HELP: Legacy OR Monitor Audio 5.1 set-up? Huge $ decison that I do not want to regret

[Irvrobinson]

Guys, I just checked again, and it appears like Legacy rates their speakers frequency response at + or - 2 decibles.

Yeah, but frankly I wouldn't believe them. The original Focus that I had by Legacy specifications were +/- 2db from 16Hz to 30KHz. You can still download the owners manual from Legacy's web site. Now I don't know about 30KHz, but I measured my Foci in-room and their response fell off at a very high rate below about 28Hz. There was practically no audible response at 25Hz, no less being -2db at 16Hz. And if you look at the Stereophile measured curve for the Focus 20/20, guess what, that's exactly what you see, response that plummets like a rock below about 30Hz.

I also like their 4 ohm spec. My pair was measured, and their impedance was below 3 ohms for most of the bass frequencies. I think it would have been fair to call the original Focus a 2 ohm speaker, by the standards most speakers are measured by.

The only spec that seemed accurate was the sensitivity, which probably was about 95db/1w. The Focus was so sensitive it was downright annoying with high-end pre-amps.

 

[addictaudio]

Do any of you gentlemen live in California?

 

[Irvrobinson]

Do any of you gentlemen live in California?

Not me. Why do you ask?

 

[addictaudio]

Do any of you gentlemen live in California?

because I would love to meet some of you in person and check your systems out as well.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Guys, I just checked again, and it appears like Legacy rates their speakers frequency response at + or - 2 decibles.

I would not believe them either. That is why many of us want 3rd party measurements.

I think some of us trust certain manufacturers more than others.

For example, Harman (Revel, JBL), KEF, TAD, Philharmonic, Ascend, Funk, PSB, Paradigm, etc.

Based on the 2 Stereophile measurements of the Legacy Audio, there is no way in heck Legacy is +/-2dB.

Now after Gene measures the new Legacy, that could change. If you are not in a hurry, you may wait for Gene to review. But based on the 2 reviews available, hell no it's not +/-2dB.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Do any of you gentlemen live in California?

Jared(Monkish54) lives in California. He owns the excellent Philharmonic 2 towers.

 

[mtrot]

I can't be much help with newer models, but I really like my Legacy Audio Signature II that I have had for a long time. They are now sounding the best they ever have, with my new McCormack DNA-1 Deluxe Rev. A power amp and Morrow Audio SP2 speaker cables. There is such "immediacy" to the sound of cymbals, drum shots, etc., and vocals sound great as well. I have no idea how accurate these would measure, but they do have switches on the back to adjust frequency response for room effects.

I also had a set of Monitor Audio Silver 9i towers in my bedroom system(now replaced by Dynaudio Audience 82), and they are very nice indeed. The tweeters on the 9i are good, but the ribbons on the Legacy even better, IMO.

The nice thing about the big Legacy models is that, if you can live with them not measuring as accurate as some others, is that they do a lot of things very well. You get true bass extension(room permitting) down to ~20Hz, and you can produce a sense of the weight and scale of an orchestra and the symphony hall of the recording. They work well for various genres of music, as well as home theater. I think they are also great for jazz ensembles and Diana Krall type stuff. They do need a good sized room and volume to in order to produce true deep bass, so take that into account. Also the ribbon tweeters on mine sit pretty far above the ground, and the vertical dispersion is not that great, so you may need to have a pretty high listening chair, or angle the speakers down a bit. Maybe the newer ribbons have better vertical dispersion.

I think both the Monitors and the Legacys will sound great with the right sources, amplification and cables. You just have to listen and decide which you like best.

 

[Irvrobinson]

I can't be much help with newer models, but I really like my Legacy Audio Signature II that I have had for a long time. They are now sounding the best they ever have, with my new McCormack DNA-1 Deluxe Rev. A power amp and Morrow Audio SP2 speaker cables. There is such "immediacy" to the sound of cymbals, drum shots, etc., and vocals sound great as well. I have no idea how accurate these would measure, but they do have switches on the back to adjust frequency response for room effects.

I also had a set of Monitor Audio Silver 9i towers in my bedroom system(now replaced by Dynaudio Audience 82), and they are very nice indeed. The tweeters on the 9i are good, but the ribbons on the Legacy even better, IMO.

The nice thing about the big Legacy models is that, if you can live with them not measuring as accurate as some others, is that they do a lot of things very well. You get true bass extension(room permitting) down to ~20Hz, and you can produce a sense of the weight and scale of an orchestra and the symphony hall of the recording. They work well for various genres of music, as well as home theater. I think they are also great for jazz ensembles and Diana Krall type stuff. They do need a good sized room and volume to in order to produce true deep bass, so take that into account. Also the ribbon tweeters on mine sit pretty far above the ground, and the vertical dispersion is not that great, so you may need to have a pretty high listening chair, or angle the speakers down a bit. Maybe the newer ribbons have better vertical dispersion.

I think both the Monitors and the Legacys will sound great with the right sources, amplification and cables. You just have to listen and decide which you like best.

That's the thing about speakers that aren't accurate, sometimes they sound very good. A lot of people like speakers that don't have flat frequency response, especially if they listen to pop or rock music. The problem is that some people begin to notice that the speaker's coloration imparts a sameness to various recordings. One test some audiophiles have used for years to identify really accurate speakers is to gauge how different recordings sound from one another. I agree that the older Legacys do a lot of things well, especially considering most of the competition around when they were new, but hearing electrostatics, various open-baffle speakers like the Orion, and really neutral box speakers like the Dunlavys revealed the colorations in the Focus. They were often euphonic colorations, but they are deviations from accuracy.

Truth be known, the Salon 2s that everyone worships around here suck at classic rock. It doesn't bother me much, because I was never into rock even when classic rock was new, but my wife, who is into classic rock, would like some of my old colored speakers back. The accuracy of the Salon 2 takes apart the mixes so that you can hear sloppy mixing and mastering work, and the lack of a fat bump in the response curve from 50Hz to 500Hz makes them sound thin and lifeless on all but the best rock recordings. Most classic rock has no bass below about 60Hz, so turning up the sub just sounds funny. You can't listen to Dark Side of the Moon all of the time. I suppose I could fix it with EQ, but I don't have that capability in my audio system any more, after I sold off the Accuphase pre-amp I had just to give my wife's rock CDs a loudness contour.

 

[monkish54]

Jared(Monkish54) lives in California. He owns the excellent Philharmonic 2 towers.

What he said!

 

[mtrot]

That's the thing about speakers that aren't accurate, sometimes they sound very good. A lot of people like speakers that don't have flat frequency response, especially if they listen to pop or rock music. The problem is that some people begin to notice that the speaker's coloration imparts a sameness to various recordings. One test some audiophiles have used for years to identify really accurate speakers is to gauge how different recordings sound from one another. I agree that the older Legacys do a lot of things well, especially considering most of the competition around when they were new, but hearing electrostatics, various open-baffle speakers like the Orion, and really neutral box speakers like the Dunlavys revealed the colorations in the Focus. They were often euphonic colorations, but they are deviations from accuracy.

Truth be known, the Salon 2s that everyone worships around here suck at classic rock. It doesn't bother me much, because I was never into rock even when classic rock was new, but my wife, who is into classic rock, would like some of my old colored speakers back. The accuracy of the Salon 2 takes apart the mixes so that you can hear sloppy mixing and mastering work, and the lack of a fat bump in the response curve from 50Hz to 500Hz makes them sound thin and lifeless on all but the best rock recordings. Most classic rock has no bass below about 60Hz, so turning up the sub just sounds funny. You can't listen to Dark Side of the Moon all of the time. I suppose I could fix it with EQ, but I don't have that capability in my audio system any more, after I sold off the Accuphase pre-amp I had just to give my wife's rock CDs a loudness contour.

Yeah, I heard the Salon 2s at a local dealer, and that was my reaction, exactly. I mean, they sounded very clean, crisp, accurate, and at the same time also I felt like asking, where's the bass? I'm sure that with a recording that actually contained deep bass, they would reproduce it well. At the time I purchased my Legacys, I didn't know much about frequency response measurements on speakers, and that they likely had a mid-bass bump.

If I had the money to buy a set of expensive speakers now, I would go for something accurate like the Salons, knowing they are not euphonic at all. I just have a bias towards hearing the music as close to the original recording as possible. At this point, if I listen to speakers that do seem "sweet" or euphonic in some way, that kind of sticks in my head and I start thinking, "hey that sounds nice, but...not accurate".

I guess the question is, how many dB variance, in which frequencies, are you willing to live with, or rule out?

 

[Irvrobinson]

I guess the question is, how many dB variance, in which frequencies, are you willing to live with, or rule out?

I can't say, because speakers are about more than a flat frequency response. It's also a matter of where the variances are and what they look like. For example, +/- 3db might be just fine if the +3db was a gently rising linear curve in the bass, and a linear roll-off in the upper treble. If there's a +3db bump right around 60-80Hz and another in the 4KHz range I might not be so forgiving.

I've often counseled people to ask themselves what they really listen to. If it's jazz and classical music then a speaker like the Salon 2 can be a revelation. Actually, they are a revelation. But if you really like Meat Loaf, Traffic, The Police, Toto, Deep Purple, AC-DC, and Fleetwood Mac, you might be happier with speakers that are less accurate. Rock wasn't recorded or mixed (or equalized) to be heard on $22K speakers that weren't even a dream when those tracks were taped. Those recordings were mixed to be heard in a car, small stereos, and at best the colored speakers of the day, like AR, KLH, JBL, Pioneer, and Marantz. I still remember talking to a recording engineer in high school who mentioned that they kept various cheap-o radios and stereos around to make sure their recordings sounded good on all of them. I was so disappointed. A big target market of the '70s was a car radio with a single 5x7 woofer with a whizzer cone in the dash. Gross, but true.

 

[monkish54]

I still remember talking to a recording engineer in high school who mentioned that they kept various cheap-o radios and stereos around to make sure their recordings sounded good on all of them.

Yamaha's NS-10: The Most Important Speaker You've Never Heard Of

I have heard the same thing.

Personally, I prefer a speaker that is +/- 1db, as that is the lowest tolerance I can accurately hear. As Irv said, there is more to speaker design than just FR. Although, that is a good place to start. If a speaker has a very poor FR (anything beyond +/- 3db), I wouldn't bother.

Try this:

Audible Difference in Sound Level Blind Listening Test

Also, Irv is right. If you listen to mostly rock (or other poor recordings) an ultra-accurate speaker is going to allow them to sound very poor. One could intentionally seek a colored speaker to compensate for poor recordings, although I wouldn't personally advise it. Why not get an Ultra-accurate speaker and listen to good recordings? (There are not many of those in the genre of rock. Even DSOTM is just alright.) To each his own.

I have thrown out over half..probably two-thirds of my recordings because they sound like poop on my Philharmonic 2s. That said, a good recording sounds ****ing amazing.

 

[monkish54]

If I had the money to buy a set of expensive speakers now, I would go for something accurate like the Salons, knowing they are not euphonic at all. I just have a bias towards hearing the music as close to the original recording as possible. At this point, if I listen to speakers that do seem "sweet" or euphonic in some way, that kind of sticks in my head and I start thinking, "hey that sounds nice, but...not accurate".

I agree 100%

 

[Irvrobinson]

I have thrown out over half..probably two-thirds of my recordings because they sound like poop on my Philharmonic 2s.

To a musician like my wife what you said is blasphemy. It's the music that is most important, accuracy is second.

 

[monkish54]

To a musician like my wife what you said is blasphemy. It's the music that is most important, accuracy is second.

Can your wife listen to Mozart on a clock radio/alarm clock? xD

 

[addictaudio]

OK. The following are my listening habits. I mostly will be using the system in a 5.1 configuration with either musical Blue Ray's or movies, along with watching satelite Direct TV. I would say around 50% music (Blue Ray DVD) and 50% TV and movies. I will not be using it as a two channel system, maybe rarely. I listen to a variety of music. I like Phil Collins, Andrea Bocelli, Sarah Brightman, Phantom of the Opera, and absolutely LOVE all music from the 80's, such as: REO Speedwagon, Journey, Foreigner, etc.. One thing that you have all pointed out that I noticed. I purchased the Time Life Collection of around 8 CD's with mostly music from the 80's, and the recording sounds horrible with mostly any speaker. They said that the songs were digitally remastered, which I was under the impression would sound much better than when originally recorded, but that was not the case at all.

So what you all are saying is that accurate speakers do not reproduce rock music well? I wish that the FR charts were available for the newly released/improved Legacy speakers. Is a speaker with generally more woofers/midrange better/sound better than one with fewer drivers? I know that Legacy likes to use more/larger drivers than some other brands. For instance, the Legacy Signature SE has two 10-inch woofers, one 7-inch midrange, and the new dual air motion tweeter (one tweeter being 4 inches and the other one inch tweeter for super high frequencies). On the other hand, the MA GX 300 tower (largest tower in the GX line), only has two 6 1/2-inch woofers, a 4-inch midrange), and the ribbon tweeter. I know that cabinet design along with crossover points make difference in the sound reproduction. I did not get a chance to play the Time Life Recordings with the MA's (as we played Blue Ray), but did with the Legacy as those were auditioned in two channel mode. The Time Life recording did not sound good with the Legacy. Does this mean that those speakers were accurate? Who knows. The Legacy's were in a large bright waiting room, and not in the audition treated. We moved them in to a dedicated audio room that they perform all of the auditions, played another recording, and they sounded night and day compared to the other room with the Time Life recording. Also, the speakers were around 4 to 5 feet from the back wall and around the same from the side walls, which quite frankly is probably too far in either direction, and would most likely sound better with closer boundaries.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Can your wife listen to Mozart on a clock radio/alarm clock? xD

You're dialing up the contrast too high. Her point is simply that not listening to music you love because your notion of a "good" audio system is making your favorite music sound like crap is the wrong strategy. I can see her point too. There's no one "right" sound for rock music. The bass player or the guitar player could adjust their amps differently, or the drummer's bass drum is in a different position, as it's a completely different sound balance. If the recording sounds thin, use EQ (or colored speakers for permanent EQ).

 

[addictaudio]

I can't be much help with newer models, but I really like my Legacy Audio Signature II that I have had for a long time. They are now sounding the best they ever have, with my new McCormack DNA-1 Deluxe Rev. A power amp and Morrow Audio SP2 speaker cables. There is such "immediacy" to the sound of cymbals, drum shots, etc., and vocals sound great as well. I have no idea how accurate these would measure, but they do have switches on the back to adjust frequency response for room effects.

I also had a set of Monitor Audio Silver 9i towers in my bedroom system(now replaced by Dynaudio Audience 82), and they are very nice indeed. The tweeters on the 9i are good, but the ribbons on the Legacy even better, IMO.

The nice thing about the big Legacy models is that, if you can live with them not measuring as accurate as some others, is that they do a lot of things very well. You get true bass extension(room permitting) down to ~20Hz, and you can produce a sense of the weight and scale of an orchestra and the symphony hall of the recording. They work well for various genres of music, as well as home theater. I think they are also great for jazz ensembles and Diana Krall type stuff. They do need a good sized room and volume to in order to produce true deep bass, so take that into account. Also the ribbon tweeters on mine sit pretty far above the ground, and the vertical dispersion is not that great, so you may need to have a pretty high listening chair, or angle the speakers down a bit. Maybe the newer ribbons have better vertical dispersion.

I think both the Monitors and the Legacys will sound great with the right sources, amplification and cables. You just have to listen and decide which you like best.

I believe that the new Signature SE with the new dual air motion ribbon tweeter is most likely a vast improvement over the previous generation Signature speakers. The new Monitor Gold GX line of speakers also has ribbons, which they adapted from ther Platinum line.

 

[addictaudio]

MA does not provide any detailed information regarding their frequency responses either, much less provide charts. They do not rate any plus or minus decibels. For their Gold GX line, they claim that the upper frequency goes up to a claimed 60K. Is that possible? Heck, for their Platinum PL, they claim a response up to 100K?

 

[Irvrobinson]

So what you all are saying is that accurate speakers do not reproduce rock music well?

Accurate speakers reproduce great rock recordings just fine, but accuracy means garbage-in-garbage-out. Many rock recordings aren't very good, and any accurate speaker will reveal them for the poor recordings they are.