Legacy Audio Studio HD bookshelf speaker.

[SoundHarvest]

I actually own a pair and absolutely love them. Rated at 200 watts, the 4 ohm speaker kicks much butt. I am powering them with a pair of Emotiva XPA-100 monoblocks rated at 250 watts @ 8 ohms and 400 @ 4 ohms.

Are there any other Studio HD owners here and what amp/amps are you using to power them? Also, how do they stack up to the likes of monitor audio and Focal stop of the line monitors?

 

[OscarJr]

I'm going to to hopefully soon be a new owner of a pair of Legacy Calibre's, the Studio HD's big brother. I auditioned them last week. Very very nice speakers!

While I've not heard Focal's top of the line monitors, I can't imagine they sound too shabby! I use the lower-line Aria series in one of my offices as a desktop system with a Behringer vacuum tube pre-amp -> dbx 234xs crossover -> Peavey CS800X and they sound fantastic. Their Al-Mg inverted tweeter is very smooth, better than my B&W 686's.

The cheapie vacuum tube headphone amp is used just for the convenience of a volume control more than anything.

I round out the bass with an Infinity 8" powered sub.

For the Calibre's I plan on using one Peavey CS800X for each one. I have a few spares at home.

 

[OscarJr]

Well I couldn't wait. I won't have my order for my Calibre's finished for weeks, so in the meantime I picked up their little brothers, the Legacy Studio HD's, also in Black Pearl finish. What can I say, they sound awesome! Yes I know they are right on the edges of my desk, and no I couldn't change the color of the walls! I will end up making some stands for the Calibre's, as they are a little bit chunkier.

New office is a little smaller than my other office, but I already started moving my stuff in so oh well. Can't wait for my Calibre's to get in. The black pearl finish is superb. I have them at work right now, but once I get my Calibre's, the Studio HD's will go back home, and the Calibre's will stay at work.

Using a cheapie Chinese vacuum tube pre-amp for a DAC and volume control -> Behringer Vacuum tube Pre-amp -> DBX 234xs crossover -> lows (<45Hz) into an Infinity PS-8 powered subwoofer -> Highs into Peavey CS800X for loads of clean power and headroom.

 

[OscarJr]

Took some more pics today

Comparing them with my Focal Aria 905s. No comparison, lol.

Black Pearl finish. Looks like a picture from the Hubble Space Telescope

Now that is one bright tweeter! LOL Looks like you're looking straight into the sun! And yes, it's that bright, sonically! At least in the office I have them in. No soft furnishings, all hard walls and floor, and very near-field. I activate the -2dB trim switch for the highs, and it keeps them in check very nicely. Perfect actually. Be that as it may, I am completely sold on AMT tweeters. They can spot a needle in a very large haystack.

 

[OscarJr]

So even though my Studio HD's will be replaced with Calibre's, I decided to get the most out of them. Upgraded crossover to a dbx Driverack PA² Loudspeaker management system. Bought the dbx RTA mic, and the Dayton Audio OmniMic V2 package. My mic stand hasn't arrived, lol.


Mic at approximately ear-level, right smack in the middle.

I'm gonna start out by posting the frequency response graph today, and I'll update with changes I make as I hone in the tuning.

Testing Conditions:

• Room size= 11' W x 11' D x 10' H. Pretty much worst possible (almost a perfect cube) situation to start out with eh? lol
• Room treatments= none
• Speaker Location= Near middle of room, toe'd in to listening position
• Frequency response was recorded with no smoothing initially, but then I manually added 1/6 octave smoothing
• Input= full-range short sine sweep
• Electronic EQ/Adjustments/tweaks= none
• Initial Observation= huge room-mode peak right around 106Hz, right around the 2nd harmonic of pretty much all 3 room axis, and it sounds like it. (sucks).

 

[OscarJr]

Looking back, I think that Frequency Response might have been 1/12 octave smoothing. So anyways, I changed the toe-in angle (lessened it), turned on the sub, and took the Frequency Response again.

Testing Conditions:

• Room size= 11' W x 11' D x 10' H. Pretty much worst possible (almost a perfect cube) situation to start out with eh? lol
• Room treatments= none
• Speaker Location= Near middle of room, toe'd in to listening position
• Smoothing= 1/6 octave
• Input= full-range short sine sweep
• Electronic EQ/Adjustments/tweaks=
  
  • Subwoofer/Main Crossover Frequency= 41Hz, -48 dB/octave, Linkwitz-Riley on both the LPF of the subwoofer, and the HPF of the high output (The dbx Driverack lets you set each one completely independently of each other, thus the flexibility)
• Initial Observation= the addition of the subwoofer greatly amplified the 1st harmonic of the room mode right around 51Hz, and of course the huge room-mode peak right around ~102Hz, right around the 2nd harmonic of pretty much all 3 room axis.

Now after adding in PEQ


Testing Conditions:

• Room size= 11' W x 11' D x 10' H. Pretty much worst possible (almost a perfect cube) situation to start out with eh? lol
• Room treatments= none
• Speaker Location= Near middle of room, toe'd in to listening position
• Smoothing= 1/6 octave
• Input= full-range short sine sweep
• Electronic EQ/Adjustments/tweaks=
  
  • Subwoofer/Main Crossover Frequency= 41Hz, -48 dB/octave, Linkwitz-Riley on both the LPF of the subwoofer, and the HPF of the high output (The dbx Driverack lets you set each one completely independently of each other, thus the flexibility)
  • Added Parametric Equalization to both Low- and High-Outputs
• Initial Observation= NICE work Oscar !

Afterthoughts:

• Flat-Response is nice, but for anyone that hasn't experimented with tuning Frequency-Response, if you aim for flat it indeed sounds "thin" on the low-end, and if you have a very reflective room, the top-end might be too bright.
• I personally liked the top-end after tuning, but I know that once I add in room-treatments, it will hopefully clear up the sound, and will drop the top-end a bit, which wouldn't be all that bad either to be honest.
• The "thin" low-end needs some "oomph" with heavy metal, so I might play with the PEQ and GEQ a bit more. When I attempt to boost up the low-end (<120Hz) I most certainly will do my best to try and not boost frequencies near the room modes (51Hz & 102Hz, for these frequencies are not only louder via the huge pile-up of room resonances, they produce time-smear that cannot be EQ'd out, since they linger around longer than the initial excitation sound. I'm gonna try and boost up some bass frequencies between the room resonances so only the loudness artifact is heard, not time-smeared room resonances.

Here is before & after tuning (both plots over-layed):

 

[OscarJr]

Just added a Resonessence Labs Concero HD DAC to the office setup. Bypassing all laptop hardware, straight-shot into the DAC via WASAPI transfer, with 44.1kHz -> 176.4kHz upsampling enabled.

 

[OscarJr]

Got my new aluminum speaker feet. Put on some non-skid foam to not scratch the finish.