Why Was This Speaker Named Focus?
It is an acronym for “Field Optimized Convergent Source.” What it means is that the speaker is tuned for the actual listening position in a room, not to a 1-meter close-microphone measurements in an anechoic chamber.
Bill states that over a decade ago, he had learned that, “…the in-room power response painted a more accurate picture of what we were hearing from a loudspeaker than a simple curved spliced near-field measurement made at one meter distance.” He knew that reflections arriving at the listening position within 5msecs of the direct wave launch tonally influence the sound character, while 5-15msec reflections affect soundstage laterally, and 15-25msec reflections tell about the room the listener is in. Late reflections, beyond 25msecs, impede clarity of the source and become discrete echoes.
Applying this knowledge, the Focus HD is optimized to converge at the right place – approximately 3 meters from the front of the drivers, which happens to be the average listening distance! In addition, because of the wide frequency range of the silver graphite mid-bass drivers, four drivers per channel contribute in the bass pass-band. Bill explains: “…2 drivers are climbing in phase as frequency drops, while 2 drivers are falling in phase as frequency rises.” The result? It is impossible for floor reflections to “synch up” with both characteristics at four different physical distances, regardless of listening position. The real-world benefit is that the dreaded tonal shift from floor bounce in the upper bass and lower midrange is considerably reduced. The only people who will not benefit from this are those who are in the following criteria:
1. You have no floor in your listening room
2. Your listening position is less than four feet away
3. You already have stereo subwoofers
I guess that excludes nearly everyone. If you do meet these three criteria, I’d like to hear from you, as you must have some kind of rig! For the rest of us, the Focus HD is a bass lover’s dream come true.
One of the most important outcomes of Bill’s engineering degree from the University of Illinois was expertise in fluid dynamics, some aspects of which he says apply to air: “Air being a gas, offers resistance (impedance). The higher the acoustical impedance on a speaker diaphragm, the more effectively it can do work on the air.”
His distinctive designs incorporate not just average size drivers, but oversize drivers, and multiples of them! Bill’s tendency to see air propagation in fluid terms pays big dividends from my experiences with the HD’s. He relates that his largest speakers “display a large amount of piston area. This affords a more honest portrayal of the longer wavelengths with more uniform directivity.” His goal seems roughly to provide an inversely proportionate ratio of effective driver diameter to wavelength. He pointed out to me that a 10kHz wavelength is about one-inch long, but at 100Hz the wavelength stretches to more than 10 feet long. I loved his comment, “So where is the 10’ driver?” Fabulous! What an incredible thought: If you’ve got ten feet of wavelength, why not produce it with ten feet worth of driver surface?
I am not an engineer, but this sounds absolutely logical, though impractical. Bill acknowledges this readily: “It may be impractical for many, but I can assure you the benefit of the added piston area is quite audible for anyone with reasonable hearing.” I am both a reasonable person and someone who has experienced this phenomenon, and I assure you, dear reader, this man is onto something!
The Focus’ larger surface area of pistonic interactivity with the air as compared to what most high-end speakers manage to do is truly something to behold! In fact, much as the planar sound is unique and discernable from dynamic speakers, so I would assert that the “Legacy Large Pistonic Effect” is quite discernable to the ear and establishes it as unusually potent among floor standers. In many ways, Bill is taking a page from the planar speaker manufacturer’s play book. Fans of planars like the “wall of sound” they produce. Even though dynamic drivers, the sheer surface area of the combined drivers in speakers, like the Focus HD, combine to yield a very similar experience – a wall of sound that is very pleasing to hear.
To that end, the sheer size of the HD’s also comes into play. They are quite large for a speaker in the $6k+ range. Their midrange and tweeter arrays are almost a full foot higher than that of the Tannoy Glenair or Von Schweikert VR4 SR MkII. This physical location of the mid/upper frequencies elevated to such height makes them sound more like planar elements. When I first heard the HD, I liked it immediately. One reason was that the top-end was at what I thought was an appropriately realistic height. I am 6’5” tall, and most floor standers frankly are too low, causing me to have to “listen down” to them. They never seem to yield a truly full scale, lifelike impression of a band or singer because they’re too low! I had come to accept that this is just the way the world works, just as I cannot consider most import vehicles because they are made for standard heights. But, Legacy has elevated the art, or raised the bar, so to speak! When I listen to the HD’s, the presentation is at the appropriate elevation for recreation of a lifelike experience. (More on this in Manufacturer’s Comment. –Ed.)
Increasingly, as I become more acquainted with the universe of speakers, I absolutely adore the fact that the Focus HD has prodigious drivers, plenty of them – twin 12” woofers, twin 7” midranges, a 4” planar mid, and 1” neodymium tweeter! Now, that’s some surface area! Can it move the air? Oh, yeah! I’m not a big fan of concert or “live” level listening, but I can’t resist cranking up the Focus HD’s! They bring the house down when it comes to sheer presence, and the main reason is they have the means, the driver surface area, to get it done. I owned Vandersteen subwoofers with triple 8” drivers, but I found that the Focus HD operating much lower, in heavy duty subwoofer territory at the 16 Hz point, rendering the Vandy subs unnecessary.
Think of it, how many full-range speakers in the below $10k category are even scratching that depth, much less excavating bass well below 20Hz? It’s really not easy to switch out the Focus HD’s, knowing that I will miss the entire foundation of the low end. When I hear not just lots of bass, but deep, clean, low frequency bass, I find it hard to return to the more common 30-40Hz cut-off range.
This speaker was so inspiring to me that I coined some new terms to convey my listening impressions - among them the term “Dynastic” sound. Several speaker companies use variants of the word dynamic. However, I am specifically promoting dynastic for use in audio reviewing. What is dynastic sound? It is huge, formidable, cultured, intimate, enduring, dripping with wisdom and experience. The dynastic element to the Legacy Focus HD is that it presents such an overwhelmingly substantial sonic palate that one feels they would be missing out on a large part of the audiophile experience not to use them.
A few days before the arrival of the HD’s, my sons and I watched the 1986 Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport, based on the life of Frank Dux, who represented the United States in martial arts and went undefeated in 369 fights! In the “big fight” scene, Van Damme’s antagonist tosses a narcotic powder into his eyes mid-fight, thereby blinding him. After being pummeled a few moments, Van Damme mentally returns to his earlier training in which he had to wear a blindfold and sense the approaching attacker. With his superlatively refined fighting sense, the sightless Van Damme dispatches his nemesis. As with so many martial arts movies, the underlying lesson was: It’s all about focus, getting your mind in the right place.
In audio manufacturing, it’s all about making a component that gets the listener’s mind in the right place. At a Chicago CES show years ago as he sat next to Bob Carver discussing what they felt were the most important qualities of a playback system, Bill heard Bob say, “I want to experience the sensation of someone sitting next to me and whispering in my right ear - then the soundstage would be truly realistic.”
In pursuit of realistic playback, I rotated through source, power and cabling components over the months that I was conducting listening sessions with the Focus. Initially, I began with the Rega Saturn as my source, as it is a very fine slice of well-tempered digital sound. Along with the Saturn were the MIT AVt line of cables and the Dussun V8i (250wpc/8 ohms) integrated. As new components for review came in, I shifted towards time spent with the Ayon CD-1, McIntosh MA6300 (100wpc/8 ohms) integrated and Wire World’s Equinox speaker cables, Solstice IC’s and Electra power cords. The differences in these systems were instructive as to the sheer musicality of the Legacy speakers.
The Saturn, MIT and Dussun combo brought the roof down in terms of power, which the HD’s ate up. A very front and center presentation, the locus of sound was forward and intense; every instrument and voice had authority. The HD’s are able to project prodigious amounts of energy, which translated into very lifelike electricity in the music. I never had to reign in the HD’s for fear of pushing them too hard.
A yet higher-level of control and lush ease came from the second system in which every component upgraded the detail in the music. The McIntosh integrated was only slightly less powerful but more clean, especially in the bottom-end. The Wire World products were amazingly transparent, as swift and lithe as any cable I have ever heard. The Ayon CD-1, a tube player, has an openness that surpasses the Saturn. All three components together would have tested the outer limits of any average floor standing speaker, as they combined to yield a remarkably high degree of detail.
Yet, the HD’s fielded them with aplomb. I was sure that if I put too many components with too much laser-like precision into the mix the sound would spoil. But, it never happened. Just as moving up in pixel resolution for video does not fatigue the eyes but rather serves to improve the image, so also moving up in resolution sonically does not induce harshness to the ears. Sonically, the Focus was like moving from DVD to Blu-Ray.
My favorite equipment pairing for these speakers was with the CD-1, fed through the Wire World cables, to the paired Pathos Classic One MkIII tube hybrid integrateds. The richness of the tubed cdp and tube hybrid integrateds was magical! The Classic Ones had noticeably more heft, and they buffered the precision just a bit. The HD’s are wonderfully sensitive at 96dB! It is a dream to have large towers with subwoofer capabilities, planar sensibilities and still be able to drive them with moderate amplification. With serious amplification, the HD’s show they are, similar to tornadoes, an F4 – not the biggest and “baddest” ever seen, but getting very close.
What would these speakers do if given some of the biggest and “baddest” amplification available? How would they propel a signal from a 1000Wpc amp? Could Jeff Rowland 501 class D mono amps take the music to Dynastic level?
For program material, I chose not to hear whispers in my right ear, but tons of Tympanis! I wanted the pomp and power of dynastic sound, and the HD’s delivered as they presented Synergy’s disc Impact.
The first track, “A Doll’s House Story” is anything but – it’s purely a percussion piece portraying a revolution which breaks out overnight in a toy department of a store! It is a sonic bloody coup, complete with the tympanis blasting out the percussive equivalent of bombs, which in turn gives way to the aftermath of war – the impression of toy’s bodies being broken from the conflict. Weird? Yes. It’s a piece on acoustic overload, and only a serious speaker can handle it in all its fortitude. I thrilled to the raw power and visceral impact of the drums, and could hear every scant tap of a cymbal.
Speaking of cymbals, Bill spends time listening to playback of Zildjian or Sabian cymbals. He listens for the “sh-shing” quality resulting from the shimmer after the initial strike. After my interview with him, I glued my ears to the Focus HD’s to see if they could pull it off. Oh, yeah, they sh-shone brilliantly in their ability to sh-shing!
Much more serene is Billy Smiley’s New Night, and his second track “Time Will Tell.” It sounds like it was recorded in a castle, the reverberation from his flugelhorn is so expansive. The horn doesn’t just die into the haziness of space.
One hears the echo bouncing around among the rafters like bats in a belfry. The size of the HD’s and the driver acreage adds depth and contour to the minutest details. Bill Dudleston is right, you can determine the quality of the treble from the shimmer of cymbals. In this piece, I can also tell it from the lag and clean reflection of the tambourine as it reflects off the hard surface of the recording environment. Bill learned that one does not want interfering secondary waves in the listener’s room. Since the HD’s are tuned in to focus at the listener’s position, what an incredible happenstance in the convergence of power and grace when hearing reflected waves on a recording! This speaker can recreate a recorded environment, and the principle players in it, as none others I have heard in its price class.
Returning again to the richest pairing of components with the HD’s, the CD-1, Pathos Classic Ones and the Wire World cables, I put on one of the most dynastic-sounding discs I own. Natural Wonders went bankrupt as a specialty retail store, but not before producing some very intriguing CD samplers. I cherish their 1997 disc as it has some of the most potent, energetic acoustic pieces in my collection. Almost every piece on it smacks of dynastic sound. One of my favorites is “Introduction/Sons of Somerled” by Steve McDonald. The piece is a Celtic tour de force, a tribute to blood soaked middle age Europe. Drums pound like horses hooves, and a dozen men’s voices thunder in the background as the tale of woe is sung. The HD’s are the first speaker to really do justice to the scale of this piece. In fact, the HD’s do justice to any material which requires both impressive scale and immediacy.
The intimacy of a speaker this size can be startling. India Aire’s “Heart of the Matter” on Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship (a very poor-sounding title for a very good-sounding singer) is exquisite in its literally breathtakingly close sound. She sings, “I got the call today; I knew that it would come,” followed by exhaling four times rhythmically, “hh… hh… hhhh… hh.” I delight that the most elusive aspects of the recording lost on many a fine speaker shines through.
Legacy makes components which are “Electro-Lux”, electronic and oh, so luxurious! I recall when I was young my grandparents had an Electrolux canister vacuum. It was sweet as far as vacuums go. It wasn’t some cheap Hoover upright, but a serious vacuum, with a canister as heavy as a missile, tough woven hoses and indelible metal attachments. It was still going strong last time I looked, more than thirty years running. It was built to perform a task well and to do so indefinitely. I’m guessing that it would still outperform a third of the plastic vacuums on the market today.
I see the Legacy Focus HD as a similar Electro-Lux device. It’s built not just to satisfy today, or even for the next six months to a year. It’s made to keep you happy indefinitely because it is a truly luxurious electro-mechanical device. Its parts are made to work long after the warranty is out. It’s going to be good looking and good sounding no matter what upgrades you make in source and amplification. It’s the kind of speaker that is a keeper, and at some point, becomes a personal treasure. And that’s why you’re not about to give it up easily. I am already treasuring them, and I’m not ready to give them up - they’re staying! Who knows - some day when I’m dead, one of my sons could inherit them. As a practicing Christian, I certainly do not wish to be irreverent. However, in a humorous moment this revised childhood prayer came to me:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
My Focus HD’s my sons can take!
But, not a minute before! Legacy Audio products are built to be just that – heirloom quality audio products that a discriminating audiophile would be proud to own.
Bill Dudleston has a gift for designing speakers, and he has given the audiophile community a gift in allowing a speaker the caliber of the Focus HD to be purchased at what I consider, for their performance, a bargain price. Though not inexpensive, they are fabulously loaded with value, and sonically may have no peers in their class. It is most encouraging to see authentic quality and tremendous value in manufacturing still alive in the U.S.A! It is easy to see, and hear, why Legacy Audio speakers are gaining in global popularity.
It’s a bit over the top to suggest mention of audio components in a will, but the point is intact. In an age when relationships are tenuous, family ties are poorly tethered, and where quality craftsmanship is too often subservient to the novelty of technological change and planned obsolescence, it’s refreshing and reassuring to discover a company with a long term perspective and no desire to compromise on its foundational values.
Legacy Audio - what a perfect name for a family owned company devoted to production of quality audio components - truly is a legacy in the making.
Manufacturer’s Comment:
In the urgency to get the speakers to Doug, we apparently didn’t install the new feet which have been standard for several months. I will install when I deliver the Helix. The original feet were designed to protect the cabinet in manufacturing
Doug’s review pair of the Focus HD’s was shipped with two pairs of ABS “rails strips” acting as footers. Legacy now ships every Focus HD with a set of four conical feet with threaded inserts, which may be utilized in three different ways.
Installing just the inserts allows the speaker to set on four 1.25-inch bushings for ease of movement, while attaching the solid rubber cones provides a stable, well damped base. Adding the oversized threaded washers onto the included chrome spikes, which seat into chrome coasters, accommodates leveling as needed. The feet appear as a vast improvement from the original design.
We love Doug’s choice of words on what a “dynastic” sound is. We are jumping in for the fun and here is our take on Doug’s dynastic dynamics: Vast yet intimate, formidable yet truthful, a potent and absolutely essential element of sonic realism… It is found in the slamming of the door, the wince from a well landed punch. Mastering engineer Steve Hoffman calls this intimate yet awesome element “the breath of life”.
We would also like to offer comment on Doug’s very perceptive observation on the Focus HD’s sheer size. Our testing indicates that if a loudspeaker has a well designed polar pattern, an optimized vertical acoustic center will fall between 39” and 52” above the floor depending on the distance from the loudspeaker. The advantages of getting the acoustic center above listener height are multiple: a larger sweet spot with reduced floor and furniture effects, a more natural perspective, plus a second row of listeners are much more readily accommodated.
Our thanks to Douglas Schroeder and Dagogo for the thoroughness demonstrated in fact gathering, careful sonic evaluation and fluent journalism. This is our first on-line review experience and it has been a pleasant adventure. We at Legacy appreciate the thoughtful consideration given to our product, and enjoyed the adventure.
Bill Dudleston
Legacy Audio
