Legacy anyone?

I attended the Legacy "demo" yesterday. I am calling it a demo, rather than a show. Mostly based on the scaled down presentation. No separate rooms(just a curtain), no food, no drink. Most of all, no Bill Duddleston. It seemed as if most of their products were in attendance. On one side of the curtain was the two channel setup, on the other was the Home Theater. They used a Pioneer DVD player as the source, into their own Legacy pre and power amps. I'll start with a quick statement of the HT side. It was good. I am not an HT person, so I am not someone you should listen to. However, in playing two channel through the speakers on the HT side, it was very disappointing. I will use a song by Bela Fleck and The Flecktones as the focus, as it was a main demo track for this setup. Their flagship, Whisper, was impressive to most, but terrible to me. The track was simply an electric bass, and the sound noticeably jumped back and forth from the 15" woofers to the 7" midrange drivers. This was so obvious that it almost sounded as if two different instruments were playing. I don't blame the drivers, passing music between 15" and 7" drivers is a task more daunting than I would ever tackle. Seemless it was anything but. This poor driver integration resulted in me having a hard time discerning the overall midrange quality(it distracted me that much), but I will give it the benefit of the doubt. Other than the satellite/studio monitors, Legacy is using soft dome tweeters. A wise move, they were fairly detailed and smooth. But, below average in their class. The HT oriented Empire was completely disappointing. In short of the reverse way that a great minimonitor is impressive. If I see some humongous drivers, I expect humongous sound. It was nothing of the sort. On to the stereo side of the room. I want to say that the Focus is their best speaker, as has been stated above. Bass was too heavy(unlike all my previous experiences with Legacy), but the rest of the sound seemed fine. In fact, quite good. I would have to give them a more thorough audition before committing, but if satisfied, would recommend them. They had the speakers really close to the corners of the room, and that may be part of the bass problem. I would have to try them with tubes, to see how current hungry they are. I have a feeling they might be, despite their touting the high efficiency of their line. The Studio Monitors deserve praise in the area of power handling. They did not turn to dreck as the volume went higher and higher. I can think of some high end speakers that might want to take a lesson from that. That speaker was the only one to use a metal dome tweeter, and it showed. Harsh and sizzly. The rep even agreed with me. They were actually super nice people, and customer service/satisfaction seems exemplary. One nice thing I would like to say about them is that they will store the speaker's boxes for you, for free, for the lifetime of the speaker(which could possibly be longer than the company). The rest of the line seems unimpressive to me, as it always has. Certainly not good value for the money, as a lot of great speakers have come out in the past decade. They would have been a better purchase in the late 80's. I think the glaring weakness is in parts quality of the tweeters. Here in 2001, we see speakers feauturing tweeters from Dynaudio, Morel, ScanSpeak, Accuton, Focal(not my bag), Vifa, etc. It's time to move out of the 80's, and use a tweeter that costs more than $10 in an expensive speaker. Funniest person there: A guy who kept A/Bing the Studio Monitor vs. the Focus. It's why I have such deep opinions on each speaker. He got testy when one of the reps mentioned that people don't usually A/B those two. I jumped in for the rep, telling him that two speakers were diametrically opposed to each other, but the guy insisted. I have met people who "understand the hobby" more than him along the way, I can assure you.

I tried to audition the Focus speakers three years ago and failed. I had read the great review of the Focus in The Sensible Sound. It was right at the top of my budget so I called and made an appointment to visit a regional audition site in Pasadena CA. We drove 300 miles to get there, arrived at the agreed time and know one was there. We waited 90 minutes and left. The people at Legacy call me the following Monday and explained what had happened and how they couldn’t get to a phone to cancel the appointment. Now here’s the best part. If not for Legacy I may not have stopped by that other dealer and heard the Thiel 6’s I have now. So if you folks at Legacy are reading this “Thank”

I agree with Jb8312. I went to the web site to check out the speakers. When they asked me to sign in I split. Nice way to get rid of alot of potential customers.

I've owned the focus for 6 years and I'm very happy with them.I use them for 2 channel audio only.Each componet upgrade is rewarded with transparent musical imageing.I bought focus sound unheard and I'm still discovering great things about music.

Any Manufacturer, Dealer or SALESHACK that requires me to login and register at their website JUST to take a peek at their products looses my bussiness....I am just funny that way.....

Seems to be the same reactions from Legacy I have always gotten. They make great advertisement(like Bob Carver and Matthew Polk), and look astounding on paper. But, give them a listen, and come away feeling as if you heard the very definition of nothing. I have never found Legacy bad. Just never had a reaction. As if the whole is much less than the sum of its parts(and ad copy). Jmcgrogan2, it would be great to meet you, if you get to the show. Unfortunately, the forecasts are calling for glorious weather this Saturday. I welcome the opportunity of meeting anyone at the show.

I went to their show in Feb 2001 in Dallas, Texas. The only thing I like was the Focus and that was for music audio only. They had their hometheater demo worth more than $20k and it sucked bad. They had demoed "The Matrix" chapter 29(hallway shooting) and it did not sound right, Immediately after that I went home to my under $10k set up and Mine blows it away. Those guys doing the demo are not very helpful and lack of knowledge.

I've been following Legacy since 1987 when they were called Reel to Real Design. I've bought 3 pair of speakers from them over the course of time. I would say they aren't what they used to be, but success tends to do that. When you put so much money into catalogs and full page ads in audio mags it has to come from somewhere. In the late 80's and early 90's their speakers were really a steal,now I just think they compete in their price range. I live in this area and would like to attend the show, but I have this damn family engagements. My son has a baseball tournament in Reading ALL freaking weekend. I'll pray for rain, with a good soaking I might be able to attend.