Legacy FOCUS SE User manual

Owners Manual For The
FOCUS SE
Loudspeaker System

2
Registration
Owners Record 3
The Cabinetry Our Commitment 4
Setup
Unpacking Your Speakers 5
Speaker Installation 6
Hooking Up Cables 7-8
Amplification 9-11
Foot Installation 12-15
Speaker Connections 16-20
Fine Tuning 21
Technology
Specifications 22
Table of Contents
Page

3
The serial number is located on the rear of the unit. Record this
number in the space provided below. Refer to this when calling your
dealer regarding this product.
Model: FOCUS SE
Serial No: _________________________
Date of purchase: ___________________
Thank you for selecting a Legacy Loudspeaker System. These hand-
crafted instruments will provide you with many years of listening en-
joyment.
Owners Record

4
Handcrafted
Beneath the surface of FOCUS SE’s elegant exterior lies rigid MDF
construction. Interlocking joinery maximizes the strength of the cabinet
parts. Polyester fiberfill is selected for internal damping. A sharp rap on
the enclosure will leave you with little more than bruised knuckles.
Each cabinet is impeccably finished on all exposed surfaces with select
veneers. The exquisite finish is hand-rubbed several times to assure a
patina at home with the most elegant decor.
Our Commitment
A great deal of forethought, love and satisfaction is instilled in each piece
of Legacy workmanship. We take pride in getting to know many of our
customers on a first name basis.
Your purchase of this product is backed by the renowned “Legacy
Satisfaction Guarantee”.
The Cabinetry / Our Commitment

5
Your new speaker system has been very carefully packaged to insure
that it travels to you safely. Each speaker is protected by a double-
wall outer carton with heavy V-board corner protectors. Molded foam
end caps are used to protect the elegant cabinetry, and a plastic liner
is provided as waterproofing. Please save this packing for future
transportation. If cartons become damaged or misplaced, new ones
can be purchased from Legacy Audio.
Unpackin Your Speakers

6
To allow more flexibility in seating arrangements, your Legacy loudspeaker is
designed for broad lateral coverage. Optimal listener position is actually
about 5 to 15 degrees off the axis normal to the loudspeaker baffle. Assum-
ing a listener distance of about ten feet, begin by placing the speakers ap-
proximately 7 feet apart and about 1 – 3 feet from the wall behind them. In
most rooms this will afford a speaker position at least 2 feet or more from
the side walls. The amount of recommended "toe-in" is a function of the lis-
tening angle. As the overall listening angle increases from 40 degrees, the
amount of toe-in should increase. Your Legacy speaker is optimized for a flat
response in the far field. Best results are obtained vertically with the lis-
tener's ear at tweeter level with the loudspeakers gently toed in toward the
listener. Increasing the degree of toe-in is recommended when placement
next to sidewalls is required. Placing the loudspeaker or the listener near a
room boundary will generally increase low frequency impact. If you are
forced to position one or both of your loudspeakers in a corner, be prepared
to reduce bass output via the control switches on the rear terminal plate of
each loudspeaker. You may also wish to reduce low frequency output with
your preamp's bass tone control.
Speaker Placement

7
The ideal conductor would have negligible resistance, inductance
and capacitance. The table below shows how a few actual speaker
cables measure up.
Cable Ωs ft pF ft µH ft
12 ga. 0.0033 24 0.21
14 ga. 0.0048 17 0.13
16 ga. 0.0079 16 0.18
18 ga. 0.0128 28 0.21
Capacitance is considered insignificant in each cable because its ef-
fect is well out of the audio bandwidth; inductance can be de-
creased (at the expense of increased capacitance) by keeping the
conductor pair closely spaced.
How long would a cable have to be before inductance effects would
impinge on the audio spectrum? Approximately 300 feet of 12 gauge
would be required to establish a corner frequency of 20 kHz with an
8 Ohm loudspeaker. As you see, inductance is not a problem for
most of us.
Hookin Up Cables

8
What about phase shift due to frequency dependent travel times down the speaker
cable? Measurements show that 100 Hz waves will be delayed about 20 billionths of a
second behind 10 kHz waves when traveling to the end of a 10 foot speaker cable.
Since the cilia of the ear requires 25,000 times longer than this just to transmit phase
information, phase shifting is obviously not the primary concern when considering
speaker cables.
What about resistance? Finally we are getting somewhere. Resistance is the control-
ling factor of the amplifier loudspeaker interface. Excessive resistance can cause ma-
jor shifts of speaker crossover frequencies. The lower the impedance of the loud-
speaker, the greater the effects of series resistance. A 20 foot run of 18 gauge cable
can cause up to 10% deviations of crossover center frequencies. That same 20 feet
can un-damp your damping factor and reduce your systems’ output by onehalf deci-
bel.
In summary, there are no perfect cables. The best way to approximate the ideal
would be to keep loudspeaker leads as short as is practical.
Hookin Up Cables

9
Ideally the loudspeaker would be among the first components selected when assembling a play-
back system. This would allow the user to choose an amplifier capable of delivering adequate
amounts of current into the frequency dependent load presented by the loudspeaker. However,
when upgrading a system, audiophiles may find themselves matching their new loudspeakers to
their existing amplification. For this reason, extensive measures have been taken to ensure that
each Legacy speaker system represents a smooth, non-reactive load to virtually any amplifier.
Often there is much confusion regarding amplification and loudness levels. It should be under-
stood that the role of the amplifier goes beyond that of driving loudspeakers to a given sound
pressure level. The amplifier should be able to CONTROL the loudspeakers across the entire mu-
sic spectrum. This means that parameters such as damping factor (values greater than 60 are
acceptable) and dynamic headroom should not be overlooked when comparing amplifiers.
Amplification

10
How much power will your new speakers need? That ultimately depends on
your listening environment and musical tastes. As little as five watts per
channel should drive them to a level satisfactory for background music. A
typical 45 watt per channel receiver may fill a room with the compressed
mid-band energy of “heavy metal,” but seem to lack weight or control with
classical recordings. Some audiophiles feel that 200 watts per channel is the
bare minimum to avoid audible clipping distortion when reproducing music
at “live” playback levels. Your Legacy speakers are designed to take advan-
tage of “high-powered” amplifiers, so don’t be afraid to put them through
their paces.
How much is too much power? Rarely is a drive unit damaged by large
doses of music power. More often than not the villain is amplifier clipping
distortion. Even through decades of refinement, loudspeakers are still noto-
riously inefficient transducers, requiring huge amounts of power to recreate
the impact of the live performance. Typically less that 1% of electrical
power is converted into acoustic output. (For example, an omnidirectional
transducer with an anechoic sensitivity of 90 dB @ 1w 1m has a full space
efficiency of only 0.63%)
Amplification

11
When an amplifier is unable to fulfill your loudspeakers demands, a
damaging harmonic spike may be leaked to the high frequency drivers.
Another important point regarding loudness is that the dB scale is a
logarithmic one. This means that a 150 Watt amplifier will potentially sound
only twice as loud as a 15 Watt amplifier. If all of this discussion of power
and loudness seems a bit abstract, consider the example below.
The average acoustical power developed by a person speaking in a
conversational tone corresponds to a mere 0.00001 Watts. The power that
would be developed by the entire population of the city of New York
speaking at once would barely illuminate a single 100 Watt light bulb.
Amplification

12
Step 1-
Carefully place your speakers on their sides
Step 2 -
Locate the cone feet set. It will be inside the foam pieces
that held the speaker in the box.
Foot Installation

13
Step 3-
Place the insert adapter into the rubber cone.
Step 4 -
Thread the cone insert into the cabinet.
Foot Installation

14
Step 5-
Tighten the cone insert. If you do not want the spikes, you
may stop here.
Step 6 -
Place the leveling washer onto the cone.
Foot Installation

15
Step 7-
Install the washer and cone onto the speaker. Adjust the
cone until your speaker is level.
Foot Installation

16
The Terminal Plate
At the rear of each of your loudspeakers you will find a terminal plate
housing two rows of jumpered binding posts. The upper row is the input to
the "satellite" portion of the speaker. The lower row is the input to the
"subwoofer" portion of the speaker. When left in place, the factory installed
jumper bars allow the speaker to be driven with a single channel
of amplification. (If biamping, or biwiring, be sure to remove the jumper
bars.)
Connect each channel of your amplifier to a loudspeaker via the five-way
gold binding posts provided. Dual banana plugs or gold plated spade lugs
are recommended means of termination. Be sure that you observe polarity
when making the connections. The positive (+) terminal of the amplifier
should be connected to the positive terminal of the loudspeaker. The
negative (-) terminal of the amplifier should be connected to the negative
terminal of the loudspeaker.
Speaker Connections

17
Biwirin
Biwiring allows one to minimize the cable losses between the amplifier and the loud-
speaker. This is accomplished with a single stereo amplifier by running separate sets
of cables to the satellite section and the subwoofer section from the same channel of
amplification. When biwiring, we recommend the use of gold spade lugs or dual ba-
nana plugs. This can make the task much easier and safer than bare wire connec-
tions. Again, the major reasons for biwiring over conventional wiring are greater
power transfer (improved efficiency) and tighter control over the drivers (better
damping).
Passive Biampin
This option can yield even better results than biwiring due to broader distribution of
power requirements. Passive biamplification allows low frequency current to be
routed to a separate channel of amplification, reducing strain on the satellite ampli-
fier and preventing subwoofer back-EMF from modulating with the upper frequencies.
There are two types of passive biamplification; Vertical biamping (which requires two
identical stereo amplifiers or four MonoBlocs) and Horizontal biamping (which does
not require identical amplifiers).
Speaker Connections

18
1. Vertical Biampin
Vertical biamplification requires the dedication of a single stereo amplifier for the left
speaker, and another stereo amplifier for the right speaker. This configuration im-
proves channel separation and can improve imaging slightly. If your preamp does not
have two sets of left right outputs, you will need a pair of Y-adapters or a signal split-
ter, such as a dual amp balancer, which will also allow adjustment of subwoofer
satellite input levels.
2. Horizontal Biampin
Any two stereo amplifiers may be utilized in horizontal biamplification. Many audio-
philes prefer the "sweetness" of tubes on the satellite portion of the loudspeaker
while favoring the "control and weight" of solid state amplifiers on the subwoofer
section. The biggest drawback of such a marriage of amplification is that the two am-
plifiers may have different input sensitivities or output polarities. Differences in the
input sensitivities may be overcome by using a dual amp balancer. This unit allows in-
dependent balancing of the left subwoofer satellite ratio and right subwoofer satellite
ratio. It's also a good idea to check the owner's manuals to establish if the amplifiers
are inverting or non-inverting. If the two amplifiers are of opposite polarity, then you
should reverse the polarity at the inputs of
Speaker Connections

19
either the subwoofer or satellite binding posts. NOTE: This only applies to loudspeak-
ers that incorporate the subwoofer and satellite section in a single enclosure. It does
not apply towards the separate powered subwoofer satellite configuration. You must
always observe the polarity when connecting the speaker wire to a powered sub-
woofer.
Active Biampin
This option requires the utilization of an electronic (powered) external crossover. Ac-
tive biamplification is the most appealing means of interfacing a subwoofer satellite
system due to the control possibilities offered, but can also be the most costly. An ac-
tive crossover is inserted between the preamplifier outputs and the inputs of two ste-
reo amplifiers. Vertical or horizontal biamping considerations are also applicable
here. A well designed active crossover will offer the user independent high pass
low pass turnover frequencies for optimally blending the satellites with the subwoofer
sections of the speaker system. Other features usually found are separate level con-
trols for the high pass or low pass sections and a choice of inverted or non-inverted
low frequency outputs (needed when strapping an amplifier to mono).
Speaker Connections

20
Also helpful is bass equalization and subsonic filtering. When cascading active filters
with the existing passive filters within the speaker system, be sure to allow for ade-
quate frequency overlap. For instance, if the passive crossover is set at 500 Hz, select
a low pass corner frequency of 600 Hz and a high pass corner frequency of 450 Hz to
prevent a suck out in the response at 500 Hz. The controlled distribution of power af-
forded by the active crossover results in less amplifier strain (better clarity), greater
dynamics, and lower intermodulation distortion. However, a basic understanding of
crossover slopes and crossover frequencies within your loudspeaker will be needed to
implement the active crossover successfully.
Speaker Connections