I auditioned Focus' at my friend's apartment. Focus is a very nice speaker indeed. It is built like a tank. Of course, bigger IS better but I still believe that the monster size is not justified by their sound. The base is solid but not punchy, very solid and clean. The detail was there, but somehow voice and high frequencies did not sound as clean as they do on my speakers--there was a little bit of "wisp" to them. This may have had something to do with the room acoustics--a room with hardwood floors, about 30' by 30'.
I read a few postings here made by someone who calls himself Peter. Peter, you were free to express your opinion here but you really compromised your credibility by your postings. You may be smart and I believe that you made a lot of money but you seem to have the emotional maturity of a 12 year old.

I auditioned several systems including the FOCUS, which, in the center of a large barn like room sounded better (more realistic) than anything else I had heard. I bought the demos, set them up in my modest 22x14x8.5 room, and DISASTER! They "BOOM" in the upper bass range (100h-160h) with a measured peak of about 10db centered at 125h. Much conversation with the company over the last eight (8) months has not resulted in the slighest change. Orchestral and male vocals are simply unlistenable without an equalizer inserted and cranked down to -16 or -20 dbs at 125h. Even then they sound no better than the $300. Pinacle Nines they replaced. I suspect the advertised policy of customer satisfaction is just that, advertising. Considering the price, I rate these a five for very large rooms only. Those with smaller rooms beware.

I have now owned a pair of Focus for about 3 months and I continue to like them the more I listen to them. I have a fairly large listening room (21' x 20' x 9') so I have never experienced any of the bass boominess some have mentioned. Starting at the low end, the Focus simply have the deepest, tightest and most volumous bass of any speaker I have ever heard (excluding the Infinity IRS), and yet it is not overpowering at all. I was very apprehensive with the 3 12" woofers per speaker, fearing the bass would be slow and boomy. Those fears were unjustified. I have come to realize just how foundational the bass is to music, and how much bass there is in many recordings that I simply never noticed before. There is no need for a subwoofer here.
Moving up to the midrange and you reach the best part of these speakers. Vocals are absolutely amazing, with a clarity and smoothness I have only heard through the best electrostatics. Yet there is no electrostatic that can come anywhere near the dynamics of the Focus. Hearing female vocals can bring goosebumps. Piano recordings are fabulous as well. The high end compliments the rest of the speaker perfectly, giving a sense of air and space, though never bright.

Speaker placement is very important. These speakers require a large room, and they must be at least 2-3 feet from the rear walls, and 3 feet from the side walls. It took me several days and many hours of experimenting to get the right placement in my room, but the hard work was worth it (it is truly a demanding task to move these 185 lb. behemoths around). I would highly recommend the auditioning of these speakers for anyone who is considering spending around $5000 for a pair of speakers. They will not be for everyone, and there are many other great speakers out there, but for my ears and money, they are the ones for me.

Associated equipment:
ARC LS3 preamp
Parasound HCA-2200 II amps
Theta DAC
Denon CD
DH Labs and Audio Truth cables/wire

The Focus is a high quality product that sounds the way a speaker ought to for around $5-6K. Yes they are very efficient and could probably be driven from the headphone jack on a sony walkman, yes they are loud in the bass notes in a small room, ect... But they reproduce music accurately (given that you are not playing them in a broom closet), they have a VERY FLAT response curve, they do not reflect, and most importantly to myself.... they do not distort at higher volume levels. I have seen so many "audiophiles" ranting about little tiny 6" or 8" two-way speakers. The purpose of a system is to REPLAY the music, and a small speaker can NOT replay any music under any condition unless you have it taped to your ear (even then, no bass). Music (even the exalted violin) is not quiet, if a string quartet was playing in the room with you, 10 ft. from your ear it would be quite louder than the 75dB audition I witnessed today at a local dealer. I love the Legacy Focus, and although I do not own them, I wish that I did. I know music and sound reproduction (I have several very modern Audio Precision test systems sitting here in my office with me) and know all about distortion and accurate sound level (I have designed and built several amps and pre-amps, both Bi-polar and Mosfet, class A and AB. No, probably not KRELL quality). Although not an "audiophile" I know that Legacy reproduces music at ACCURATE listening levels and they do it with very low distortion and coloring. I also enjoy the B&W 801 series, very nice speakers indeed. But by the sound of things on this review page, someone here is just another arrogant person that thinks of himself as one of the elite. There are MUCH more important things to do in this world than snob everyone, guys! It's only music!

I always enjoyed tinkering with audio equipment, but never dreamed I'd have this much money wrapped up in it. Not long ago I thought my Advent 3002's sounded great. Then, when the foam rotted, I decided on a pair of Legacy Classics. Wasn't real happy with these: A couple of the drivers were misaligned in their cutouts, and eventually found out through experimentation and an oscilloscope and mic. that the woofer section was wired out of phase with the upper end. It wasn't until I Bi-wired that I discovered this. Then, after little complaining Legacy cut me a deal on a set of Foci custom tailored at no xtra charge with a pot to roll of the upper end of the Eton Kevlars. Now these were built well, with thicker front baffles, but guess what; the things were wired out of phase again! Surely this is not a design requirement? After this fix, and a tweeter seal problem that Legacy quickly fixed, and a new Cinepro 600xSE, these are awesome sounding units. The tweeters could be better isolated from the internal cabinet pressures (Ala Celestion), and the Crossovers could be PC board mounted or point-to-point soldered instead of nut & bolt connected, and the switch that contours the woofer bass boom could be wired with more than telephone wire (yes, power to the woofers actually gets passed through several feet of what looks like standard solid core telephone wire, after getting there via quality 12 ga. leads.) OK, so they have their faults, but I have heard no other transducers that come close for the money. Martin Logan's don't even come close to the dynamics or upper treble crispness of these.
I look at it this way: I want the most bang for the buck. If I were to go pay retail for the Eclipse woofers, Eton mids, Audax domes and Ribbons (of unknown origin), I would have near $2,000 in drivers alone. Where can I get that much surface area for the money? And surface area is the big selling point on the Focus. Face it, What do electrostatics have that dynamics don't? Sure isn't bass response, and the rear wave does all sorts of interfering with the main wavefront. It's surface area. The Focus has convinced me that this is one of the most important design criteria to create the illusion of being there. The mid to lower bass is beyond anything I've heard. The drivers are super-quick, and the cabinets are built solid as rocks. This isn't any earth-shattering technology, (except maybe for Kevlar), or voodoo science (like MG Room Tunes or rocks under your CD player) Just the most for your money in my opinion.

You really gotta be careful that the bass capabilities these things have doesn't start exciting all sorts of crap around the house (like your wife). Those who have said the Foci have too much bass in these reviews are full of bull. You can't have too much bass if the response is flat. If anything, there is a seeming reduction in mid bass due to the dipolar bass driver configuration. This is very different from little single 8" boomy driver units with boxes tuned to resonate around 50Hz. Try moving your transducers or your listening position around!

When you find yourself in the narrow sweetspot provided by the ribbons, and the room positioning is right, you are in for a treat. Legacy's support staff are quick to respond to your problems and always have returned my calls. If you wanna save a few bucks, go mail order (Like Cinepro and Legacy). Yeah, there's a certain amount of risk, but hey, they are made in America...wait, so are Harley Davidsons...bad comparison...sorry.
QAM

I have owned the Focus speakers for over a year now. Matched with a Sunfire amp---big power--a hand built passive preamp that is totally unresonant, Cardas inters and biwired with Kimber, they sound amazingly full and detailed. I recently bought a poycrystal rack and cones, all of which increased the sound stage and depth.The reality keeps growing, the richness and fulness are astonishing. There is the true weight of a real concert through these speakers.The listening room is 24x14 with a cathedral ceiling. I do have them about 41/2 feet from the rear wall,3ft.+ from the sides, angled slightly.I cannot believe that they cannot be made to sound wonderful, even if a little room tratment is necessary. I do have some panels on the wall behind my sofa, over the piano.
Look for anyone selling these and grab them fast. Their loss is your gain.

I owned a pair of Legacy Foci for a little over a year, and I must say that I was very disappointed with the sound, especially for the price. I owned a pair of Audio Physic Tempos before the Focus, and regret the trade. DO NOT BUY THESE SPEAKERS UNLESS YOU HAVE AUDTIONED THEM!!!
I found the bass to be light in the upper bass and lacking in the lower bass. I tried the Steradian, and although it did help the freq. response in the bass, it made the overall sound "phasey" and was NOT transparent in the treble, even though I was told that all the Steradian did was affect the bass. This was simply untrue. BTW, the dedicated listening room was 15' X 25' X 9'.

The imaging was not particularly impressive and the midrange, in my opinion lacked weight. This I found to be very surprising, considering all the hype surrouding these speakers. I was also surprised at the "speed" of these speakers. They are not fast- maybe it is because of all the drivers- I don't know. For big speakers, the dynamics were about what I expected, but did not exceed my expectations.

After a little over a year trying to tweak the juice, cables, front-end components, and even moving to a different house, I finally threw in the towel on these speakers and sold them.

I know own Gallo Nucleus Reference speakers, and although they are a bit odd looking, they kick the pants off of just about every other speaker I have ever heard under $10,000.

Sorry guys, but there is a lot of marketing hype that is selling these speakers, not the sound.

Finally, on a more positive note, the guys at Legacy WERE very helpful, friendly, and spent a good deal of time with me to get everything set-up correctly. The speakers also looked impressive. If they sounded as good as they looked, you would be hearing a rave review right now.

I recently hopped in my car in search of some awesome ear candy and thought that a great place to start would be the Legacy Audio Speaker Factory in Springfield, IL. Last summer my reluctant wife and I went to an open house there by none other than the man himself Bill Dudelston. We were very impressed by the Whisper unfortunately $13,000 is a little steep for our pocket book. Enter the Focus! I took all my best music and went hoping for the best!! Well, best is not the word I would use to describe the Focus. I would say... good is a better description. I curently have the following system; Apair of Monitor Audio MA700'S on beefy Lovan stands filled with a mixture of silica sand and lead shot, A Parasound HCA1200II power amp, a P/LD 2000 pre-amp, a C/DP-1000 CD player/transport, a D/AC 2000 DA converter and two Monitor Audio MAS1 Subs running them stereo. The Focus sounded almost exactly tonaly the same as my system at home except for two major areas. Bass and treble! Bass? Where was it? Not in the Focus thats for sure! On one cd that I took with me for varity was Sublimes Detox. On my system the bass hits very hard and goes very low! The Focus did hit well but it did not do the low notes at all! In fact it didnt even get close to my curent system! Ya ya ya I do have two subs in my system but I have them turned down so the complement the MA700'S. They do not even come close to those boomin cars you hear around town! At least not at my house!!! (they are powerful enough to shake nick nacks of the wall! ask my wife!!) Then in the detail department. I noticed less detail in the Focus than in my 700's. There were less of the little neat things that us odd audiophiles look for in a speaker. As for the mids, they were close to equal to my 700's, a little too foward for my ears. And that is why I have been shopping for a new pair of speakers. Two pair that I currently have in mind are the B&W Nautilus 803 and the Thiel 2.3's. Around $5000 for the B&W and I think the Thiel were in the $3000 price range I dont remember? The B&W'S EAT THE FOCUS FOR DINNER!!!! I belive that they will be the next speakers I will be spending my hard earned 5 g's on! But all due respect to the staff at Legacy! They are unsurpassed as far as a great bunch of people that love music and are very down to earth. They did not scoff at me in my Wrangler Jeans, my t-shirt proclaiming "Property of Jesus" and my 91 Escort Station wagon (now replaced by a 97 Sonata!) But dont take my word for it go with your favorite cd's in hand and hear for your self! And remember that the Bible says in John 3:16! Jesus died for you!

World class speakers don't have plastic feet, vinyl coated internal wiring, telephone wire in the signal path, significant accumulation of sawdust in the bottom of the cabinet, asymmetical internal speaker wire lengths between left and right speakers, stripped screw-holes (I had several in mine) for mounting speakers to cabinet, and cheap irregularly placed cabinet damping material. I respectfully disagree with your assessment that the Focus are "world-class" speakers. I owned a set and lived with them for over a year in two different dwellings, 3 different listening rooms, and both carpeted and hardwood floors. I used SS (Forte, Metaxas Solitaire, Musical Fidelity A320, Threshold T-200) and Tube amps (Lumley Reference Monoblocs) and was disappointed with every combination I tried. I also tried different front-end components (Meridian, DPA) . I think actually living with them for as long as I did gives me the right to critique them, based on my experiences as opposed to someone listening in a showroom with limited selection of music and time. I WANTED these speakers to sound good. So much so that I tried to upgrade everything in front of the speakers. I then realized that it wasn't my front-end- but the speakers.
Legacy gave me $2,700 in trade for my older Audio Physic Tempos (sight unseen), which I paid $2,200 for (demos). These Legacies must have a huge markup, despite what the "factory direct" moniker implies, since, in all likelihood, the trade-ins are sold for wholesale. Value? I didn't see it. World-class people, World-class cabinets? Maybe. But in my experience a far cry from world class speakers.

I consider the Audio Physic Tempos (older version filled with sandbags) to be a superior speaker in every aspect (except bass) to the Legacy Focus.

Once again this was MY equipment, in MY rooms, with MY ears, used to evaluate. Judge for yourself, but make sure that you have more than a "few hour" demo.

3 Stars on Performance, 2 Stars on Value.

Well, it's really nice to see all the commotion stirred by an innocent debate over a pair of wooden boxes, populated by a few air moving elements. I mean, that only goes to show that music, and audio pleasure included, is basically an emotional matter, much more than a scientific one.
The amount of variables we have to consider when buying an audio system, let alone each component, is too complex to enable any unequivocal assertion pertaining to any component’s so called “sonic quality”. Some of the variables do not include the audio components themselves, and are just as critical to the sound that emanates from any sound system. I bet most people who buy 20k systems spend less than a percent of that on acoustic counseling, and end up confining their 5k speaker to a psychoacoustic environment that is totally unsuitable for it. Room acoustics, directionality, standing waves, phasing, synergy and matching of audio components are all part of the game. Soundstaging that we are all thirsty for is just as a matter of right acoustic design as is the realm of responsibility of the speaker. Anyone familiar with the basics of LEDE will know that soundstaging can be maintained and amplified through careful balance of Live and Dead ends of the listening rooms.

I bought my Legacy Classics as an investment. My listening room is small and live. So naturally room-boom and forwardness are immanent in this situation, but I would never blame a speaker company for building a music box that doesn't fit MY room, would I? I once took the trouble to transport all my system to my audiophile uncle's house to find out that in his more than adequately set up listening room it sounded like a million dollars.

Then come the recordings. A revealing system will not only do grace by bad recordings, it will most of the time bring out the worst of mediocre recordings to the dismay of the innocent buyer, who trusted his/her multi-buck system to salvage his old favorite recordings. Even more, for certain recordings a poorer system will do more grace than hi-endish one. I remember buying a copy of Deep Purple in Rock in a newly released LP (That was in '76, mind you) only to be offended by the horrible sound, as opposed to the warm and full sound we remembered having with our old and scratched LP.

And then there is of course taste. No one can contest that the Legacy Focus, the B&W 803 and the VR-4 are all world-class speakers (not unless you are all that emotionally involved, that is!) and that they can all satisfy the sound-hunger of the most famished audiophile. Thus said, there is no harm in “standing by” your speaker, as it proves you have not lost your passion, without which your big bucks are worthless.

It is also pretty evident that a speaker that has 3 12" woofers is capable of pushing enough air to move the Chinese Wall, let alone a demo room. So I really wouldn't like to react to the one who noticed lack of bass (??!)

Still, what makes the Focus THE speaker for me is its naturalness. You can say that it has all the marks of what we call “The American sound” (I am not American, so we refer to the American, British, and Continental sounds, as we are neither of which). The American Sound is transparent, with very small emphasis on punchier bass and a touch of accent on the 8-14Khz (Which explains the very felt presence of the super-tweeters on Legacy speakers, and their absence in British speakers). The addition of a second 7” kevlar (a B&W invention, by the way!) mid eliminates forwardness, and gives the Focus the extra mid, so absent from the Classics (who was the joker who whined about the Focus being "Forward"?), and putting them on par with the VR-4 and B&W’s warm mid, which makes them the pick for tube lovers, In guess.

I do not think that naturalness is the key element in speaker evaluation, not even a major factor in choosing elements in a sound system. I adored the way the Foci could prove emotional and not analytical. That's a lot of subjective B.S. but that's the way I listenn to music, no to electronics.

Which brings up the final aspect: What do you power your speakers with? When I auditioned the Focus, and while still rotating amps on my Classics on a weekly basis, I found out (and it was advised to me by Legacy people too) that they react much better to SS and Class A amps (best with Musical Fidelity discontinued legend A-1000) than to tube amps. This is way too generalizing and I’m sure that the Legacy will react just as beautifully to tube amps. This is just an impression based on hours of listening.
On the other hand, British speakers, such as Tannoy and B&W will flourish with tube amps, because of their warmth and deep presence of lo-mid (400-800Hz). Still, I did not find them inferior to the Focus. It was my emotions towards the music that so perfectly traveled from them through my ears straight to my heart that will make me someday pull out the 5k I probably will never have and put them in my living room (as this is where I’ll be living – with my Foci).

So when you audition speakers, do not think electronics (I know nothing in that) or acoustics (dido). Just let your ears and your heart do the job. And NEVER bring your wife (Unless you are so lucky as to have one which is as devoted as you are) and your wallet.