Legacy Focus XD - will I ever upgrade?

I cannot speak to the specific speakers, but I have made three jumps within the Sonus Faber line of roughly double or better the cost ($6K, $13K, $32K). Is is worth it? Holy cow, yes.

When established audio companies build product lines, they consider build costs and performance. They carefully weigh the performance against the competitors and within their own lines. Therefore it is a very safe bet expecting a big improvement when you double the price (my rule of thumb in audio... at a minimum double the price). The only thing to be a little cautious (I doubt this would be a problem), you can oversize the speakers for your space. Probably will sound better... just not as good as it could.

That would be part of my problem..... if I go from 16k to roughly 30k, the speakers offered would be embarrassingly huge in my room. the focus was about 10 inches taller than previous speakers and I thought they looked pretty big but I have gotten used to that, but even the modest increase to the next speaker would be pushing it on size. In this case, just not sure about going from a 15K soeaker to a 21k speaker would ever be worth it.

I had the choice of the $24K or the $32K... but I have a big room, 24' x 36'. By the way I am not talking about the physical size but the sound. You can overload a room. I had mentioned going to the $74kK Lilium and my audio guy said no... because the room would get overloaded with sound.

How big is your room? Do you have flexibility in placement?

My best estimate is that the upgrade would be worth it. I have been impressed with the jumps. I would do it.

I have reviewed several Legacy Audio speakers for Dagogo.com, if you care to read the reviews. Upgrading to higher models is worthwhile, as the performance changes dramatically. I owned the Focus HD, then the Focus SE, and went to the Whisper, finally doing some upgrades to transform it into the Whisper DSW Clarity Edition. 

I have not reviewed the Aeris, so I cannot speak about that first hand, but the leap from Focus SE to Whisper is enormous. The performance spectrum, even within a line of speakers, is much larger than you think. 

My room is about 20 x 40 but the 40 flows into an open area in back. As to speaker placement, I have Zero Flexability. They are about 7 ft apart and my theater seats including the center seat is about 11 ft away from speaker fronts.

As to which to upgrade to..... I would love to hear the whispers but I know how physically huge they are. They would look insane in my theater room. The aeris is only about 4 inches taller than what I have now and about the same width, so that would work. Are you running the wavelet pre amp with those Whispers because that is what I also need to consider in any future plans..... yes? I will read your reviews

mikekollar, my ceiling height in the room is 7.5' and the dimensions are 13' x 23',  so unless your room has a very low ceiling it will work. If you look at my system images you can see that I do not adhere to the received wisdom that you cannot use oversize speakers. 

The holistic sound quality of larger (upper end) speakers is definitively superior to lower end models, and that is true generally no matter the brand. I

My Whisper DSW speakers were the first of its kind, a hybrid that can be run in 3 modes; Entirely passive iwth as few as two channels of amplificaiton and tri-wiring, or combination of passive midrange and treble with active bass using the Wavelet for bass, or fully active with Wavelet. Over the years I have varied between setups. You'll read about it in the articles I have done about the Whisper. 

I upgraded from a pair of original Focus to the Aeris and have found the difference to be quite astounding. The upgrade from the XD, since it is a newer version, might not be as compelling. The most improvement was with vocals and mid-range. I tried a few different amplifiers to drive the top end. I tried Ps Audio that I didn't care for, and a PL Evo 400 which sounded great on midrange but seemed to run out of gas on louder passages. It also seemed to roll off the top end somewhat. I ended up getting a pair of Pass Labs x-260 mono blocks and haven't looked back. My listening room is 24x40 with 9 foot cielings (open concept). As far as the physical size, there is not much difference between the Aeris and XD. The wavelet is the real deal. In my quest for the best sound I tried many different permutations with pre-amps (tube and SS), speaker placement, DACs, etc. and found the wavelet to be the best performer. Setup was a snap and toggling between room correction and no correction is very noticeable. It works for me and I am still smitten with my setup. My only issue is this nagging feeling that the V's may be in my future. No compelling reason to upgrade further as I am more than pleased but I can't help but wonder. Maybe a road trip to Springfield would help this sickness. 

Lots of great and accurate feedback in this thread, unusual for Audiogon.

For those that don't have the budget for Pass, I would recommend Coda (slightly better for less) or highly recommend Legacy's own i.V2 (really an Ultra) or the i.V4 Ultra to bi-amp. Great review from douglas s above. And here's the latest:

Legacy i.V2 Amp Review

Hi Steve, that was very helpful. Given that the dealer I purchased the Focus XD speakers from went on and on about how my next purchase needed to be the wavelet, I think maybe that would be the next place to start actually. I have a question for you on that. My current preamp is an Emotiva XSP-1 (i think thats the model number). I specifically bought this pre amp because it was one of a few that has a terrific "home theater bypass" function leaving the volume controls of the main speakers up to the Yamaha 9.1 system for TV and movie night. I have one of those "best of both world" systems where I have an isolated 2 channel sytem that can be switched out to home theater and back again with a push of a button. I keep hearing "home theater function" as it pertains to the wavelet but I cannot find any documentation on that. Can you give me any insight to that functionality of the wavelet (off topic a bit here but I need to know).

Hi Mike, I can't really comment on it for home theater with the ability to bypass, but I do remember a disusion some time ago on here about that subject. You may elect to email Brice Auxier at Legacy for more specific and accurate information.

Thanks, will do. I would rather just have the wavelet as my pre amp but if there is no home theater bypass or similar, then the wavelet may have to become a device strictly used for its functionality for room correction, EQ, DAC, Punch etc and completely skip its pre amp capabilities which would be a shame.... almost pointless maybe as I assume I would also be walking away from its crossover capabilities also. That might require a whole different setup but with the Emotiva pre amp I can not only have HT bypass, I could also run the wavelet functions into a dedicated input on the pre amp, or, run it throught the pre amp "external processor loop"...... aargh, gets messy. Seems silly to spend 5k and NOT use something like that to the fullest, but what to do..... it still all needs to be dual purpose (home theater and 2 channel) unless i were to purchase cheaper smaller towers for HT and put them next to the Lagacy’s. Again, not optimal at all.

Not surprised at that reviewer’s findings in regard to the Legacy i.V2 amp. Having worked with 2 vs. 4 channels of the i.V4 Ultra, I would not be without the two additonal channels for use with any speaker, from efficient to more difficult to drive. Big difference in perfomance with the extra two channels, which brings up the resolution and refinement without penalty. It’s such a large improvement that I would not even consider running only two channels on any setup when 4 are availalble. Why starve a system from the extra 600wpc? :)

My review of the i.V4 Ultra (in fact, I reviewed a pair of them, offering up to 8 channels of amplification, 4,800 total wpc into 8 Ohms - I put such things to good use) is at Dagogo.com, and I have to say that the Whisper with the Legacy XTREME XD Subs in such a setup (12 fifteen inch drivers altogether) is otherwordly in terms of dynamics. Scary capacity to pressurize the room even at low listening level. Some of the best sessions of detecting and appreciating LF in any system I have heard. That made the Focus seem like a bookshelf speaker in comparison.

Imo, putting another pair of speakers in for mains for HT would be a misstep. If I recall correctly, I used the Outlaw Audio’s (I don’t put big money into HT) pre outputs into the Wavelet for HT. Calibrate for level, and you’re set.

Right now, I am using the pre outs from a Yamaha AV Receiver into the emotiva pre amp with home theater bypass on. Then when switching to 2 channel audio, I turn off HT bypass which returns all controls to the pre amp where I have my streamer hooked up to a pre amp input and from there, on to the power amp and speakers. Would wavelet accomodate a similar if not true HT bypass function. Whats great about the HT bypass circuitry is that it turns off all functionality of the pre amp circuitry (including volume) and just passes the signal on to the power amp which eliminates having to level or balance volume between mains and surrounds as volume is 100% controlled by the AV receiver in HT bypass mode. (I should mention that I have these Focus XD speakers bi - amped as the internal power amp in thr speakers is driving the woofers)

Bringing this back up as I wonder if @douglas_schroeder or others have any insight regarding the AMT tweeter differences in the Focus SE V1 vs the current AMT setup? The Focus HD brought across the board differences in drivers, compared to earlier versions of the Focus. The current Focus SE (and other models) have a later version of the AMT tweeter as compared to Focus HD and the "V1" version of the Focus SE. I haven’t found commentary from Bill Duddleston (or others) about that progression and wondering what the feedback is on the first version of that AMT setup vs the current version.

In other words, is one giving up much in performance by having the HD version of the AMT vs current setup?

Thanks for any feedback.

Any feedback about the current vs previous AMT setup?

Thanks

😐

I’m shopping for speakers and the Legacy line, especially the XD, has caught my eye.  If you ever think of selling let me know.  

I am looking at the Focus SE or XD for my VAC Renaissance 70/70 Signature amp. My room is a well treated 14 x 18 x 6.5 basement dedicated listening room. I keep my speakers almost 7 feet off the front wall and 3.5 feet off side walls. My current speakers are Goldenear Triton 1.r's. They have a lot of bass and work well in the room. I am leaning toward the Focus XD to ensure my amp has the power it needs with tht 300B tube magic midrange.