Legacy 20/20 and Tubes

It appears that, as so often happens, when a question is asked here about Legacy Focus speakers, the bashers take over and the discussion turns to their opinions about the sound quality of these speakers. I thought what Taters was asking was whether his ARC tube amp and pre-amp would mate well with the 20/20's.

If one reads the Stereophile review(available on the Legacy Audio website) and looks at the Measurements section, one can see that despite their relatively high sensitivity, these speakers present a difficult impedance load to an amplifier with 2 modes of less than 2 ohms at frequencies under 100 Hz. The reviewer suggests that SS amp with high current capability would be a better choice than a tube amp.

I have owned the original Focus since 1992, mostly driven with an Eagle 4 SS amp which was capable of putting out 50 amps into low impedances, and now use Legacy's PowerBloc 2 and Steradian processor, with good results.

My suggestion would be to call Legacy Audio and discuss the issue. However, personally, I would recommend either using a single SS amp with high current capability, or consider biamping using a SS amp for the bass section and your ARC on the upper drivers. The 20/20 does have biamp connectors.

Having owned Legacy speakers since 1987, the original Legacy 1's(now the Classics), the original Signatures, and now the Focus, I remain ignorantly happy with my choices. Since Legacy has stayed in business for 25 years, I guess they have other satisfied customers as well.

There is an ongoing thread on this forum regarding the Best Speaker You Have Ever Heard. If there is any general consensus, I can't seem to find it. So, listen for yourself and view others' opinions with skepticsm, including the golden-eared reviewers....and me.

Dbld: My comments were based on hands-on experience with Legacy products and two independent reviews ( Australian Hi-Fi ) of two different Legacy products ( Legacy 20/20's & Signature III's ). The results obtained were published by industry professionals and are available for all to see on the Legacy website. I would only add that the test results as published by Australian Hi-Fi are somewhat misleading and do require careful attention in order to interpret them properly.

In both reviews, the speakers produced large deviations from neutral response, especially in the upper bass and treble regions. Given that two different reviewers working with two different products from the Legacy line in two different parts of the world obtained very similar results, it would seem logical that Legacy voices their products to share a similar "house sound". If one likes that sound, by all means, they should buy and use what they like. As mentioned, i've heard that sound and that has also contributed to my point of view as expressed in a few different Legacy based threads.

Dalinden: Good point. I let my personal point of view cloud the issues and never even responded to the questions at hand. With that in mind and based on the information provided to us in those reviews, my personal thoughts are that an ARC tube amp probably wouldn't be an optimal match for these specific speakers.

Due to the low impedances presented in a frequency range that already requires higher levels of current, i would think that the tubes would end up failing at a faster rate than normal. Given ARC's propensity for "bad things" to happen when tubes give out, namely "flaming resistors", this might be a combo that one might want to avoid.

Having said that, if one listens primarily to acoustic based music that requires low to moderate listening levels, such a combo may work fine with nary a problem. This type of music at those types of listening levels won't really aggravate what could be a sore spot, negating some of the cautions mentioned above. As with most things in audio that are based on personal preference and subjective results, the only way that one would know for sure if they would like it would be to try it and go from there. Then again, using this type of an approach to system building can get pretty expensive. That is, unless one has a local dealer that is willing to work with them in terms of in-house equipment auditioning, etc...

Hope this helps and clarifies my previous comments. Sean
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I will have to back Sean's statements on the quality and fit and finish. A buddy of mine purchased a pair and the cabinets were very attractive. However, we could NEVER get the speakers to do anything right. These were a pair of the Legacy Focus I believe. Needless to say, he sold the speakers only months after waiting for them to "break in" and sound better. (That never happened BTW)

I guess the more drivers in a cabinet, the better the speaker! Anyway, my advice is to listen to all the speakers in your price range then make your decision. I think you can certainly do better than the Legacys. Just my opinion. Good luck!

I responded to this thread because I was running an ARC SP16L and Manley 250 monoblocks(on the top), both tubed products. I felt this was a proper response to this thread.

I wasn't bashing Legacy in any way, shape or form.
I have no grudge against them or past experience with their products.

My findings were that these speakers were extremly harsh and fatiguing with good tube gear running the upper freq's.
But, in all fairness, I didn't run them with just the Manley's or just the Aragon. Perhaps doing so would have yielded different results.

Although, I have used this bi-amped setup with other speaks with much better results.

Part of the issue is how much lab measurements can be trusted to tell us how a speaker will sound. No one listens to a speaker from one meter away. And playing a 1-watt signal through a highly efficient speaker such as the Focus would be louder than listening volume. And moving the lab microphone up or down a few inches could change the whole frequency plot. The Focus design is intended to sound right in a room at the listener's position. That is one rationale for the d'Appolito (MTM) array--to adapt to room reflections. So all those dips and shelfs in the frequency plot don't mean much.

But if they sound nasty (or great) in your listening room, that does matter. Maybe the difference between successful and unsuccessful experiences with Legacy speakers comes down to how much carpet and furniture there is, or how high the ceiling is?