Superior mids and the bass is very clean and lots of it

The only weakness I can find is that the cabinet is so tall it is a bit top heavy. I will be adding the cones soon to take care of this.

After all the fuss about cheap parts and bad sound on the legacy Focus I was a bit affraid to order them. But I had heard them once before and liked them so I tried. First thing I did was take apart the speakers to see the build.

There is nothing cheap about them. The internal wiring is point to point and soldered to large guage wires. In fact the wires to the woofer and the other drivers are even of a slightly different type. I assume this is to use the best wire for each freq range. The drivers are high quality and have nice magnet assemblys. The kevlar mids are from Germany

The cabinets are internally braced very well and dampened with inter baffles and in some compartments even the wire hole is sealed to keep it airtight. The mids are housed in their own tube which is made of a polymer material and is completely sealed. NOT PAPER as some others had stated. The finish of my Rosewood premium boxes is simply beautiful. First rate even after just having a $11K pair of Genesis.

Now for the sound. As I said I just sold a pair of of Genesis 500's and I can honestly say I am not dissapointed at all. The genesis had a internal 500w powered sub with a true 22hz low end. The Focus are at least equal with no internal amps. The speakers are able to produce many layers of undistorted music due to the complex driver arrangement and do so to tremendous volume levels even with my 35 WPC Aloia Inductive power amp.

I am constantly arguing with myself over what area of the speaker is best. The mids or the bass. I still cant decide.
The high range is very good also.I am very please and you will be too.

I no longer need any sub even in a 20 x 28 foot rom with 10 1/2 foot tall ceiling. The slam and impact of these is simply awesome.

I am amazed at some of these reviews in this section that cite poor build etc. These should be completely ignored and feel free to email me if you have questions.

Sorry I cant write more but I am going to listen some more.

Don

Similar Products Used:

My previous speaker was the Genesis 500 that retails for $11,500

$5500.00 Retail? You have got to be kidding me. I have read the reviews and never heard this speaker until recently at a local hifi shop that I frequent who took a pair on trade. Believe me when I tell you that that will be this last pair they take in. They just don't sound good. I listened to a variety of music on two different systems and two different rooms. I have heard several other lines of speakers in these same rooms that function properly.
They almost sounded out of phase. Also not impressed with the funtional design of the driver set up. The drivers don't blend with each other creating a rough scatty image if you can say they create an image at all. This is probably the reason you have not seen these things reviewed in Stereophile. I have read reviews on this page stating that these speakers rival speakers at twice the price. Please pass me what you're smoking. I can name five speakers off of the top of my head which cost the same or less that will out perform these hands down with average equipment. Audio Physic Virgos/ $4995.00, Dunlavy Audio Labs SC-IV/ $5495.00, KEF 107/2 RCSE $5500.00. / Martin Logan Quest Z / $4295.00, B&W Marix 801 / $5500.00.

Listen to these things before you buy them. I was anxious myself to hear them but now know the marketing hype. Oh I forgot, I was impessed with their bass extension. Sorry, forgot to mention that.

The Focus are a wonderfully musical speaker. The mids and highs are blended perfectly. The bass is powerfull and agressive but not "fat or boomy".
I cannot explain the problems that Mr. Woodson and Mr. Ruben have been experiencing but according to Legacy, neither of these gentelmen are in their database. Did you purchase your speakers directly from Legacy or one of thier 16 dealers or did you get them second hand? How old are they? There have been several improvements in the crossover since the speaker debuted in 1994.

In any case, a fine speaker.

STILL am very impressed with these beautiful, superb sounding, very REAL, full of IMPACT amazing speakers....Nothing comes close to giving you such a Dynamic Realistic performance in your home. These speakers are truly impressive....Driven by some AVA OMEGAIII amp(300w/pc)(www.avahifi.com) and pre amp.....The sound is always AWESOME and LIVE...the impact of cymbals and the most natural voice and midrange is indeed a work of masterful design...The BASS...is so REAL, I keep looking around to see where the band or musicans are in my hosue....Finest set of speakers available...at the price asked, there is nothing that comes close to what these works of art can do. Legacy products are SUPERB.

I bought a pair of Legacy Focus recently after two years of auditing over several pairs in the similar price range. I have listened to them both at the HIFI show, Home theater show, as well as at the local dealers. I have listened to quite a few of speakers such as BMW Nautilus series, Von Schweikert, Monitor Audio, etc.. which are available in my area. My experience has been never taking granted for the reviews or the advice of those guys on Stereophile magazine (or similar hi-end audio review) but to hear it for yourself.Ater all each individual person has different taste, different hearing sensitivity, and a different type of favorite music (classical, jazz,etc..) to judge the performance of a type of speaker. Being an electrical engineer myself, I understand pretty well that a speaker can be hardly designed perfectly for all types of music so I pick the Focus for my own various reason. I listened to the Focus several times over the years and actualy it sounds a bit different when I use it at home. My explanation for this is I have a different room acoustic, different power amp driver; however I still like its performance. Positioning these big-size speakers in a relatively small room could be tricky since the bass can be too strong, especially when it has a woofer fires from the rear. Putting the spikes on will affect the sound performance so you will have to play with your room/speaker positioning.
I use the Focus for classical music, light rock, and home theater. As far as I see, it does a fine job; however, I do not think the folk at Legacy should raise the price on their speakers.
I have read all other reviews in this web site before making the purchase. Certain speaker design house prefer different style of design (high order or low order filtering, speaker cone materials) and I believe this should affect the sound characteristic. If you hear it, like it, can afford it (or think it is worth it) then buy it; dont worry much about cosmetics. I use my Focus with regular wires and it sounds great too. After all, transmission line theory says that unless you design your own power amplifier for the Focus, you can hardly say you are matching well between the PA output and the speakers.
4 stars for sound performance. 3 stars for value

I,ve had my Focus for over a year now and think they sound great. My listening room is about 12x12. Yeah, I know way too small. I'm not going to complain about too much bass because I like bass. Lots of it. I'm planning an addition on my house, about 22x18 and I hope I have enough bass. I think the people complaining about too much bass listen to the delicate prissy music whatever that is. I listen to rock and I picked these speakers because of the amount of driver area and price. Some people might like to spend $5,000 on a speaker with one 8 or 10 inch woofer, but I can't see it. Vocals sound very lifelike. I've read how reviewers say female vocals are a good way judge a speaker. Listen to Massive Attacks Mezzanine...the vocals and bass is incredible. Someone wrote in their review that Focus are very revealing of recordings. I have to agree. Most of my cds are crappy recordings, but when a good one is playing the speakers are incredible. I like all my components with the Focus being by far my favorite. Highly recommended. Associated equipment: Legacy preamp Ultech UCD100 cd player Ayre V3 amp Kimber 8tc cables Kimber Silver Streak interconnects

This product is very obviously a very high end piece of equipment. There is no question that this speaker is a top contender. The individuals who put this speaker to shame with their comments obviously have no clue what they are doing.
First thing, every room needs to be dealt with in its own way and that means matching components with eachother and the room. This is especially true with a speaker having as much piston surface area as the Focus. Many rooms will simply be too small for this speaker. One should really consider this. I suggest a 400 square foot room with 9 foot ceilings to be minimum. Second, if you are listening to anything but perfectly recorded and mixed digital stuff (and Everyone I know is), you will definitely need an equalizer of some sort.

These as well as many other high end tower speakers are not intended to make most rock and roll and older recordings sound better. In fact these speakers are so revealing, they make any marginal recording sound worse. That is not rocket science! If this is what your listening habits are, find a pair of JBL 250Ti's. These are perfect for less than perfect recordings. Bottom line, you need to know your application then select the best product to fit.

For the entry level reader, use common sense when trying to interpret this material. No component coming from a company with the reputation of Legacy Audio is going to absolutely suck in every imaginable way...especially when you get into the $5000.00 price range. I have a pair of these and I can tell you that they are incredible, but, I have to use my EQ to massage most recordings based on the way I like to hear them. At this level, you will not just pop in any recording and expect perfection.

Incidentally, I am driving them with a Carver TFM75...1000WPC into 4 ohms...very nice match I think. Larger hammer than needed but cool runner.

Legacy Audio offers direct comparisons of their speakers with the B&W 801 matrixand others. Bill is willing to yet your ears do the shopping.
As for B&W "Selling more speakers than any other", well Bose sells more that B&W that I guess by that logic Bose is superior to B&W (sic).

As another direct comment to a previous poster complaing that Legacy "changes their drivers around, well, so what? Legacy builds their speakers with 3rd party drivers that are commercially available. Other speaker manufacturers like B&W, Boston accoustics build THEIR own proprietry drivers to keep costs down. Bill likes to tweak, period. At least he's doing something realistic to improve his product, not horsing around with cables and other "voodo" logic.

The Focus is capable of something like 98db efficiency. Good for the Focus. Mirage, B&W and the like require a damn line transformer to run them. The Focus will run well with a 125wpc amp.

As for the Focus being "worthy of a rock concert", well, that would be a good sounding concert. The Focus sounds as clean at low DB levels as high sound pressure levels. The Kevlar and Ribbon drivers are world class transducers - this ain't Cerwin Vega.

Personally, I find most negative remarks concerning come from the (I might get kicked off for this) anal retentive self proclaimed audio elite that prefer "head in a vice" (cough B&W 801's) speakers that have dry to non existent bass extension, a sound stage smaller that Billy Barty, and sound great for Violin concertos at 85db. Legacy lacks snob appeal and the products lack a need for another 5 digits spent on electronics to make the product sound good (cough B&W, Snell). Thiels are at least use friendly.

All in all, the Focus in an incredible product.
Too bad

range, power, balance, clarity, detail

Setting them up and adjusting them to the room took a while, but it I got it right. In that regard, patience is a virtue.

I spent a long time "looking" for the right speakers. I demoed probably 50 pairs of speakers over a three year period. The absolute best pair of speakers I have ever heard are the Legacy Whispers. The Legacy Focus speakers are a close second. My measure for listening is how "live" the speakers are. When I listen to Nickel Creek, all three of the musicians and their instruments are in my living room. It is absolutely fantastic. The speakers are balanced where is driver is balanced with the other drivers. If you set these speakers up correctly using the switches on the back of the speakers, you can achieve a range and clarity you will find nowhere else.

Similar Products Used:

watt puppies, legacy classics, legacy whispers

Deep bass, cabinetry is top notch

Incoherent with mismatched drivers, splatty lower treble/upper midrange, overall cheesy internal construction

I guess I had been taken in by the hype. After listening to, tweaking, repositioning and what have you for close to a year, I've concluded that these things are decent enough for about a $1200 speaker. For $5400 at retail, they are absolutely terrible! For less than half the money, better speakers abound! I tried these in different rooms, at friends houses, with different upstream equipment and everything I could think of to no avail. After trying in vain to sell them, a friend of mine put matched drivers in them and replaced the cheap wiring and they sound infinitely better, although still not up to par with the used price I paid. Oh, we also cleaned out all the excess sawdust at the bottom of the cabinet!

If you like the sound of these, by all means pay your $5400 and enjoy. But if I had that kind of money burning a hole in my pocket, I'd buy myself a pair of Thiels and a whole bunch of new CD's!

Similar Products Used:

Audio Physic, Martin-Logan, Proac, Thiel