Legacy Whisper owners - Steridian problem

I'd say you got a piece of defective equipment. It might be time to move up the chain-of-command at Legacy & talk to someone who can get something done. I don't think they'd be too big on losing you as a customer.

I agree with Beavis. Hard to imagine Legacy wouldn't send you the piece and possibly take your defective unit in with a core charge/credit.

I can give you some information about the processor. The hum part is only as guess though.

Many electronics seem to reset if they are turned off and unplugged for a least 1minute. I would try this first. If the hum still exists, I would make sure the interconnect is not to close to any thing else, especially a power cord or speaker cable. Did you use the adapters with the same IC? I suggest removing the IC and try a different one. If you have none available, go to Best Buy or somewhere similar and buy a cheap pair of RCA single ended cables and see if the hum goes away. It is possible there is a lose or bad connection in your cable or the balanced connections of your equipment. If the hum still exists after all this, then you’ll know for sure it is in the processor.

Now for the part I’m sure about, the slight veil on the sound, plus a loss of immediacy. I have experimented around and talked to the guys at Coda who were the people that made the amps for Legacy. They use a pair of Whispers to demo their amps. The processor is needed for bottom end control but will reduce the transparency of the mid and hi frequencies. The Steridian processor is a necessary evil of the Whisper. A suggestion from Coda was to try using the tape loops from your preamp to the Steridian. It seems there is a slight voltage difference and this may be a possible effect of transparency loss. I tried this but detected no difference. But, I use a surround receiver as my preamp. A preamp may produce a better result than I had.

The proven method that I currently use is to biamp the Whispers. I have the bottom end power amp connected through the Steridian processor so I have full control of the bass. I use another power amp that is not connected to the processor for the mid and hi frequencies. I use the best sounding amp for this top end. I have only 1 pair of RCA preouts, so I use a Y connection to do this. The result is a very detailed reproduction of whatever I listen to. I’ll admit, biamping will add to cost and space, but I demand the finest details that the Whisper is capable of.

There are some very nice amps that pop up for sale on Audiogon from time to time. I use the Coda’s because this is what Bill Dudleston, the Whisper designer, prefers. I have a Continuum Ultra amp that is very liquid, transparent and powerful. They also have a Stage series that was called Powerbloc in Legacy catalogs. These are very high quality lost cost amps.

FYI… I do not know who made the Steridian processor. I wish I knew. I suggest calling Legacy and ask for Bill Dudleston’s phone number in Springfield, Illinois. I know in early 2005 he still was involved with the company. He could tell you who built the Steridian processor if it needs repair. I would like to know, so if you call him, please let me know also. Maybe there is a mod that would help the transparency of this processor. The amps and preamps that Legacy use to sell were built by Coda. The speaker cable is Kimber 8TC.

Feel free to email me if you wish……

Check on a device called the Kosmos by Peavey. Go to the peavey.com site. It will solve the Whispers and steradian problem. You can go to a local music store and maybe borrow one to try it out.

You should look at a Tact 2.2x and then you could eq and biamp it with two DAC cards or two digital amps. This would give you the ultimate flexiblity, plus you could correct for room problems at the same time. You can set the crossover points with the Tact and this should replace the Steridian.