Clarity.
Strong Bass.
The Midrange is just incredible.

None yet.

These speakers are just incredible. I can't possibly see spending the money to go with B&W. As others have said, these speakers are furniture, and incredibly high quality furniture, at that. They just look beautiful. We will be posting a full review of these, and other Legacy speakers soon at www.dvdmonthly.com

I cannot say enough about these speakers. They bring out so many things that others haven't. VERY musical, and the bass isn't at all boomy like others have noted (but perhaps this is the way I have set them up)... I do agree, however, that the bass doesn't seem like you would think with the speaker having 3 12s.

Similar Products Used:

Nothing in ballpark (such as B&W)
NHT 2.9
Polk RT 5000p
Monitor Audio Silver

Warm and coherent midrange, perfect treble. Fantastic dynamic range

Bass can be problematic if not properly set up. Keep these speakers at lest 3 ft from any wall

Yes these speakers can image and yes they can reproduce accurate an articulate bass down to 28hz if you have them set up properly.

When I first purchased these speakers back in '97 I did have some problems with the bass. But the problem stemmed from having the speakers to close to room boundaries. The walls and floor were also not sufficiently rigid, which did not help the matter. I had a large bass hump in the 60hz-80hz range, which was easily reduced by use of the steridian (which is, as many have pointed out, a neccesity with these speakers).

Now that I have placed these speakers in a room with 2x the volume and have them 4ft from side and rear walls I have perfectly smooth bass response down to 28hz with no bumps at all.

As for imaging the same rule applies. I get excellent depth and soundstaging with wrap around 3D sound (when the CD is recorded with appropriate left/right sep.) Again get them away from room boundaries and adjust the toe in.

For those of you that hanven't been able to get top notch results from these speakers I would suggest that you:

Get a beter paying job so that you can buy a bigger house and move the speakers away from the rear and side walls

Educate yourself of the effects of room placement on speaker performance.

Similar Products Used:

Magnepan, Vandersteen, Revel

Abliity to project a big sound.

Sounds like two speakers. Cannot create a realistic soundstage or create a vivid image.

I really cannot believe that some listeners think that theses speakers are worthy of 5 stars. The thing that I find the most amusing is the mention that you must use the Steradian (aka an active equalizer) to make these speakers perform properly. I think that also applies to the Bose 901's if I am not mistaken.

Can you imagine the look on Dan D'agastino's face if you told him that his Krell Stack needed an active EQ to make the Focus perform properly. He would laugh you out of the room. These speakers are average at best when played by higher end Tube and SS components. The pair that I auditioned sounded like the right and left speakers were completely different speakers.

These are great speakers for people who do not know what to listen for as far as accuracy goes. If they sound good to you, I guess you should have your hearing checked.

Similar Products Used:

Martin Logan, Dynaudio, Sonus Faber, and Audio Physic

Drivers,cabinet and smooth sound

They need a large room to deliver what they are campable of.

I figure if a "kid" can post 5 times in a row to bring down the overall grade of these worthless reviews.Then I can post another pointless review as well.With a large room,these speakers are FANTASTIC.With a small room there is boom.Of course if somebody bought these,I am sure they are smart enough to do some homework to know they need room to breath.Nuff said

Similar Products Used:

Mini Utopia`s,Theil,Vandersteen,B&W.

Appearance; top end and midrange clarity

The Steradian is a necessity and is sold as an option.

Very few products in Audio Review have generated as much controversy and debate as have the Legacy Focus speakers. I will add my two cents to the collective pot.

Most of the reviewers who criticize the bass make no mention of using the Steradian with their speakers. No comments regarding the bass should be made unless the speakers were evaluated with this unit. The Steradian is a requirement to get the most out of the speakers and control the bass in a particular room. It is a necessity rather than an accessory. To keep the overall cost down, Legacy seems to have made it the latter rather than the former.

Speaking of rooms, this speaker is really designed for fairly large rooms, which most people don't have. The smaller speakers in the Legacy line would best match most people's average size listening room in the average size house. In addition many room acoustic problems can be solved with products such as Echobusters which make a big difference. Highly recommended.

I have tried many different amplifiers with this speaker. For my taste, I prefer a bi-amped setup with a tube top and solid state bottom, each 150 watts. This gives a glorious high end and mid-range with a tight deep bass(controlled with the Steradian).

The cabinetry and build quality is excellent. The rosewood is worth the extra cost.
I give the Focus 5 stars given the reasonable standard that nothing is perfect. This speaker is top value for the money. Sure, go ahead and spend more on something else. Maybe get less.

Treble dteail, midrange, openness, design

Flabby, incoherent, boomy bass

I set up my audition to use BOTh SS and tube amplifiers, with a Wadia Cd transport. The ss amp was a Bear lake [about $9,000] and the Tube, a pair of VAT monoblocs.
On a variety of material, the mid and treble range were open, fast for dynamics, and detailed. The sense of size was impressive. Vocals were natural, and dynamics had good attack.
The problems became appearent in the bass area. Even properly set up in the dealer's listening room, the bass lacked "focus" so to speak. The bass sounded boomy on some material, but simply wooly and fuzzy on demanding low bass.
I expect a speaker in this price range to have better quality bass.
These speakers are not for me, I cannot recommend them at thier price. If they got some better R&D and drivers for the bass, I'd consider them.
3 stars for value, 2 stars for bass.

Similar Products Used:

Snell,Duntech,VMPS

Fantastic all around speaker

NONE

Al,would you PLEASE grow up and stop posting under different names.I used to think JMLabs was good until I heard the Focus.Legacy beats them easily in EVERY area I can think of.You owe it to yourself to go out and audition these speakers.You will then see for yourself why so many other speaker makers are so jealous.

Similar Products Used:

JMLab

Full range bandwidth capabilities. Tight frequency response.
Inaudible distortion at high volume.
High sensitivity, easily driven.
Excellent lateral imaging.

The Steradian should be a standard part of the package for the price.

I have used the Focus for 2 1/2 years in a audio/hometheater setup along with a Silver Screen center channel and Studios for the surrounds. My room is 20 x 24 with a low ceiling, bar area, lots of furniture, large windows, etc. Certainly not an acoustically optimized space. Because of the size and shape of the room, most of the bass output of my speakers hangs in the corners, therefore I use the Steradian and some judicious equalization to achieve a bandwidth that is flat relative to 1khz at 25 hz and is about 4-6 db down at 20 hz, when measuring the Focus alone. Above 100 hz or so, response is within about 2 db to 8 khz, the effective limit of my SPL meter.

The sound is as superb as you would expect from the measurements. The highs are there, the midrange is clear and detailed and the bass is deep and not at all boomy or distorted. Perhaps the lack of bass boom and distortion is why some think the speaker is bass shy.

I certainly havent heard every speaker ever made, but the Focus outperfoms every other speaker I have heard.

I have had no problems in the area of fit, finish or quality. As I was working to get a handle on the bass response in my room, I was in touch with Bill Dudelston by phone and fax several times, sending measurements and suggestions back and forth. I found him to be extremely cordial and easy to talk with and about as BS free as anyone I have met in my audio life.

I think you would have to be extremely unlucky or extremely unreasonable to be unhappy with Legacy Audio's people or products.

If the Legacy Focus speakers seem boomy and bright they are either not set up properly, are being driven by inferior junk, are in a tiny room, or are being listened to by someone who is hearing impaired. I for one don't care what the drivers are...if a a mouse could deliver a grand rendering of Beethoven from its nether parts, I would buy the mouse. The Legacy Focus speakers are clean, open, warm, deep, and very very musical.
The proof of the audio pudding is in hearing different sounds from different orchestras and recording venues. The Focus speakers allow this. I have heard systems that cost well over 100k, they may be a couple of thousand dollars better than the Focuses and my Sunfire, Audio Alchemy, and hand built passive preamp.

Smooth, dynamic, clean, efficiency, and broad frequancy range. Appearance.

Heavy, large, and expensive

I bought the Focus used for about 1/2 price so I may be somewhat biased. They simply can't be beat for the price I paid.
-
My first impression was that the speaker was weak in bass. How could this be true with three 12" drivers per side? The sound was smooth and clean, but seemed to lack bass. Was the Foucs damaged? I measured the output with my sound meter. Well, the sound was flat down to 70 HZ (80db), rose about 6 db 50-60 HZ (86db) and then droped about 5 db at 30HZ (74db)and 12 db at 20HZ (68db). This was better than my old system with Velodyne subwoofer. With the Velodyne, I can keep the Focus' signal flat down to 20 HZ. Still, I have trouble noticing when the subwoofer is on or off. I use the lowest crossover.
-
Over the past year, I've grown to love my speakers more everyday. I cannot see myself ever selling them. Other large speakers seem boomy or muddy to me. With the Focus, vocals are clean and trebble is smooth. The bass note do not effect the other frequencies.
-
I now know that the Focus speakers produce bass with the large surface area (3 12" drivers), but do not move much. This is how Legacy lowers distortion and increases dynamic response.
-
I now have another problem. My $750 Mirage OM-C2 center seems veiled by comparision. The sound is not as clean--even though I once thought it was. I guess I need to buy the $1300 Legacy Silver Screen center.
-
By the way, I have a PSE preamp, two PSE amps, and one 100 watt Adcom. I use a Rotel surround processor.

Similar Products Used:

ESS AMT-3 Rock Monitors