions were done on threaded chrome posts with nuts large enough to cover the entire surface area of the forked spades or ring terminals. Quite to the contrary of some other comments (on the material used), I did not find any (not even one) "clip on" style connector (s). Every connection was tight (held either by the binding posts or solder) and had ample clearance from other connections, terminations and componants. All jumpers (where used) were heavy gage, high quality hook up style wire (at least 12/14 ga.).
I did not recognize the brand of coils, so I opted to call Legacy. I was braced for some "one" or some "thing" to advise me to go to Radio Shack and look for my answers there. Not the case. I talked with a real human (Chris) and he was happy to help. He was very professional and pleasant to talk with. He hasn't been following this string of posts on the Audiogon Discussion Forum, but I suspect that he will. He stated that Legacy made their own coils and that they are tuned to very close tolerance. He seemed very proud of their exceptional quality and performance. I must agree. The quality is obvious ... that was the reason that I broke into these things. Chris stated that they do not use Kimber for their wiring anymore. Too bad. If nothing else it (the Kimber) looks impressive inside the box. They do (according to Chris) use an OFC, heavy gage stranded cable (at this point in time). The Legacy is, without a doubt, a sonic "world class" performer and is outstanding in it's use of material, design technique and workmanship. Perhaps the word work"women"ship should apply here. It is "Gladys" that builds (and supervises the building of) the crossover boards (although mine is signed by a former employee, "Connie", Gladys quite probably had a hand in it as well). I do like that kind of "personal" flavor. It seems odd to spend thousands for a speaker and not know who built it. Strange that audio is coming to that. Music, it's instruments and its makers are about art and personality (aren't they ?). Anyway ..... I hope that this information helps those that are looking to find a few answers. I am (imho) very impressed with Legacy (at least the ones that I have). The "boom and sizzle" comments along with the "cheap crate full of bad parts" rumor is just very wishful thinking for Legacy's competitors. These are fine instruments of artistic value, inside and out.
Tubby .......
In terms of quality, structural integrity and/or workmanship the Legacy crossover is as good (or better) than you will ever see in many Hi-End speaker systems. With regard to the construction techniques and material, I have not seen anything that surpasses (at least by any wide margin) the quality of the Legacy crossover (that covers much turf after 35 years of this rabid hobby).
After pulling the top woofer out of the cabinet and removing the absorbing material, I was immediately surprised by the large dimensions and impressed by the obvious high quality of the crossover. Not just on "one" side .. but on "both" sides of the cabinet. Firmly attached by screws and starwashers are two 10" by 10" enamelled layout boards.
The woofer section is attached to the right side and holds three very large coils (about half the size of beer cans). Also mounted on that board are Sprague capacitors and the "star" termination for the Kimber wiring. The left side holds another 10" by 10" enamelled layout board for the mids and highs. There is one large coil, three medium size coils and the capacitor arrays. The capacitors are (once again) Sprague and also (to my amazement) Sidereal (!). Again, the terminations were "star" grouped. Where they were soldered, it was all done with silver solder. All junctions were done on threaded chrome posts with nuts large enough to cover the entire surface area of the forked spades or ring terminals. Quite to the contrary of some other comments (on the material used), I did not find any (not even one) "clip on" style connector (s). Every connection was tight (held either by the binding posts or solder) and had ample clearance from other connections, terminations and componants. All jumpers (where used) were heavy gage, high quality hook up style wire (at least 12/14 ga.).
I did not recognize the brand of coils, so I opted to call Legacy. I was braced for some "one" or some "thing" to advise me to go to Radio Shack and look for my answers there. Not the case. I talked with a real human (Chris) and he was happy to help. He was very professional and pleasant to talk with. He hasn't been following this string of posts on the Audiogon Discussion Forum, but I suspect that he will. He stated that Legacy made their own coils and that they are tuned to very close tolerance. He seemed very proud of their exceptional quality and performance. I must agree. The quality is obvious ... that was the reason that I broke into these things. Chris stated that they do not use Kimber for their wiring anymore. Too bad. If nothing else it (the Kimber) looks impressive inside the box. They do (according to Chris) use an OFC, heavy gage stranded cable (at this point in time). The Legacy is, without a doubt, a sonic "world class" performer and is outstanding in it's use of material, design technique and workmanship. Perhaps the word work"women"ship should apply here. It is "Gladys" that builds (and supervises the building of) the crossover boards (although mine is signed by a former employee, "Connie", Gladys quite probably had a hand in it as well). I do like that kind of "personal" flavor. It seems odd to spend thousands for a speaker and not know who built it. Strange that audio is coming to that. Music, it's instruments and its makers are about art and personality (aren't they ?). Anyway ..... I hope that this information helps those that are looking to find a few answers. I am (imho) very impressed with Legacy (at least the ones that I have). The "boom and sizzle" comments along with the "cheap crate full of bad parts" rumor is just very wishful thinking for Legacy's competitors. These are fine instruments of artistic value, inside and out.
Tubby .......
