If you can deal with a speaker that has frequency response abberations that diverge from "flat" as much as +8/-3 dB's to start off with, you're amp should have enough power to drive them. The speakers are relatively efficient, so gobs of power wouldn't be necessary for most people with typical listening preferences. The thing that would concern me the most would be that the lower current capacity of tubes wouldn't be able to come remotely close to controlling the multiple woofers, producing even more of what is already poorly defined and over the top bass. Then again, ARC tube gear isn't overtly "tubey" sounding, so the slight lack of bass bloom might balance with these speakers reasonably well. Having said that, the fact that ARC gear tends to lean towards slightly bright sounding ( especially as far as tube gear goes ) may aggravate the brightness and treble boost that these speakers already demonstrate.
Obviously, you'll have to listen for yourself and see if YOU like it. Personally, i think that it would be a poor match as these speakers require a soft top end with a slightly lean bottom end. Finding an amp that offers these sonic traits and has GOBS of current available isn't that hard. Sean
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Kevziek: Yes, i've heard the speakers on multiple different occassions in different locations with different gear driving them. As to the comments that i made pertaining to frequency response abberations, try looking at the Stereophile review of them. Not only is the frequency response attrocious, the step test that examines transient response and phase / polarity is just as bad. This is why i've stressed learning what spec's mean and how to interpret them. If you didn't know how to interpret the spec's that John Atkinson provided yet read the printed text "review" that accompanied those results, you would have thought that they were fabulous.
Reb: If you know so much of what you speak i.e. what speakers i own and run, why don't you list them here for us? Please be specific as to which speakers i have running in the five different systems in my house and which i own but am not currently using.
As to Legacy's in general, i am well familiar with them. My Brother and i just got done rebuilding the mains that my Father uses, which are Legacy's. Believe me, these speakers were designed and put together so poorly that we we didn't know whether to laugh or cry on a regular basis. If you like, i can provide a list of the multitudes of problems that we found with them to demonstrate just how poorly they were put together / how little the designer really knows. The fact that most of these problems are still inherit to currently produced models tells you how little those designing & building Legacy speakers have learned over the years. Sean
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If a 3 octave bass plateau that starts at 300 Hz and levels out at 40 Hz with a +7 dB peak centered at 100 Hz combined with a +4 dB peak at 6 KHz, a -3 dB dip at 9 KHz and another big +8 dB peak at appr 12 KHz with horrible transient response factored in is someone's idea of a perfect world, i think that i have a VERY different idea of what "perfection" is. Obviously, the "Cerwin-Vega Sound" has had a bigger influence on the audiophile market than i thought it did. Sean
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PS... All test results & measurements were taken from the January 2004 Stereophile review of the Legacy 20/20. If you want the truth, learn how to read and interpret unbiased test results, not the sales hype that some call a "review".
PPS... Bare in mind that Legacy posted a copy of this review on their website without contradicting or even a single comment trying to refute how non-linear Stereophile's measurements were. Given the amount of rave reviews that Legacy products have garnered over the years, ALL of them from publications that lack testing facilities, you have to wonder just how "golden eared" these reviewers really are!?!?!? |
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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Dbld: My Father was not only a "happy owner" of Legacies, he had been led to believe that what he was listening to was also very accurate and well designed. It wasn't until he was shown otherwise, both in terms of visible design flaws and the sonic byproducts that resulted, that he was forced to change his opinion. Prior to that, he had been living in "ignorant bliss", simply because he didn't know any better or been exposed to better designs. Did this make him dumb? No. It only made him misled and gullible. Now that he knows the difference, he's not only happier with his system, but also less likely to be taken advantage of again anytime in the near future.
I think that most of this was due to being lulled into a state of self-confidence due to all of the poorly conducted "professional" reviews. The same goes for several other Legacy owners that i've modified speakers for that shared similar results. They could not believe how much better their speakers could sound using the same basic components even though "Legacies are some of the very best" prior to these modifications. As such, i had to ask them "if these were some of the best, how come there was SOOO much room for improvement in SOOO many different areas?". The only logical conclusion is that the original product wasn't nearly as good as they had been led to believe.
As such, i'm simply trying to help educate people BEFORE they make such a costly mistake and / or help them to understand why they are experiencing certain situations with said product if they've already bought it. If someone is happy with what they have and aren't interested in improving both the accuracy and the enjoyment of their system, so be it. They know what they have, they know what they like and my comments won't alter their opinion one iota. Then again, i would have to assume that MOST people that are reading this and other audio forums on a regular basis ARE interested in both learning and bettering their systems, otherwise they wouldn't be here.
As far as Legacy products go, consider me "done" on the subject. As you've pointed out, there's a multitude of reference material in the archives both here and at AA for those interested in finding out such info. The only reason that i responded to this thread again was that i had saw that Chad had responded and was making an apples to oranges comparison of two very different, yet somewhat similar products. As such, i wanted to point out that comparisons of products is only fair when the comparisons are conducted in a fair manner.
What he was doing would be equivalent to putting a 50 year old Cassius Clay in the ring with Mike Tyson in his prime. Obviously, the results are somewhat predictable even though one was a FAR more skilled and well-rounded performer than the other, but you would never know it because that performer was also well past the point of prime operation. This is why Component A beats Component B hands down, why Component B beats Component C hands down, yet Component C beats Component A. The bottom line is unequal comparisons with less than accurate judging or criteria. Sean
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Mcargill: The Focus doesn't use anything close to a true D'Appolito design. D'Appolito's follow a specific pattern in terms of driver sizes, spacing between drivers, crossover slopes, etc...
Having said that, i do agree that mic placement could change things pretty drastically, especially with this design. This has to do with the fact that the drivers are mounted not only vertically staggered but also horizontally too. This will produce a pretty strange and random radiation pattern that will be plagued by peaks and dips due to comb filtering. Using this type of design, the ability to localize specific imagery is also reduced.
Comb filtering takes place when you have more than one driver covering the same frequency range and they are spaced apart from each other. While bringing the drivers closer together may reduce comb filtering to a certain extent, all it really does is raise the frequency at where it will take place.
John Atkinson commented that best results would be obtained if one were sitting with their ears slightly above tweeter level. Given that the tweeters on the 20/20 are situated 45" above ground level, this may be pretty hard to achieve for most people of average height sitting on a typical chair or couch. Sean
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Froggerz: People can like whatever they want. Given that this is an open discussion forum where different people share different points of view and exchange ideas, it would be nice to have some idea as to where someone is coming from i.e. having a point of reference to better understand their comments.
As an example, if someone says "Brand A is the best i've ever heard", yet Brand A has a very unique presentation that widely deviates from the accepted standards of neutrality, others may want to be made aware of this. On top of that, if a product fails to meet its' own published spec's, others may want to be made aware of this. If i'm wrong for pointing this out or making others aware of such facts, then i'll stop posting technical commentaries.
My thoughts were that, given that many only know what they see in these forums & glossy mags, don't know how things work on a technical level and / or how to interpret spec's, the more background that they have on a subject, the more they can form their own opinions. Given that the comments that i've made in this and other similar threads can all be verified and supported by third party sources ( published reviews & reference grade text books ), what difference do you think my comments will make in terms of someone liking / disliking what they hear?
Like i've said in the past, one should buy and use what they like and will enjoy. I'm simply offering my point of view and explaining why i look at things the way that i do. If that can help someone to better understand the why's and how's of what they like / dislike in a product, i've done everything that i've hoped to achieve. Other than that, my comments are worth whatever an individual wants to value them at. Sean
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I made a BIG mistake here. I confused the design of the Whisper ( multiple stacked and staggered mids ) with that of the Focus ( vertical array ). As such, some of my comments, primarily those about lobing within the horizontal plane of the Focus, are not quite as applicable. I am sorry for any confusion that this may have caused. There will be comb-filtering taking place in the Focus though as it does use dual drivers spaced widely apart in an MTM array. Having said that, all of the info included is correct pertaining to lobing, cancellation, peaks & dips, limited specificity of imaging, etc... on designs that use multiple drivers sharing the same frequency range mounted side by side and / or staggered pairs that are mounted both vertically and horizontally. One can see the differences between how the Focus and other Legacy designs function and what i'm referring to here by reviewing pictures of their product line. The wider that the similar drivers are spaced apart, the more erratic the dispersion and more sensitive the sound will be to listening height, distance and angle. This is why most designers have abandoned horizontal driver alignment and have switched to vertical driver alignments. All of the designs pictured will require greater than average listening distances in order for the drivers to blend together. As i've mentioned in other threads, this is true of any design that uses a large quantity of drivers and / or a design that has the drivers spaced widely apart. Trying to use a speaker of this size and design in a smaller room and / or in a nearfield listening situation will result in sound that is far less than cohesive. Once again, if one wants to achieve good results, you have to pick and choose components that will work well with the environment they will be working with and electrical demands placed upon them. Even then, one will not be able to achieve the level of image specificity that one might experience using a speaker with fewer drivers in a more conventional configuration. Whether or not imaging is important to the individual is obviously a matter of personal preference. As a side note and for sake of clarification, imaging and soundstage presentation are two different things. Many people confuse the two thinking that a system with a wide / deep / tall soundstage is the same as having good imaging. This is not true as imaging is the specific placement of individual notes / performers within the soundstage itself. Kind of like looking at a picture of a crowd of people, but being able to see all of the people as individuals. Sean > PS... I have speakers that image very well ( vertically aligned drivers ) and i have speakers that lack image specificity ( omni's ). These are simply different types of presentation with both sounding good, just different. Some may like one type of presentation more than the other. As mentioned, one has to judge for themselves what they like and want to end up with over the long haul. Having said that, i think that most would agree that knowing more about such things before making a large investment in speakers may help them to look, listen and recognize that such differences do exist. Finding out about such things and / or being exposed to different types of presentations AFTER an expensive purchase has been made can be very disappointing to say the least. Sean > |
Drseid: Based on the content of the original question, the poster didn't own the specific Legacy's mentioned at the time. While i may be making a big assumption here, i would guess that they would like as much info about a potential product as is possible prior to making this type of investment. I could be wrong here, but the fact that they posted such a question tells me that they were still pondering the situation and unsure about the product in question.
On top of that, i need to correct one of my previous statements ( "I let my personal point of view cloud the issues and never even responded to the questions at hand." ) If you go back and read my original post, you'll see that my comments directly pertained to the question at hand. That is, the compatability of such an amplifier / speaker interphase, the basic sonic compliments of the components he already had and the electrical characteristics that the speakers inquired about typically work best with.
I then went on to share my own personal opinions of how i thought such a combo would sound and told them that whether or not they would like such a combo would be up to their ears and personal preferences. Things progressed from there based on other input generated within the thread.
Can you please point out to me where i led the thread astray? After reviewing this thread again, it looks like i was simply responding to comments made to or about my previous comments and / or offering further clarification as to why i had made them in the first place. Sean
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Chad: You're comparing a 25 year old speaker with normal age based decay in stock form to a new production model that has decades worth of technoligical improvements in raw parts and retails for appr five times the price. Hmmmm...
As far as bass attack goes, you're not going to get "faster" or "tighter" than a Q of .5 at resonance, which the AR offers in stock form. This is why Dunlavy chose the same basic electrical characteristics. Comparing that type of performance to ANY vented design in terms of transient response is strictly ridiculous from a technical vantage point. Vents are to transient response as turtles are to speed i.e. not normally mentioned in the same breath. Obviously, some vented designs are implimented better than others and that's where the noticeable differences come into play. Beyond that technical vantage point, the sound that one likes boils down to a matter of personal preference.
As a side note, most of Dudleston's early advertising literature was based on data that AR had published in their literature years earlier. One can even see the similarities in the charts / lay-outs used when comparing said literature side by side. This isn't to say that i consider the AR-9 to be the ultimate speaker ( NOT by a longshot ), but that i do consider it to be capable of far more neutral and natural performance than any of the Legacy's that i've ever heard. This is obviously in an apples to apples comparison, not in a "25 year old" vs "new" type of shoot-out. Due to the decay that naturally takes place in the electro-mechanical aspects of a speaker over time, such a comparision is completely unfair and unrealistic. Sean
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PS... The highly modified 9's are running as the mains in my HT system. After modifying my Father's Legacy's to perform closer to the design attributes of the AR's, he finally understood how grossly distorted and non-linear the Legacy's really were. Prior to that, he thought that the Legacy's were the greatest thing since sliced bread. Not only did he believe all of the reviews of these speakers that were based on subjective opinions, most of it probably had to do with the fact that his point of reference had never matured past his previous Bose 901's at that point in time. Yes, he had many years of being an "audiophile" and thousands upon thousands of dollars invested in previous systems, but his listening skills obviously weren't up to the task prior to that point in time. Bare in mind that this is my Father, whom i love and respect, that i'm talking about, not some sluggard off the street that i don't know.
PPS... Study the design of the AR-9LST and then look at the design of the Legacy 1's. You'll find SOOOO many similarities that it's not funny. Both utilize a four way, five driver design, a larger front firing woofer ( 12" AR vs 10" Legacy ) with a smaller down-firing woofer ( 10" AR vs 8" Legacy ), a large cone mid-woofer ( 8" AR vs 6" Legacy ), high frequency drivers that are vertically aligned, passively bi-ampable, etc... Then again, most designers try to emulate designs that they find to be worth copying. Having said that, how many copies actually supercede the performance of the originals without the aid of newer technology??? Not too many that i'm aware of. In this case, not even the newer technology could duplicate the years of research and knowledge applied to the earlier design.
Legacy has always touted "surface area", but as can be seen, even the older and far more refined AR designs had them beat years earlier. Given that the original AR-9 previous to the smaller and cheaper 9LSi used two 12's and an 8" mid-woofer, it was even further ahead of Legacy's original "top of the line" model.
Legacy is / was marketing hype and Dudleston has laughed his way to the bank and early retirement. Believe what you want, but the measurements and facts don't lie. They are poorly designed speakers that introduce more of their own traits to the signal than many other less "glamorous" products. This is obviously just my opinion and is based on both first hand listening experience and repeated test measurements as submitted by industry professionals. You might not agree with my personal listening observations, but the test results verify that other speakers are capable of far superior performance under identical conditions. |
