Legacy FOCUS XD User manual

Owners Manual For The
Loudspeaker System
FOCUS XD
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Table of Contents
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Introduction & Background 17-18
Rear Panel 19
Configurations
Technology
Continuing the Pursuit of Perfection 28-29
Registration
Owners Record 3
The Cabinetry Our Commitment 4
Warranty 5
Setup
Unpacking Your Speakers 6
Speaker Installation 7
Hooking Up Cables 8-9
Amplification 10-12
Foot Installation 13-16
Focus XD
Full Range Powered 20
Bi-Amp with Internal Passive Crossover 21
Bi-Amp with Wavelet 22-23
Bi-Amp with Wavelaunch 24-25
Specifications 30
Additional Notes for Focus SE Users 26
Additional Q&A 27

Owners Record
Model: FOCUS XD
Serial No: _________________________
Date of purchase: ___________________
Thank you for selecting a Legacy Loudspeaker System.
These handcrafted instruments will provide you with many years of
listening enjoyment.
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.
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Register your product at legacyaudio.com/register
Share your Legacy speakers with the Legacy community. Post your
Legacy experience and system photos at facebook.com/LegacyAudio
Like the page to continue receiving the latest Legacy announcements.

The Cabinetry / Our Commitment
Handcrafted
Beneath the surface of FOCUS XD’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”.
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Legacy Audio supports its customers and products with pride. We cheerfully warrant our loud-
speaker products we manufacture from defects in materials and workmanship for a period of seven
(7) years. Electronic components such as internal amplifiers and digital processors are covered for
three (3)years. Please register your product with Legacy Audio. Should you require service Legacy
will require a proof of purchase in order to honor the warranty - so please keep your receipt.
• The warranty applies to the original owner and is not transferable.
• The warranty applies to products purchased from an “Authorized Legacy Dealer”.
• The warranty on active components such as digital processors or internal amplifiers is limited to three
(3) years of coverage.
• The warranty on dealer stock will extend for a maximum of two years from invoice.
The warranty does not cover transportation costs of product to or from the customer, distributor or
dealer, or related shipping damage.
Exclusions from Warranty
The following situations or conditions are not covered by the Legacy Audio warranty:
• Accidental damage, electrical abuse or associated equipment failure.
• Use inconsistent with recommended operating instructions and specifications
• Damage caused by modification or unauthorized service
• Costs associated with the removal and reinstallation of defective products. Consequential damage to
other products.
• Normal wear such as fading of finishes due to sunlight.
Warranty
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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.
Un acking Your S eakers
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S eaker Placement
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. Assuming a
listener distance of about ten feet, begin by placing the speakers approximately
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 listening 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 listener'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.
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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.
Hooking U Cables
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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.
Hooking U Cables
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Am lification
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.
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Am lification
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 than 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%)
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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.
Am lification
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.
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Ste 1-
Carefully place your speakers on their sides
Ste 2 -
Locate the cone feet set. It will be inside the foam pieces
that held the speaker in the box.
Foot Installation
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Ste 3-
Place the insert adapter into the rubber cone.
Ste 4 -
Thread the cone insert into the cabinet.
Foot Installation
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Ste 5-
Tighten the cone insert. If you do not want the spikes, you
may stop here.
Ste 6 -
Place the leveling washer onto the cone.
Foot Installation
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Ste 7-
Install the washer and cone onto the speaker. Adjust the
cone until your speaker is level.
Foot Installation
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Focus XD Enhances Versatility Adding 750 Watts of Internal Power
• Use this internal ICEpower amp with its 30 amp peak current capability to drive the
entire speaker full range via the passive internal crossover. Merely a source and a
preamplifier are required to drive FOCUS XD to breathtaking levels. This is a common
configuration for studios and those with DAC/Preamps.
• Allocate the internal amp’s 750 watts entirely to the bass section to power the lower
12” woofers of Focus XD, while driving the upper section with your external amplifier. This
method of passive bi-amplification minimizes current demands from the upper range
amplifier and reduces the presence of back EMF from the woofers. Your amplifier will work
less hard and the speaker will sound more effortless.
• Utilize an external crossover such as the Legacy Wavelet or Wavelaunch processors.
Link the woofers directly to the internal amp, eliminating the passive crossover from the path.
This improves coupling with the woofers and increases drive efficiency by nearly 30%. Both
the Wavelet and Wavelaunch processors are presently available with customized settings for
the FOCUS XD.
The renowned Legacy FOCUS is now available in both the award winning SE version and the
powered XD version. Be careful to understand the FOCUS XD is not a replacement for the
FOCUS SE, but a more versatile internally amplified version of the same, facilitating both
passive and active bi-amplification. The fully passive FOCUS SE will continue to hold its position
in the Legacy line-up.
The new FOCUS XD version includes a high quality internal 750 watts amplifier which provides some
unique performance options:
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Background
Nearly a quarter century of continuous refinement has brought the Legacy FOCUS to its
present level of precision and performance. Audiophiles, studio professionals and home
theater integrators recognize the FOCUS SE as the go-to reference of full rangespeakers. It
earned this reputation by going deeper and cleaner with greater dynamics than speakers at
more than twice the cost.
The FOCUS SE Legacy re-introduced AMT ribbon tweeters to the industry with a whole
new efficiency level. The increased volume velocity of the pleated diaphragms was
achieved with high efficiency magnetic structures and high temperature Kapton
diaphragms. The Dual AMTs provide more uniform dispersion while cast frame
silver/graphite woven 7” midranges offer exceedingly low mass with the high efficiencyover
the widest bandwidth, owing collectively to a stiffer, long throw suspension, a superior
motor structure and a custom phase plug. Patented Aura encapsulated motors on the dual
subwoofers allow FOCUS to reach deeper with lower distortion and greater output. Each
inductor is hand wound to a precise value. The capacitors used are some of the finest
available from Clarity in Great Britain. The Silver HF is supplied by Kimber. The crossover
is designed, and fine-tuned by our chief engineer, Bill Dudleston. Each pair is carefully
matched under his personal supervision.
With the addition of the 750 watts of internal power, users can take full advantage of
bi-amplification benefits: lower harmonic distortion, reduced back EMF (better damping), greater
dynamic range and reduced intermodulation.
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Focus XD Rear Panel
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Connections:
Before configuring the FOCUS XD and
making cable connections, be sure both
the internal amplifiers and any external
amplifiers are powered completely off.
Disconnect from AC outlet if uncertain.

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Configuration: Full Range Powered
The internal amplifier will power the entire loudspeaker.
1. Set the top rocker switch of FOCUS XD in the 2 position (downward).
2. Set the bottom rocker switch of each FOCUS XD in the 3 position (upward).
3. Connect the female end (with 3 holes) of a balanced XLR cable to your Preamplifier’s LEFT
channel balanced output. Be sure it is pressed in fully
4. Connect the male end (with 3 pins) on the same cable to the BALANCED INPUT receptacle on
the rear panel of the Left FOCUS XD rear panel.
5. Connect the female end of a balanced XLR cable to your Preamplifier’s RIGHT channel balanced
output.
6. Connect the male end of the same cable to the BALANCED INPUT receptacle on the rear panel of the
RIGHT FOCUS XD rear panel.
7. Turn on your preamplifier, leaving it in a mute mode, or without source playing.
8. Connect the provided power cord into rear AC receptacle of both FOCUS XD,
9. Connect the other end of the power cords into a household AC receptacle (100-240 VAC, 50-60Hz) or
power center.
10. Flip the rectangular rocker switch on the rear AC socket downward to turn-on power to each speaker,
thus illuminating the blue LED in the top corner of the panel.
11. Activate the music source taking your preamp out of mute mode, raising the volume slowly to verify all
connections..