Downsize, Upsize (Part III)

by Karl Nehring

Those who have been following this series will recall that at the end of Part II (which you can find here) I mentioned doing some careful research into speakers as well as consulting with some knowledgeable audio experts, to whom I had some access by virtue of my position at The $ensible Sound magazine. (It was also through the magazine that I first became acquainted with John Puccio, who was the Classical Music Editor.) Based partially on some conversations with the late Tom Nousaine, I finally decided upon a pair of speakers from a small company in Springfield, Illinois, by the name of Legacy Audio. Actually, I had reviewed a pair of speakers from this same company a few years previously when they were doing business under the name Reel-to-Real Designs. Those speakers showed promise, but the company had made significant progress since then and their new flagship speaker, the Focus (pictured right), was just what I was looking for. Not only did they feature the extended bass response I was seeking from their multiple woofers, but their cabinetry was simply gorgeous. 

Next came my one diversion from the Focus model, as Legacy Audio’s designer, Bill Dudleston, was eager for me to audition a new loudspeaker he was coming out with called the Empire (pictured left). These were also large speakers, measuring 54"H x 13"W x 10"D and weighing 100 pounds, each but were of a more radical design than the Focus. The driver complement comprised three 12" carbon/cellulose woofers (two used primarily for bass frequencies, the third functioning as a "midwoofer"), two 5.25" midranges with cones made of Kevlite-Ti (a mixture of Kevlar, graphite, and titanium), and a 1" silk-dome tweeter. Except for the tweeter, all the drivers operated in dipole configuration. Although one might expect such a speaker to lack in bass, the Empires were solid down to about 40 Hz. For true full-range reproduction, however, the Empires required a subwoofer, so Legacy also sent along their Point One model, which featured a 15" floor-facing woofer and a 15" passive radiator at the rear of the cabinet. The internal Class D amplifier was rated at 750 watts. 

Although the Empire was in many ways an excellent-sounding unit, it never really took hold in the marketplace, and disappeared from the Legacy catalog after a relatively brief stay. My next pair of speakers was the next incarnation of the Focus model, the Focus 20/20 (right). This version sported three 12” woofers (two for bass, the third providing some phase cancellation to flatten the overall response), two 7” Kevlar midranges, and a 1.25” dome mid/tweeter plus a ribbon upper tweeter. The 20/20s served as my faithful reference for some years. The model gathered some excellent reviews and began to be used more and more as a studio monitor for mastering purposes. Still, designer Bill Dudleston knew that the speaker could be made even better as better drivers emerged in the marketplace. So, despite the success of the Focus 20/20, Dudleston rolled up his sleeves and went to work to see whether the new generation of drivers could lead to evolutionary improvements to the already solid Focus design package.

 

The first fruit of his labors was the Focus HD, a worthy successor to the 20/20. But Dudleston was not done. He envisioned a speaker that would take the design of the Focus HD and push it to new sonic and aesthetic heights. The end result of his quest was the Focus Special Edition (SE), a speaker that has changed in more ways than Dudleston imagined when he first contemplated implementing those evolutionary improvements to the Focus design. Taking the Focus HD as his starting point, he reshaped the cabinet, making it a bit narrower but deeper, plus stiffening and angling the sidewalls, front baffle, and top to avoid parallel surfaces. The Focus HD looked much like the previous generations of Focus speakers, albeit with different drivers. The SE (left), however, with its beveled surfaces and beautiful finishes, makes an indelibly striking first impression of quality. To my eye, at least, the design of the SE is reminiscent of Cadillac’s “Art and Science” design aesthetic, especially in its remarkable black pearl finish, which is the finish I ordered for my pair. 

As mentioned above, the drivers in the Focus SE were of a newer vintage and design than those used in the Focus 20/20. For the treble frequencies, the 20/20 employed a 1.25” upper midrange dome and a ribbon tweeter. The SE replaced these two units with two new neo-ribbon drivers. The very top end of the sonic spectrum was handled by a 1” Kapton pleated ribbon with a custom-machined acoustic chamber, a shaped lens to control dispersion, and a neodymium motor structure. The 3” mid-ribbon featured a push-pull neodymium magnetic structure with an ultra-low-mass vapor-deposited Kapton diaphragm. This driver operated below 8kHz to provide a transition to the cone midrange drivers. The two 7” midrange drivers were the same size as those in the 20/20, but are quite different in construction. The two 7” Kevlar midrange units in the 20/20 were superseded in the SE by 7 “ drivers in which threads of silver are woven into a carbon fiber diaphragm to distribute bending modes across the spectrum, then backed with a layer of ultra-light Rohacell. The two 12” bass drivers on the front panel were also different from those used in the 20/20. The aluminum cone woofers in the SE employ the patented AURA motor technology, which features a totally enclosed magnetic structure to provide excellent electrical damping. Two vents are mounted in the rear of the cabinet, but according to Dudleston, the SE does not use a traditional vented bass alignment; instead, the ports are utilized to lower the tuning frequency of the enclosure before electrical transformation is employed on the bass drivers. Exterior dimensions and weight of the Focus SE were virtually identical to the previous version at 55”H X 15.5”W X 13” D and 195 lbs. Sensitivity was rated at 94.5 dB. Overall frequency response is specified as -2 dB at 30 kHz and 18 Hz. Impedance is specified at 4 Ohms.

 

These speakers served me faithfully for more than a decade. I had listened to other fine speakers, but never heard any that ever caused me to think I might want to make a change. Oh, there were the Legacy Audio Whispers (right) – an incredibly open-sounding speaker that Bill Heck had reviewed for The $ensible Sound when it had first been released and which I had subsequently auditioned at Legacy’s Springfield facility. Bill and I both still have a soft spot for those speakers, with their amazing imaging capabilities, but neither of us has a room in which they would really fit; and besides, Legacy does not really offer them anymore. Fast-forward to the present, and Bill is quite content with his Legacy Signature speakers (see review here), which fit into his current listening room quite well. (As an aside, when I was completing my year of grad school at Kent State back in 1977 and had been accepted at Ohio State for the next year, the KSU department chair told me that when I got down to OSU I should look up fellow by the name of Bill Heck, who had been a grad student at Kent the year before me and then gone down to OSU. I looked Bill up, discovered that he was not only a great guy but also an avid audiophile, and we have been great friends ever since.)

Then, for whatever reason – although perhaps the realization that I had reached my seventies might have had something to do with it – I found myself thinking more and more seriously about the future. At some point, my thoughts went, my wife and I would no longer be able to go on living in rural isolation, meaning that we would most likely end up either moving in with or living nearby one of our children, or else moving into some kind of retirement facility. Hmm. In either event, we would be definitely be downsizing, meaning I would no longer have a room that could accommodate large speakers. I suddenly became consumed with the idea that I needed to prepare for this eventual downsizing of our living arrangements by downsizing my stereo system – which essentially meant getting rid of my big speakers and replacing them with small speakers. It was an idea that I just could not get out of my head no matter how hard I tried.

 

I have a good friend named Cortney who lives nearby and is an avid audiophile. I mentioned that I was thinking of selling my speakers, he expressed an interest, and soon we had settled on a deal. He went about selling some of his speakers and some other equipment that he owned and began paying me in installments. Meanwhile, I started trying to decide what speakers I was going to get to replace my SEs. I started doing some more research listening to some potential candidates, both by myself and with Bill Heck at some of the audio salons in the Columbus area. I auditioned various models from Bowers & Wilkins, KEF, Sonus Faber, GoldenEar, Revel, and Paradigm. Although I heard some especially good sound from the KEF and Revel models I gave a listen to, once again it was Legacy Audio that impressed me the most with their Calibre speaker, a three-way studio monitor  (4” AMT tweeter, 7.5” midrange, 8” long-throw woofer on the op of the cabinet augmented by two 8” side-mounted passive radiators). Unfortunately, the first time I had heard them, they were a partially disassembled “working” pair that Dudleston just kind of stuck the midrange driver back into right at the last minute and had them quickly set up so that I could hear them during the visit when Bill Heck and I were in Springfield so that Bill could audition the Wavelet. Although the Wavelet was certainly impressive, the Calibres sounded good, not great – but were obviously not a calibrated, finished pair. However, the time was soon coming when my friend was going to be paying me off completely. I needed to make a decision – and soon.

I have a son who lives an hour or so away from Springfield, so the next time Marilyn and I went to visit him, we arranged to visit Legacy and asked them to set up a good demo with the Focus and the Calibres. So this time the Calibres were a finished, tuned pair. Except for the deepest bass, they sounded virtually identical to the larger speakers. Marilyn liked them, so boom! My mind was made up. I was going to downsize! Not too long after I got back home, I ordered a pair of Calibres, plus I ordered a pair of SVS Micro 3000 subwoofers (on sale over a holiday weekend) to augment the bottom end. The Calibres were going to take a month or so to be delivered because of the production schedule at Legacy, which was fine, for I was in no huge hurry. This was going to work out great – even adding in the extra cost of the subwoofers, I was going to be ending up with some money left over. Marilyn was pleased by that idea…

 

Everything was falling into place regarding my grand downsizing project. For a time, I occupied my mind by thinking about where I was going to place the new speakers and subwoofers in the room, how I was going to match levels, what crossover frequency and slope I would wind up using, at what point I would possibly try to fine-tune things using the Dirac software in my NAD 658, etc. But as I thought more about such things, I began to realize that hey, I already had better bass response than I was probably going to end up with, I was not really going to be gaining any floor space, and that after enjoying and loving the big sound of Focus speakers for so long, it would break my heart to give them up – regardless of how excellent the Calibres might sound. Moreover, I realized it would be years before we would be leaving our home; truth be told, my downsizing idea had been an illusory obsession that had led me to make some less-than-optimal decisions. Now what?

 

What to do, what to do? The first – and most daunting – task was to admit to Marilyn that I now felt as though I had made a mistake and that rather than get the Calibres, I wanted instead to see about purchasing a new pair of Focus SEs, assuming it would still be possible. She was not thrilled, given that this meant that rather than making a little money on the whole deal I would now be spending several thousand more dollars – just to end up with essentially the same speakers that I already owned. Brilliant idea, dear husband! 

 

But she knew I would be miserable, and a pain to live with, so she gave her blessing. I immediately contacted Legacy and was able to cancel the Calibre order and order a pair of Focus SEs. I then contacted SVS, finding out to my great relief that I done so one day before their full refund/free return shipping window would have slammed shut. Phew – that was close! As it turned out, I had never even opened the boxes the Micro 3000s had been shipped in, so preparing them for return was a snap. A couple of weeks or so later a semi showed up to drop off a couple of BIG boxes strapped to a wooden pallet. Cortney came over with one of his friends and a sturdy dolly. Before long, my new SEs were standing where my old ones had stood, and what were now his SEs were on thir way to their new home in the back of his SUV. Even though it had started raining, we were both sporting big smiles!

So, what was the end result of my, ahem, downsizing effort? I went from a large pair of Legacy Audio Focus SEs to a pair of Legacy Focus SEs of yes, the same size, and spent a good sum of money in the process. My new pair is nearly a dozen years younger. The two tweeter drivers on the older version have been replaced by a 1” AMT super tweeter and 4” AMT tweeter. The older pair (which are now in Cortney’s system, where they sound really excellent – he loves them) the premium Black Pearl finish, while the new ones are in a standard (but still beautiful) finish, Black Oak (not the finith pictured at left. Sonically, what can I say? I loved the old ones; I love the new ones. However, one benefit of the whole “downsizing” fiasco was it spurred me into thinking more seriously about room placement. While I was in the process of fine-tuning the positioning of the new pair, experimenting with toe-in and such, I ran across a brief YouTube video that you can watch here a in which Gene DellaSala at Audioholics suggested experimenting with moving speakers closer together/listening position farther back to improve imaging. Intrigued, I gave it a try, and discovered that moving the SEs approximately eight inches closer together led to a more coherent stereo image on many orchestral recordings. Bingo! Several months and several thousand dollars since the beginning of my downsizing project, I had attained a definite sonic benefit. 

Not only that, I had downsized the space between my speakers by eight whole inches. After all. When it comes to downsizing successfully, it’s one step at a time, right? Hey, I’m on my way…