Life is too short...listen to as much music as possible!!!

SCAudiophile

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Sep 11, 2010
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Within their stated range (27Hz on up), the TAD R1 MK2's are the most perfect speaker I've ever heard out of a very long list in my life at
much higher and some equal and lower price points. I can still remember the resolving power and clarity they delivered. I am heading to Munich a few days to pile on a few more / recent names on that list. They did not however deliver the last half octave or more down deep and I would have had to wrestle with adding subs and trying to integrate them with one of the fastest speakers I've ever heard which might very well have been a challenge though there are known solutions for that.

The greater issue as I've written elsewhere is the TAD R1's sheer size and weight and the room size they require; being 330 lbs each, they required movers to pack or unpack, move up and down stairs and were not easily movable at all in-room without someone to help to make more than the most minute adjustments. Also with the phase of life that is here, and the transitions that are in front of me, I needed a speaker / speaker system that addressed the full range penchant I have for music (was missing 16Hz above and below) of all types and needed a smaller set of speakers to fit into the next part of life's journey.

This Legacy setup on the other hand while not being lightweight overall, is modular, able to be dealt with by myself with some real but manageable effort, and allows me the ability to run the whole setup or use the top portions as monitor speakers should I ever need/want to do so.

Being a long-term / multi-model Legacy owner over a decade+ I can tell you that these and the latest VALOR/other speakers from Legacy and the new Wavelet updates are Bill's finest work to date and when I run this setup full range, I have never had so much pure fun listening to music. I've heard Whisper DSW and VALOR first hand and still cannot get over at all price points, how they compete with much more expensive and vaunted "audiophile" speakers...

You asked how they stack up against the lauded R1s;

- full range, deep impactful bass, into the floor boards and the gut when called for but super fast, articulate and accurate
- beautiful involving midrange and highs, I'm stunned at this twice over as this is digital amplification and I never thought (being a confirmed class A, A/B bigot) that I would ever utter those words...
- 3-dimensional imaging that's hard to describe how good it is....
- room correction from Wavelet clearly is helping overall with timing, accuracy, etc...
- musically extremely involving and impressive
- can play the system 8 - 18 hours a day constantly (and have) and never hear 1 bit of ear fatigue

Hope this helps...
 

SCAudiophile

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Sep 11, 2010
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Not to me, with the cables, amp, pre-amp, etc...that I used with them, no.

Some have said they are overly bright or fatiguing on various forums but I did not find them to be so.
 
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SCAudiophile

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Sep 11, 2010
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Haven't had time to update exhaustive gear list far down but the signature is now updated with the highlights....

Well, the winds of change have blown through my life in 2018-early. 2019, a welcome and new path in life has now emerged, so many changes have occurred. The house pictured previously has been sold and I will be in this rental house for a couple years while I get back to more music and plan the next steps...

Big news besides all that is the arrival several weeks ago of a Legacy Audio i.V4 ULTRA amp.....fantastic is what I'm experiencing.
The overbuilt quality and finest Class A/B sound, but from a ICEedge digital amp, set of 4(ch) dedicated monoblocks housed in 1 chassis,
astounds me even after a couple months,...they are well worth checking out!

Further the arrival of my dream speaker, the Legacy VALOR early in June means the multiple years I've waited and wanted this speaker are now over (!)..... Words don't suffice to describe how much I am enjoying and amazed by these speakers. Bill and the Legacy team have done it again to bring great music into my home on an entirely more impressive level!

This version of the VALOR is a further build to what is listed on the website. Instead of only 2 required external channels of amplification, Bill suggested and I gladly agreed to requiring 4 external amp channels to drive the mids and treble with their own dedicated amp channels, takes another set of speaker cables and another XLR pair (thank goodness of loaners from friends!) however the benefits of this choice are already noticeable...the production / default Valor is incredible (heard it 6 times over the years), this version gives me a number of options for amping midbass, mids and highs in the future however the way they sound is fantastic to my ears.

Legacy-Valor-System-Speakers-from-right1-far-view-20200608_075502.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Speakers-from-front4-20200608_080633.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Speakers-from-front1-20200608_080554.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Speakers-from-front3-20200608_080649.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Speakers-from-front2-20200608_080811.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-View-from-back-of-room-20200608_075523.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Equipment-Rack1-20200608_073553.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Equipment-Rack2-20200608_073624.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Speaker-backplate1-20200608_134500.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Speakers-from-right1-far-view-20200608_075502.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Speakers-from-front4-20200608_080633.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Speakers-from-front1-20200608_080554.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Speakers-from-front3-20200608_080649.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Speakers-from-front2-20200608_080811.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-View-from-back-of-room-20200608_075523.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Equipment-Rack1-20200608_073553.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Equipment-Rack2-20200608_073624.jpg Legacy-Valor-System-Speaker-backplate1-20200608_134500.jpg Legacy-iV4-ULTRA-amp-SPRING-2020-from-left-front-20200403_140554.jpg
 

drunkenspyder

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Apr 6, 2020
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NorCal, USA
www.hammondraffetto.art
Thanks for sharing the pics. My Valors will be headed my way next week, an upgrade from the Aeris. I opted for the configuration with four internal channels of amplification, but switchable for me to use my Merrills on the mid/treble channel.
 

SCAudiophile

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Sep 11, 2010
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@drunkenspyder Congratulations on your news speakers soon to arrive! I am simply amazed at what these can do; day 1 is great
but with proper break-in they have opened up further, have extraordinary accuracy and control full range. Imaging is incredible,
tonal beauty, accuracy, etc....is at or beyond every top-tier speaker I heard last year in Munich across 2 shows. It's good to
be sheltering at home, when you have these speakers :cool:! Let me know when you get them, any, questions, etc...drop me a PM.
 

SCAudiophile

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Sep 11, 2010
1,156
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Greer South Carolina (USA)
A few new pictures,...replaced traditional framed art with 14 GSM Pro canvas with Eco Water Giclee inks; just the right amount of light diffusion
unlike traditional room treatments, even those with moderate NRC values; if any absorption is needed the frame-backs allow me to insert 1" thick slices of Ecocore that I can cut to size and experiment one at a time.....and the fractal-generated art is cool too.
Legacy-VALOR-System-Speaker-front-canvas-panels-20201012_162854.jpg

Legacy-VALOR-System-Speaker-side-full-view-20201014_153252.jpg
Legacy-VALOR-System-Speaker-closeup-frontangle-20201014_153518.jpg
 

SCAudiophile

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Sep 11, 2010
1,156
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Greer South Carolina (USA)
Just completed a major upgrade in terms of totally decoupling an almost 300 lb speaker that stands 6 feet 1 inch tall from the room to eliminate the prodigious amounts of energy this speaker can produce from feeding into the floor and subfloor (and crawlspace under house) and ultimately feeding back into the speaker. This delivered a lot more than even the highest expectations I had. I'd researched available options for over a year and even considered going back to the use of Stillpoint Ultras 5's (now v2) or other footers like Magico MPODs (sized for M6 speakers) or the larger IsoAcoustics footers and received a great recommendation from a friend to look at Townshend Audio from the UK.

Just completed a major upgrade in terms of totally decoupling an almost 300 lb speaker that stands 6 feet 1 inch tall from the room to eliminate the prodigious amounts of energy this speaker can produce from feeding into the floor and subfloor (and crawlspace under house) and ultimately feeding back into the speaker. This delivered a lot more than even the highest expectations I had. I'd researched available options for over a year and even considered going back to the use of Stillpoints Ultras 5's (now v2) or other footers like Magico MPODs (sized for M6 speakers) or the larger IsoAcoustics footers and received a great recommendation from a friend to look at Townshend Audio from the UK.

Townshend Audio custom podium journey…. began this design project back in January after several months last year of investigation into many other excellent products in this space from HiFi-Stays, Magico MPODS, IsoAcoustics and many others.

I decided upon Townshend after quite a few conversations with other “big speaker owners” who had bought and used all other top offerings for high-end footers with the larger speaker models from YG Acoustics, Wilson, Magico and Legacy Whisper XDS and MBL 101e MkII and MBL Extreme owners. They all wound up with Townshend’s podiums as their preferred solution, some after spending many thousands more on competing solutions.

Townshend makes 5 different standard sizes of the platforms for different combinations of size plinth and weight-bearing capacity from 50kg up to 200kg. They can accommodate any speaker over 200kg of any weight through a custom design and going from 4 to 6 load cells.

Due to the unique angled back profile, the size of the Legacy Valor plinth, a 298-pound actual weight of my speakers as-built and the height (6 feet 1") plus their load distribution a custom sized Townshend product was needed. The same is true of the other Wilson, larger Magico, MBL and YG owners I spoke with. The process of collaborating with Townshend was great and they were extremely responsive at all points even allowing me firsthand calls and emails with their lead engineer to arrive at the CAD drawings needed to commission the project. As a result, they now have an option for any Legacy VALOR owner in their design portfolio.

Townshend completed the order after commit in the shortest time possible (about 5-6 weeks) and then shipped them in custom-built real wood crates. They arrived without any issue whatsoever.

The finish quality is heavy duty, beautiful and first class in every way. I am very happy with the end product. This project was measured and designed down to millimeters to facilitate the CAD and laser-cutting processes. When I got them out of the crates, they were exactly to promise and to measure.

Pardon the blue masking tape in the photos...I am still tweaking final speaker position based upon original best-position.

The playback quality of the speakers once installed on them far exceeds any expectations I had, and have markedly improved every single aspect of playback, including bass of course, all the way up through midrange and treble clarity, total imaging, soundstage depth, density, 3D rendering, etc.

It's also an amazing thing to see an almost 300 lb., 6' 1" speaker "float" and when pushed, easily move in 3 dimensions, and quickly absorb the shocks and return to stationary in a matter of seconds. The bigger surprise is to feel absolutely zero vibration and resonance in the floor directly in front of the speaker and yet feel the force of bass, mid-bass, etc... moving air.

Very happy with the results and looking forward to listening to a lot more music to re-explore my speakers!

20220430_140458.jpg 20220430_140343.jpg 20220430_090331.jpg 20220418_195910.jpg
 
Last edited:

Kingrex

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Feb 3, 2019
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Nice work Mark. I wondered about those supports.
 
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rbbert

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Dec 12, 2010
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Reno, NV
Really nice! I suspect that with the decoupling your preferred speaker position will be measurably different from where it was before.
 
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SCAudiophile

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Sep 11, 2010
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Thank you WRP! I'm still experimenting. There will be some variance but it is not looking to be that earth-shattering in terms of distance.
 

SCAudiophile

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Sep 11, 2010
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Thank you Rex! I did too and will not wonder about their effectiveness any longer,...they work beyond promise and the price, in this hobby of crazy prices, is a welcome surprise (about 4K USD).
 

SCAudiophile

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Sep 11, 2010
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Thank you Adimon! If you are ever in the area, let me know in advance and we can arrange a visit!
 

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