Legacy Audio V Speaker System Review, Part 2

VERACTIY

Everyone wants a speaker that sounds true to their ears; however, most speakers allow little to no adjustment to contour the parameters of performance to achieve that goal. The V offers the owner not only adjustments to realize a more desired sound, but packages these adjustments in a user-friendly fashion.

Opening the Legacy-Bohmer Remote Control app on my Samsung S2 tablet presented a visually rich page showing the following menu bar: Volume, Input, Settings, Update, and Back. Selecting a tab opens an overlaying window with additional functionality. The Volume window offers three slider controls: Course, Fine and Balance. The Fine slider adjusts the volume in minute increments from -3dB to +3dB. The Course volume control moves in much larger steps correlating to the digital display’s 0 to 100. The Balance has a defined range operating in .1dB increments from 0 at center to -2dB or +2dB.

The Input tab shows the following are accepted; USB, SPDIF, Toslink, and four pairs of analog inputs, RCA 1&2, RCA 5&6, XLR 3&4 and XLR 7&8. Any pairing can be used to input a stereo pair of analog signals. Each pair has corresponding sets of Resistive Switches to attenuate the incoming signal if desired.

The most action shaping the speaker’s sound happens under the Settings tab, where the following sub-menus are seen: Mode, DAC, Presets, Contour, Setup, Front Panel and System Update. Mode offers choices of listening in Stereo, Mono, Inverted Stereo or Inverted Mono (I’m not quite sure what difference would exist between Mono and Inverted Mono). The DAC tab offers choice of Apodizing or Linear operation. The Presets tab allows selection of Linear or four versions of “Expand” labeled 1, 2, 3 and 4. The Expand function reminded me of receivers with DSP effects such as “Hall” or “Night Club” and I didn’t much care for them. All of them reduced the center channel focus in favor of enlarging it.

The Contour tab is where the most efficacious controls for shaping the V’s sound are located. Eight Memory buttons, an “Info” button revealing a guide for suggested names assigned to the Memory locations, and a Save button reside at the top of the Contour page. Beneath are sliders labeled Brilliance, Low Treble, Upper-Bass, Mid-Bass, Low-Bass and Punch. The sliding controls are terrifically powerful in their effect. When my friend Bob was visiting we heard Pink Floyd’s “Time” and he wished for the vocals to be a bit less edgy. I merely changed the Treble control from the setting 0 to -.1 and the Lower Treble control from setting 0 to -.4 and the smoothing effect was complete. It should be clear from this example that an enormous amount of contouring can be done such that nearly any appetite for a particular flavor of presentation can be achieved with the Wavelet/V system.

A bonus function of the Legacy-Bohmer remote is the Punch slider control. This function alone is a game changer. I asked Bill about the Punch control, as it seemed to confer very powerful capability to the bass. Until I started adjusting the Punch setting I was only mildly impressed by the foundation the V made in the music. However, once I got a hold of the Punch feature it took only seconds to revise that opinion. According to Bill, the Punch feature provides additional impact centered around 50Hz that pop and rock recordings often vacate. Such compressed recordings have less headroom for bass dynamics.

Not just oldies but all music seemed to vivify with the Punch feature, but, again, not much of the potential was needed as I settled on it being set at .6 or .7. The Punch feature is akin to having a “Badass” dial on the speaker allowing one to select how laid back or aggressive it plays. My room has cement flooring with a thick padding and Berber carpeting, so it adds very little bass reinforcement. It takes a powerful system to elicit tactile sensations even when using the twin Legacy XTREME XD Subwoofers. Prior to adjustment of the Punch setting I thought the V struggled somewhat to create a bass foundation similar to that of the subwoofers. However, after increasing the Punch, the V hit much harder in the bass. It was at that point I concluded no one needs subs if they have the V.

The Setup tab allows access to the step by step instructions to put out the Microphone, run pink noise to equalize channels (because the external amps have different output from the speakers’ internal ones), conduct the frequency sweeps for each channel, and watch the progress of the Bohmer correction calculations until finished and the room correction is turned on automatically. The Bohmer correction can be manually switched On or Off via it’s own tab labeled Room Correction, also on the Settings page.

Rounding out the tabs on the Settings page are Front Panel, providing a slider to control the intensity of the illuminated front panel, and a System Update tab that seeks revisions to Legacy’s programming.

The final two tabs on the opening page of the remote are Update, which allows updates to the Remote app,and the all-important Back tab that takes you to the previous window.

Regarding the DAC tab and selection of Linear or Apodizing functionality, I found it to have negligible impact on the sound. Swapping cables and working with the Contour sliders conferred far more impact, thus I suggest the Apodizing versus Linear selection does not pass my Law of Efficacy. As might be expected, neither option had any impact on the sound of external DACs. I left the setting on Apodizing for the entirety of the review.

That conclusion could change, however, as within the last few hours of tidying up this review Roon Labs has just released version 1.3 and it is action packed! Among the critical functions for users are Sampling Rate Conversion (SRC) filters in Roon’s digital engine as well as a defeatable Headroom control. With these two controls I further contoured the signal feeding the V and pulled much more than I anticipated from the speakers. I found Roon’s default Headroom (volume limiting) setting at -3dB killed the power and impact of the V, so I kept it at -.5dB so as to avoid triggering Roon’s red “Clipping” indicator. These simple software adjustments were as potent as any setting on the V, swapping out cables, or changing the amps. Pay very careful attention to the quality of your source, be it digital or analog, and maximize it because the V will put it under a magnifying glass and blow it up like a volcano.

I am well aware that using Roon’s digital engine adds what many would deem unnecessary digital manipulation, as the Wavelet already has a DAC. I have built many systems, some with supposedly redundant digital processing, and, simply put, one has to try every combination to determine its efficacy. In some cases using software SRC is not beneficial to sound quality and in other instances it is. In this case I would continue to use the 44.1kHz and 16 bit files from Tidal given rate and bit depth conversion by Roon’s digital engine to 96kHz and 24 bit for playback via the Wavelet. The result is much more noticeable than a demonstration of MQA I received several days ago. An audiophile friend out of curiosity bought a Meridian Explorer 2 USB DAC that has MQA functionality and our local listening group conducted a casual listening comparison. I found the potential of the MQA in that system to be roughly equivalent to swapping a couple power cords or interconnects; it was disappointing. In contrast, the difference in adjusting Roon’s digital engine was more obvious, akin to changing an entire suite of cables and amp(s).

A curiosity presented itself in regards to the Balance control. I sensed the center image was slightly pushed to the left, so I began pulling it to the right using the Balance feature. As I did so, the center of the soundstage began to blossom and the entirety of the musical landscape was more evenly filled. I eventually settled on a skewing of the balance to .5dB to the right. I believe my room’s construction accounts for the asymmetry as I have found that to balance the soundstage I need to position the left speaker 1” farther away from the listening position than the right speaker. This is not an affect of my hearing, as my local listening group found the V’s soundstage impeccable. My conclusion is that the exterior walls (on the right) being built of 2×4 construction over the cinder block versus the interior walls of 2×6 construction (on the left) somehow lessen the right speaker’s impact. The adjustment of the balance was easy and was immediately audible and beneficial. Note that one can also adjust the output of each speaker via the Legacy remote. It is instructive to operate a balance control in one’s system to find the optimum positioning; you may discover that your preferred location is slightly off absolute center due to the room. Having the capabilityto gently pull the sound without stuffing the room with treatments is another valuable tool the V offers.