Legacy Audio Whisper DSW Review, Part 2 of 3: The DSW Experience

Dynamic Panel Speaker

Because of its hybrid qualities the DSW is a speaker with unique strengths:

Ribbon tweeter for extended high frequencies
Planar midrange to capture spaciousness of the panel sound
Treble/Mid placement approaching point source wave propagation
Woven, extended range mid-bass drivers to allow for higher, more forgiving crossover points (Crossover points for both passive and active crossover operation are nominally 300 Hz, 3 kHz, and 8 kHz)
Array of 7-inch mid-bass drivers to create a sense of ease in the bass response
Open baffle bass drivers to avoid cabinet coloration
Midrange cone construction applied to bass drivers to aid transients
Optional stereo, bi-amp or tri-amp capability
Optional blending of solid state and tube amplification B/M/T
Optional internal/external crossover

The Whisper in general and the DSW specifically melds some of the best qualities of dynamic and planar speakers. Years ago I searched for a speaker which held the best qualities of the Vandersteen and Magneplanar lines; I found it in the Eminent Technology LFT-8B. It strikes me as sublime that I am now using a gigantic variant, a blended dynamic/panel speaker. Since the DSW has quasi-open baffle design, that certainly aids the comparison. Without the common cabinet resonances created by enclosed large bass drivers it has a more open, true-to-the-driver sound than the preponderance of speakers with full cabinets.

Big Is Beautiful

Two reasons the Whisper would qualify as being comparable to a large panel speaker are its size and driver configuration. No three-foot-tall speaker is going to impress like a big planar. The fact that the Whisper is big causes the mind to respond to it more like a big panel speaker. A critical design feature is that the drivers themselves are larger than average. In general I struggle more to conceptualize the sound of the music as live when hearing it from 4-inch midranges and 7-8-inch bass drivers than the 7-inch mid-bass and 15-inch bass drivers of the DSW. Also, the bass is not localized at floor level, but is distributed along the vertical axis. Consequently the DSW is closer in experience to a panel than a more conventional, dynamic design.

At RMAF 2008, I spent several of my listening sessions of larger, more costly systems with a track or two from Lesiem’s Auracle, a work that can test a system’s capacity to stun. I have heard it on the JM Lab Grande Utopia and Legacy Helix, as well as other prestigious speaker systems. I hesitated to make a direct comparison as the venue and attending equipment was radically different. However, the emotional experience of hearing it through the DSW was every bit as powerful as on those other occasions. I felt more drawn into the Latin chorus through the DSW than the Helix. Having sung in choirs from fourth grade through college I know the impact of choir members standing with you, the melding of the voices, spending some energy to constantly match those near you. I did not feel that with the Grande Utopia or the Helix, but I do feel it with the DSW. With these others the chorus was several arm length’s away, as if I were standing in the aisle of a church observing them. The DSW, however, places me among them – they are within breathing distance.

Yet, the nearly melded positioning of the midrange and tweeter drive units ensures that one hears the pair as a unity. People were raving at CES 2009 about the novel “Mini-Mags”, the approximately 1-foot-tall Magneplanars which debuted along with planar subwoofers. While they were very good, I was not amazed since I had been experiencing a similar sound for some time with the Legacy Focus SE. In the demo I guessed the approximate size of the speakers behind the veil; I had been hearing something akin to it for some time in the Focus HD and later the Focus SE.

The Focus SE’s same 4-inch Planar midrange driver in the DSW is possibly as close as can be attained to a “point source panel” – large enough to be a midrange, but small enough for the sound wave to emanate from a near-point source. Voices heard through the DSW are tantalizingly singular, yet enveloping. “Front row, live event,” is a thought that runs through my mind a lot when hearing these speakers.

The DSW Experience

I am endlessly amazed by the high degree of coherence between such radically diverse sets of drivers. Getting a single ribbon tweeter and mid, and an array of dynamics to sound seamless? No way! Yet, Bill accomplishes this by playing to each technology’s strength. He uses planar and ribbon drivers for mid/high frequencies as they are superior for speed and clarity, larger woven mid-bass drivers in an array for dynamic power with ease, and the super-light, air column enhanced 15-inch open baffle bass drivers for solid but exceptionally fast bass response.

I’m not usually a fan of Broadway productions for listening, but I’ll never forget seeing Les Miserables, and occasionally I listen to The Premier Collection: The Best of Andrew Lloyd Webber. With so many even larger speaker systems, much of what an orchestra plays is simply missing and one has to mentally fill in the rest. Even really good speaker systems can sound paltry compared to the real thing. The DSW comes closer to capturing a lifelike representation of a symphony or orchestra than any other brand of speaker I have used. For this review I enjoyed listening to Cliff Richard and Sarah Brightman on “All I Ask of You” from The Phantom of the Opera. Not only are their voices robust, bursting with emotion, full and clearly portrayed, the orchestration is captivating. I find myself not having to work as hard at plugging “holes” in the performance, supplying elements I think should be heard more clearly, because there is far more of it available. Previous speakers I have reviewed can do either the scale or the intimacy of symphonic music, but the DSW excels at both.

Ultimate Expression Of Design

I began the review utilizing active crossover mode, later switching to passive mode, and then finally returning to active mode. I established the first set of listening tests using only the settings supplied for the processor by Legacy. After pushing the passive speaker operation to its fullest expression I doubled back and applied my preferences to the processor in active mode to address the perceived shortcoming in bass output, concentrating on frequencies below 40 Hz.

The passive crossover mode is a bit more laid back, less rippling with energy than the active crossover mode. It simply does not have the dynamic capacity of the active mode. One can get a sense of this when simply turning on the system; in passive x-over mode the speaker stands silent when no music plays, but in active x-over there is a slight hiss – the additional gain from the processor lets you know the power is ready to be unleashed. The intensity of the listening experience is jacked up when the active x-over is used. Passive performance of the DSW might be characterized by the adjectives “understated, finessed, and romantic,” while the active operation would be described as, “raw, visceral, structural” and the like.

The simplest way to express the extreme change in character of the DSW in active mode is to say it becomes a different speaker. Indeed, if one were to take the body of a human and swap the brain it would be evidential that the result is a radically different human. In the same way the active crossover – a different brain – makes the speaker behave remarkably different, in a very good way. Having a speaker which can cross-over its operational mode is paradigm changing in that the weaknesses of passive crossovers become juxtaposed against the strengths of active crossovers.

What is the bottom line regarding active versus passive operation of a speaker? Using the DSW as the test subject, the differences in active crossover operation are as follows:

More efficiently uses amplifier power, yielding better dynamics
Less overlap in the creation of frequency curves (filters), meaning less congestion between drivers
Can be tailored in terms of the entire operational range, versus fixed
Noticeably more detail across frequency spectrum
Extension of the sound field deeper and wider
Transients were superior, bass tighter and cleaner
Low-end strengthened and deepened substantially
Increased delineation of the instruments and voices
Microdynamics radically improved
Warmer, more forgiving sound in conjunction with solid state amps

The DSW in active crossover mode is capable of SOTA sound, allowing the audiophile to peer exceptionally deep into the recording, musicianship of the artists and playback quality of the system. The DSW can unwind all the energy and individual strains of expression in a musical event and place it all in a spatially appropriate location on the soundstage. Al Jarreau, a longtime favorite singer of mine, on L is for Lover sings a punchy piece, “Real Tight”, in which horn, drums, keyboards and Al’s voice lurches along in an impatient, probing fashion reminiscent of 80’s style rock – uncharacteristically, the emphasis is on power over finesse. On most systems I can’t stand more than a few bars of this piece, as at elevated levels it fairly punches the eardrums. The piece doesn’t typically sound as tight as I would like.

The DSW, however, is able to tease apart the band members’ somewhat jagged individual performances and recombine them to make a piece with musical integrity, solidity – real tight. Through the DSW the piece no longer sounds ragged, despite the addition of much more detail via the Minimax DAC. Contrary to the received wisdom in audio regarding more resolving power, I find that with increased detail, as long as the timbre of the instruments is correct, they acquire more palpability, more naturalness.

Gargantuan Car Speaker

A good analogy presents itself to help explain the uncannily holistic sound of the DSW – the coaxial car speaker. I recall being impressed as a young lad by two-way or three-way car speakers. How odd they were, oblong things with oval shaped woofers and variously shaped tweeters in the middle. The concept didn’t always match visually, but they sure sounded pretty good!

My mind dusts off the memory and applies it to the DSW, thinking of it as a gargantuan coaxial writ large. Please dismiss any misgivings you may have from this analogy concerning quality of the sound and focus solely on the integration of the drivers, big drivers of an unusual nature with more conservative smaller drivers in the middle. Like the ubiquitous coaxial car speaker, the DSW surrounds the mids with bass, and surrounds the treble with mids. The result is somewhat like a humongous open baffle Tannoy or KEF. The DSW does not give a perfect illusion of one massive driver, but it is good at making many drivers sound stitched together with only the smallest of seams showing.

At one point I played Stanley Clarke’s At the Movies “Theme From Boyz N The Hood” when my ear caught something odd happening in the background of the piece – a piano wandering seemingly aimlessly! It flitted without direction as if a novice had taken to playing it, fumbling up and down the keyboard. In the middle of this urban instrumental piece with very strong bass line was a bit of freeform jazz! Never had I with any previous speaker system including the Helix, been able to catch subtleties that well hidden.

The utilization of the planar mid and ribbon tweeter makes the DSW a real pleaser for those who delight in subtleties. How well would you expect a speaker system to reproduce an electronic note or a percussive note of the same approximate pitch? Would you cut the speaker some slack, knowing how close they can be? I don’t. I want a speaker which can convincingly portray any instrument’s note as distinct, regardless of how close another might sound.

Late one evening as I was wrapping up a listening session, for relaxation I played “Behind the Waterfall” by David Lanz and Paul Speer from Natural States. The synthesized notes were expressive, seemingly oversized because of the reverb in the recording. I could hear the tinge of a metallic “ting”, like a cylinder being struck in a repeating pattern. The pitch reminded me of quite a different piece played just days before as I played PVC IV from Blue Man Group. Don’t laugh; cuts such as “Drumbone” are superb to assess imaging and stereo separation of a system.

I played both pieces repeatedly one after the other. There was so much similarity in these simple notes. However, there was also a lot of difference between them. The PVC tube’s note, not being electronically generated, carried more echo of a physical instrument. It seemed struck by a soft mallet, and was influenced in pitch from the air column heard inside the tube. One note through the DSW can “say it all”, just as one look can say it all when it comes to relationships.

Playing Favorites

When it comes to the relationship of himself as a designer to his speakers, Bill Dudleston may never admit it, but I detect that he likes the Whisper the best of his designs. Like a parent who can’t come out and say, “Oh, yes, I prefer our third child,” he’s slow to suggest the Whisper might actually be better than the Helix. But I suspect emotionally he feels it’s true. The design certainly has won me over. I thought I would never hear another speaker which could move me emotionally as the Helix, but along came the DSW and I’m forced to reconsider. Like Bill, I’m thrilled by the speaker’s agility. Experiencing it is like gawking at an elite athlete’s reaction time, a quickness which is quite rare.

The movie The Blind Side is about NFL defensive lineman Michael Oher, who as a young boy was so huge and so quick on the field that people found it difficult to believe. Observers commented that a boy that big shouldn’t be physically capable of being that quick. Similarly, when a person looks at the DSW they might think, “It’s gotta be sluggish or congested…” Like people who hadn’t seen Michael Oher play, they may judge by appearance, not performance. The DSW is neither sluggish nor congested; it has the speed of a monitor in the body of a huge tower.

Coupled with Coda

Bill’s favorite amplifier manufacturer to use with his designs is Coda Technologies. Doug Dale of Coda and Bill have known each other for a long time and each man’s designs seem to play to the other’s strengths. Bill commented that he wants serious headroom from an amp and Coda has never let him down. I had three of the Coda CS stereo amps on review specifically for the tri-amped active operation of the DSW. In it I found one of my top solid-state amp experiences. The richness of the Legacy/Coda pairing was memorable, as the CS amp often struck my ear more akin to a powerful tube amp than solid-state. I did not need to acclimate to the Coda sound, as the DSW was immediately and eminently engaging with them. They were powerful and erudite sounding. I would not hesitate to recommend the CS as a rewarding amplification scheme for the DSW. The owner could begin with one unit and develop the rig over time by adding more amps.

The superiority of the active crossover mode is so dramatic that one illustration should suffice. I had tried thepassive crossover mode – sans processor, directly from preamp to amp to speakers – passively bi-amped with venerable VAC Phi 200 tube amplifiers. As expected the result was characteristically high-end sound, rich, powerful and intimate. However, the sound of the active crossover with the Tri-amped Coda amps was clearly superior – richer, more powerful and more intimate. This is no slight of the VAC amps! It’s a confirmation that the active crossover changes the parameters of the speaker’s performance. In this instance the active crossover, granted, with three stereo amps at 300wpc each, was able to make a solid-state amp more engaging than a premier tube amp in passive crossover mode. I would fully expect, however, that if three of the VAC amps were placed into the rig in active crossover mode they would handily reassert themselves as superior.