Best Rocking Speakers 15K and Under

Glad you found what you were looking for! I've heard nothing but very good things about the Legacys. 

Congrats on your speakers.  Hope you love them for a long time.

Congrats, I bought the Signature SEs from Audiodoctor. They are incredible speakers, they play everything well.

@trknomo You story is somewhat similar to mine. But I did not go to RMAF to listen only to Legacy in-fact I read a lot about them before but discounted it. You know if it is too good to be true etc. But I was pleasantly surprised with price to value that Legacy Audio offered and to me it did not feel like I was compromising with the sound I am looking for in any department. I got myself the Aeris, still waiting for them to be delivered :). And yes they are a delight to work with even after the purchase. 

Enjoy your system.

Congrats on the Legacy speakers.  I have always loved their sound.  If my living room could accommodate them, I would own a pair of Aeris. 

@geek101 Wish you luck with the Aeris, wonderful speakers and will most likely be my next upgrade in two years. Doing major home renovations next year so will take a year to recoup and save more funds. 

@nitewulf They may have been the ones I listened to as well

@stereo5 Do what I’m doing this spring and make the house bigger

Well time to put this thread to rest as it was fun and had so many great recommendations for speakers and listened to just about all of them. Tks to everyone who chimed in and gave advise

Legacy Aeris with Wavelet definitely rocks out with authority then you can turn around and throw in the most delicate string or other work and it does that too!  Two years I owned them and was constantly amazed with their versatility....

@zephyr24069 What did you replace them with? 

The Focal Sopra 2's rock!

ozzy

My new ATC 40 active speakers are residing at the dealer who ordered them for me.  I agreed to leave them to play with for a couple of weeks before taking possession.  The shop sells very high end stuff and stated so far the 40s are scary good cold out of the box.  Sweet mids, thunderous and tight bass and ridiculously loud.  They're running with I believe a Sim 380D Mind.  Best of luck.

@trknomo  See my system thread https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/5078 for details of the path forward and what I have today from Legacy that also rocks out extremely well!

@zephyr24069 Wow that is a really interesting set-up. So you’re just using the Wavelet for the crossover and room correction? And the esoteric stereo amp for the Calibre Tweeters? How is that sounding compared to the Aeris? Again an incredible system that is defineltely unique

I've used the Wavelet at various points with Aeris as DAC, Preamp as well as RoomEQ but did find that my Esoteric D-02 and C-02 preamp had advantages overall so I utilized the Wavelet for its best in class (IMHO) RoomEQ.  Either way you cannot go wrong. To me the value of 3 components in one that Wavelet packs into one great device astounds me as does the flexibility of running it the way I did with Aeris (with my own DAC and pre using Wavelet for RoomEQ) and still do with this setup.  RoomEQ alone Wavelet is worth its weight/price by far.  If you need and leverage the DAC and pre-amp, all the better!

I am using my Esoteric A-02 ironically enough to just drive the tweeter section on the Caliber XDs but what great presentation it makes! When I had the AERIS, the A-02 drove only the mids and tweeters on the AERIS so very similar config, similar high-value payback in sound
but limited use a high-end external amp.

The great thing about Legacy's latest internal amp designs is that the mids and mid-bass of the Calibers running off the internal amps (dual in this custom config) and the bass and sub-bass in the FOUNDATIONS (like the bottom half of Aeris) sound so good it makes one question the necessity of high-cost amps instead of just running with state of the art digital amplification since that's what Legacy gives you with these 2 great systems (never thought I'd read my own writing of that last sentence about digital amplification versus traditional SOTA Class A, AB or Tube by the way!).

It's too early (only about 275 hours of play thus far for a comprehensive evaluation against AERIS but I will say that already this combination has impressed the hell out of me with rock-solid super-deep and fast bass and sub-bass, great mids and very airy and transparent, realistic highs all with a very natural and musical presentation and enveloping imaging.  As a further bonus, the 7.5" accordion-edge midrange on the front of the Caliber in what looks to be an enclosing technique that is horn-loaded to my non-expert eye is pleasing my ears in ways that I only remember the midrange on the Aeris doing (and that is one amazing driver!).

I've also had this setup running non-stop for the stated time and not 1 minute of ear fatigue.  Legacy is the only maker of speakers I've owned that I can say that of and it is deja vu, no ear fatigue, from my days with Focus SE and Aeris (and whenever I've heard Whisper HD and XDS...)

I am a creature of habit when it comes to burn in,....I'll play many things early on in burn in cycle (techno, jazz, light classical, acoustic, vocal, some light rock) but reserve large pipe organ works, large symphonic (Mahler, Bruckner, Shostakovich, Orff, etc...) and Taiko drumming discs for very late/at the end of the first 350 hours of break in.  Tomorrow and through the week are the days to start some of these works so it will be interesting to hear what happens with this speaker combination.  Based upon what I've heard thus far,...these should also be very good and impressive days!

Very very impressed and loving the sound!

+2 JBL 4367

I do have to agree with you about the Legacy speakers and lack of fatigue. I listened to so many speakers bringing my own music and they gave me that impression during demos and it held up once I brought them home. 
 At CAF they actually spoke to me about the Calibres and once my construction is completed next year, just adding the Foundation subs. But thought I would be getting better sound moving up to the Focus SD or the Aeris. But you may be proving that wrong. Another option is adding the subs to my Signatures and using either the Wavelet or the MC Men220 which is using room perfect. Had a demo on that and also just incredible. 
 So I guess I have more and demos to do over the next year, but will most likely be with Legacy speakers and different configurations of.

@trknomo     are you still on the market  ?

Yes Bache I’m off the market for awhile, went with Legacy speakers and probably stay with them for at least a couple more years

Quested Speakers if you want to play it loud fatigue free.

fatigue ? I get fatigued with anything that last too long  .Like music that's on for more than a couple  hours ,  I need  quite time .

trknomo  , since your earlier  speakers  were JBL , I would suggest a pair of  Klipsch Forte 3  , made to rock , I  purchased a pair 10 days ago  .I am hearing things I have never heard before on  songs I have heard many times .You don't need to spend $15K  , unless it makes you feel good

I bought a pair of KEF R105/3 back in the day and it took about 10 years of throwing different gear at them to get them to sound as good as they did in the showroom! I will never fall for that 'they need time to break in' line ever again. Congrats on your purchase.