Legacy Focus 20/20 Speaker amp

I demoed a pair of 20/20's using a CJ Premier 11a in my home. Although the speakers are rated 96dB/W/m, they like power to control those 12" drivers.

The 20/20's sounded wonderful w/ the CJ @ lower volume. When pushed, the CJ started to break up a bit.

Hope this helps.

Hat

Hat's experience makes sense. Although the 20/20s are efficient, they really thrive on current (amps) which tubes don't typically deliver. At least this is my experience.

I have the 20/20s, and each amp improvement I have experienced seemed to coincide with big current delivery. I started with a Bryston 4B NRB, then a Legacy (Coda) Powerbloc2, then Legacy (Coda) Ultra Monoblocs, and now a McIntosh MC-352. Each step was an improvement.

I did try an Art Audio Concerto II once (a valve amp). And although the mids at low level were very nice and believable, I couldn't push the volume very hard before clipping.

The Focus is a great speaker, but its impedance dips make it sometimes challenging for amps. I guess it all depends on what you value more…your amp, or the potential sound from the Focus 20/20s.

You could always bi-amp with the CJ up top and a SS amp for the Bass.

Best of Luck!

I have to disagree. With my experience a good amplifier with 120 watts is more then enough to drive these at rock levels. I went from 600 x 2, to 120 x 2 and didnt notice any lack of bass,dynamics. And I still drove them till they hurt my ears at 11 ft away. I finially moved to a all ayre system with the v-5xe amp. Still sounds wonderful and powerful. I havent tried a 70 watt tube, but I would imagine unless you want rock concert level, it would do fine. If you cant use tubes on 96db speakers, what can you use them on?

I owned the older Focus(not the 20/20) for many years. They were very fine speakers, just became too big for my current room set up.
I found that power Amps like Krell or Pass really get the bass performance out of the Legacy's.
Because of the impedence dip, the bass speakers require that extra push.
Others have stated that lower power Amps work fine with them, but I still think you will not get the potential bass they can provide.

So, try it with your Amp and perhaps, eventually, get another Amp like what has been suggested for bi-Amping.

Ozzy...that was my experience. Sthomas12321, it is interesting that the actual listening level wasn't out of line when I had the 40w tubes. That is, I didn't have to turn it way up just to hear it as the low wattage would imply. I do have some bass heavy tracks I listen to from time to time. Not Rock, but Jazz. Maybe I am off track, but I still feel they need current (amperage) more than power (wattage). Just my opinion since I seem to be proven wrong a lot. ;-)

My father owned the 20/20 for 6 years, he drove them with Mono Briged Clase C150 amps wich gave him 300 watts per channel, you need power for these to listen at 80+ DB.

My ayre v-5xe is 300 watts into 4 ohms, but most good 150 watt amps will do near this. I would agree the bass sounds softer a LITTLE with my ayre then my bryston, but Im not sure thats a matter of power. Brystons are known for bass/midrange, and a little bit forward/punchy sounding.(havent heard/owned the sst yet)I will say if Ive ever owned a speaker that didnt need lot of power, this was it. Even when my 8bst lost its 2 left channels and I used it as 120 watts x 2 (8ohms) it still sounded amazing, and litterally easily played 95+ spl. The ayre took my legacy focus 20/20's to a level I havent heard in audio. I didnt know it could be that clean, and the soundstage while maybe not as deep as some electrostatics Ive owned, Had the widest Ive heard. Incredible. And I found I could tow them in much more then any other speaker and still get this wide soudstage effect with a spooky dead center sound when the musci called for it. If I played around with bi amping and a eq for the sub portion. Id love to try a powerful amp to boost the lower end. I read a review somewhere online with the focus 20's using the steridian(I think thats what its called) that the whispers use and he boosted the lower 25-20hz section and said it took lots of power for the speaker to play +/- 3 that low. That would be truely cool and totally eliminate a sub, for any music, and even MOVIES!

Chadnliz,
I wanted to say thanks, reading all your positive reviews was one of the many reasons I purchased my legacy 20/20's when I was looking at different speakers.THANK YOU!

wow thank you for the kind words, I hope you are happy with them, they served my father well for years.