Where do I go from here? Sadly, I think, down.
Not only did the Helix pass the Law of Efficacy, but in one major sense it surpassed it. It so outperformed even larger floor standing traditional multi-way dynamic speakers that I consider it to be in a different class in many respects. Speaking of classes of speakers, I have had the pleasure of hearing many classy high-end models in the under $100K range, and several beyond that price point. One of the things about the Helix that struck me with the force of an anvil was the way the Helix captured the best of “ultimate” speaker systems while eschewing the worst.
I have seldom been moved to tears by music; I am usually placid,
I couldn’t help but contemplate where the Helix stood in terms of specifications in comparison with some of the best. I compiled a chart of speakers, most very well known, from what is considered the more extreme High-End. It gives a lot of room for some outstanding competition to the Helix’s design. I gathered the specifications to produce an objective comparison. While numbers don’t tell everything, they can tell a lot. As of August of 2008, these were the specifications of the speakers listed.
The numbers, in this case, tell that the Helix has some outstanding specs, on par with several speakers under $100,000. In several categories, including price, the Helix is rated number one or two, and it consistently scores high. It has wonderful frequency extension, superb sensitivity and size to establish grand scale in listening, incredible flexibility with its crossover – all at a price competitive with some very notable speakers.
unemotional. But these speakers make me laugh heartily at the
Physical Description
How has the Helix been designed to perform at that level? In terms of size, to call it “gargantuan” would be an overstatement, “large”, an understatement; huge is appropriate. I am 6’5” tall and have never worked with a speaker that made me feel petite until the Helix, which rises to 6’ 2”. At 320 lbs. each they are not an object one moves about the house on a whim; thankfully the pair I received rest on casters, making it possible to muscle them around on my thick carpeting, if need be. They are “giddy sized” in the sense that some items are so outrageously overwhelming that, when placed in one’s home, they elicit a guffaw of delight – giddiness.
audacity, the outrageousness of the experience!
Each pristine cabinet has 34 CNC milled components with thickness varying from 1.5” to 2” thick. The enclosure pieces are cut to the proper dimension and angle, then interlocked and braced to divide the enclosure into four separate chambers. Once glued and clamped, the interior is coated with a rubberized asphalt-like material which resembles truck bed liner. No wonder the thing is so heavy! Don’t laugh at the thought of truck bed liner-like glop inside the speaker. Stuff like that absolutely kills unwanted vibrations. It is not difficult for me to imagine how this alters the sound of the MDF cabinet. This step has largely eliminated the complaint of a “box” sound due to construction materials. No matter the intensity of the music, no matter the level, I could not make the Helix sound like a hollow, boxy speaker. More than most dynamic speakers I have used, the drivers sounded unencumbered by the cabinet.
LeAnn Rimes’ “How Do I Live”; I play it over, and over… It’s likely I will
The lavish craftsmanship of the cabinetry is worth a guffaw as well. For as technically oriented as the Helix is and as large its dimensions are, they serve the laws of acoustics, and sound rich and inviting. I relish the precision in matching of wood veneer on any speaker; the highly striated Rosewood on this particular pair is magnificent! Legacy has opted to make a diminutive name plate out of proportion to the speaker, which shows off the beauty of the cabinet without distractions.
not hear it this good in my room again for a long time.
The front grill protrudes from the speaker obviously; it appears as an oddity, with its structural form seen under the mesh. While acoustically transparent, it is not exactly attractive. If it was not determined as necessary sonically, I would recommend a
reduction to a slimmer grill. In fact, I had the grill removed from the get go and never put it back on. Unless the WAF dominates the listening room’s décor, I would urge the grills be stored away, making the full glory of the Helix observable.
Some music is so bad, so grotesque and dark, that I won’t even play it.
The Drivers and Inputs
The Helix is a ten-driver, 5-way speaker, which is not readily apparent since a casual analysis shows only four sets of speakers requiring inputs. As one surveys the Helix, the obvious driver sets can be seen (per speaker):
-Rear firing 15” Rohacell reinforced Silver Graphite active subwoofer; powered by
an internal 750W IcePower module. Each subwoofer requires an XLR lead from the processor, and a 15A IEC power cord.
-Twin forward firing 15” Carbon pulp bass drivers, the bottom one in the ported cabinet, and the top an open baffle design.
-“Quad Curvilinear” midrange consisting of four equidistant outwardly splayed 6” midrange drivers surrounding the tweeters.
-Dual tweeters comprising the “Neo-Quadra-Pole” array
But, I bet it would sound good on these speakers.
Looking a bit more closely at these drivers, the 4th generation, 15-inch subwoofer’s diaphragm and spider, as well as the motor, are made by an unnamed specialist. The driver features a second coil for dynamic braking. The mid-bass drivers are made by B&C of Florence, Italy. The maximum excursion is 14mm with a sensitivity of 99.5 dB. Backing the bass drivers and subwoofer is a substance called “Rohacell”, an extremely light Polymethacrylimide rigid foam used at the Fermi Laboratory as a structural material, as well as in aircraft construction. So I guess it works! In the Helix it works as a backing to keep these huge pulp drivers from deforming at high power.
I recall driving that ten ton dump truck. Size! Power! HUGENESS! A
The midrange drivers are custom built for Legacy by B&C. Both the bass and mid drivers are constructed of “natural pulp”, which has long fibers of random lengths. The pulp is vacuum filtered and pressed into a diaphragm of uniform thickness. The mids have high extension of frequency response, being able to operate at 4 kHz, which makes them extremely suitable to be blended with the tweeters via the processor.
pickup truck? Phhhhaw! That’s a toy! These big, full range, five-ways
The duet of soft-domed tweeters are housed in their own “flare”. The diaphragms are splayed horizontally, while a “vertical dividing blade” prevents comb filtering off-axis at frequencies where wavelengths are less than an inch long.
let you know what full immersion sound is like!
There are two not-so-obvious drivers: Centered directly under the cabinet is a downward firing 15” passive radiator, the thrust of which is directed out the back of the speaker through a rectangular port in the speaker’s apron. The most unexpected driver resides on the upper part of the sloped backside, underneath what appears as an aesthetically placed square grill, and well above the subwoofer.
Remove the sloped grill and the final 15” driver is seen – one which is not listed in the specifications (Note: the only grill which Legacy recommends removing for listening is in the front). It is called the “rear energy terminating driver”; Bill affectionately refers to it as the “Pac Man” driver, which is connected out of phase to the front drivers. Its purpose is to reduce the energy buildup in the 50Hz to 120Hz range due to a headwall, and its operating level is set proportional to the front radiation. Bill states, “If you put your ear to it, it sounds like it is radiating garbage. It is actually reducing garbage that would otherwise reach the listener.”
At the right level every vocalist is “locked in”. A phantom image like
At least one Legacy model, the Focus (I use the HD version), incorporates attenuation switches on the back. Such devices are unnecessary with the Helix as myriad parameters for the signal are treated by the crossover. The active subwoofer uses a balanced input, while the bass, midrange and treble require unbalanced spades or bananas. Legacy’s own hefty, widely spaced binding posts will not accept a standard dual banana plug. There are three sets of those posts for the bass, midrange and treble inputs.
I’ve not heard from any other speaker I have used.
- ← Previous page
- (Page 3 of 5)
- Next page →
