Legacy Classics and bottom end?


I love the top end of my classics but the bottom bass can be bloated at times. I have a Coda 300w / 600w into 4 ohms so power is not the problem ( I assume ). Has anyone bi-wired their speakers and had good results? I am looking at the Signal speaker wire. ( oh, I am using a Kimber cable built for legacy... kind like a 8TC. Plus.... do spades seem to do better than banannas? Any help would be welcome. I have checked all connections.... speaker wire is not near any power cords.
mlbattey
Bloated bass is far more likely due to speaker design and set up in your room than the effect of any other single component. If you're not confident you have the best set up, why not ID your speakers, the size of your room, and the present placement of your speakers and listening position and folks here will give you some feedback. If you try to solve this problem with cables you will get a broadband solution to a narrow band problem.

Good locking bananas and spades are beyond my ability to differentiate. If you can get a very tight connection spades are fine and cheaper. If you have plastic nuts on your speakers or amps I would use locking bananas.
Some of your problem may be system related ( sonic combo of electronics ), but your speakers have very definite problems internally. Changing cabling and electronics may help to reduce how obvious this is, but short of re-designing or getting rid of the speakers, you're always going to have to deal with this type of situation to one extent or another. Been there, done that and you can read my comments about it in the archives.

Probably the easiest thing to do would be to seal the ports as best possible and fill the cabinet up internally with either polyester fiberfil, acousta-stuf, acoustic foam or fiberglass. Changing the quantity and density will vary the bass transient response and extension to your liking.

It may initially sound like the speakers have "no bass" to you after doing this, but that's because you are used to hearing a massive amount of bloated ringing. Careful listening should instantly tell you that bass definition is improved and that bass notes actually do have "pitch". After a while, the drivers will start to produce more bass as they break-in further.

I know that others will say that this is "impossible" if the speakers already have many hours on them, but guess again. Due to the vented alignment, the woofers never really moved much. As such, their suspension was never pushed very hard. Sealing the cabinet causes greater excursion of the driver, which will alter the suspension as compared to what it was prior to sealing and stuffing the cabinet. Once this takes place, and you get acclimated to what more accurate bass actually sounds like, i think that you'll be pretty happy with the results.

The reason why sealing this cabinet works better is that most of the bass extension that the ported Legacy speakers enjoy comes from producing a huge peak in the upper bass region. By the time the output has fallen to the -3 dB point coming off of that huge peak, the measured frequency is quite low. While this looks good on paper in terms of printed measurements, it sounds like hell.

The main problem is that the huge peak is based on a complete lack of control, no damping and the sound reflects that. That is, it is very slow, indistinct and rings uncontrollably. There is a GREAT quantity, but the quality is phenomenally low. As i've said in the past, sealed vs ports is a matter of quality vs quantity.

By flattening the peak via killing the ports, and sealing and stuffing the cabinet, which makes the box appear physically larger and restores internal damping characteristics to the drivers, not only is sound improved, but so is extension. That's because vents fall off at a much sharper rate below resonance than sealed cabinets do.

If you have questions on this, feel free to either drop me a line or post your questions here. I would prefer to do things publicly if at all possible though, as others can share & learn at the same time. Sean
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Hello,
I can help.Legacy makes a bass filter to reduce bass.I have a pair. If you call them they might provide them no charge...I sold my Classics because I thought they were too bottom heavy,I now have a pair of Legacy Soundstage that have two sevens.a five inch kevlar and a ribbon and I love them!Please let me know if I can help you [or if you know anyone that has ANY Legacy stuff for sale.} Dave 513 616 7028
Hmm. I have a set of Legacy Classics, as well as a set of Legacy Signature IIIs, which are NOT ported.

I have the Sig IIIs bi-wired with Tara Labs RSC bi-wire, and the sound is pretty good, except that mine have the polypropolene mid drivers rather than the kevlar ones that came later. So, there is just a touch of mid-range ringing with vocals at high volumes. The bass is good and tight, but that may be more a function of the sealed box design.

I just have the Classics connected with some plain monster heavy stranded cable, not bi-wired. They do seem to have a lot of bass, but that may be largely a function of my only possible listening location(in that room) right against the back wall. I am interested in bi-wiring them with some better cable soon.

Interesting comments about stuffing the ports of the Classics. I would like to find out some more about that.
Sean..... what is "sonic combo"? Plus, If I shut off all ports can it damage the speakers? I have always thought Legacy could have built/ wanted > the Classic with 2 8" drivers. ( a Classic 8 ) 2 fast 8" drivers could put out a lot of bass and maybe not go as low.....add a sub to tweak the low end if wanted m o r e..... You are right about one thing... when you bloat the low end it smears bass detail and clouds what is above it.