Legacy Audio was established in 1983 by Bill Dudleston. According to their website, Bill Dudleston has designed and provided Legacy speaker monitors for Arista, Sony, Universal Music Group and archival organizations such as the Stradivari Violin Society. Multi-Grammy award-winning producers Rick Rubin, Antonio “L.A.” Reid, and renowned mastering engineer, Herb Powers, have utilized and publicly touted the Legacy designs as assisting in producing artists Sheryl Crowe, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mariah Carey, and Usher. Re-mastering engineer Steve Hoffman has utilized the Legacy speakers on re-issues of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and Nat King Cole.
That’s quite a pedigree, and obviously Legacy is more than just a high-end speaker company. They also have a full line of professional speakers, home theater speakers and audiophile speakers. If you go to audio shows, you will know that Legacy always has a really big room with several systems in their room. It is also generally very crowded and loud, which makes it hard for me to get a real grasp on what their speakers sound like.
At the last couple of show, I noticed an incredibly beautiful “not so mini-monitor.” I requested a pair for review, and in a few weeks a single big box strapped to a small pallet showed up. It is always encouraging to see a company that takes shipping as seriously as they do design and sales. I mean, what makes for a worse start to a user experience than to be looking forward to getting audio equipment you have purchased and then to have it arrive wrecked in sipping.
Description
My review pair was finished in what they call Cabernet and Black. Simply put, they were as beautifully finished a pair of speakers as I have seen at any price.
On the Legacy website, they describe the Calibre as a very high-density package, weighing in at 50 lbs. each. This mass is owing to the enormous driver motors and a 1.75″ thick front baffle. Two 8″ mass loaded acoustic radiators are mounted on opposing sides to eliminate port noise and cancel resonance.
The Calibre is a three-way speaker that uses three drivers and two mass loaded acoustic radiators in a box that is only 16.25 inches tall, 10 inches wide and 15.25 deep. So yes, they are certainly a high-density package. The frequencies above 2.5kHz are played by a 4 inch AMT tweeter, and the frequencies below 2.5Khz all the way down to 200Hz are played by a single 7.5″ accordion edge midrange driver with an eight-pound magnetic structure. The bass below 200Hz comes from an 8 inch extended throw driver. Their impedance is 4 ohms and they are 90.5 dB efficient.
Review System – Part One
I plan to review these speakers in two parts as they are a lot to cover in one review. For part one of the review, I used them in my digital/video system, which is how I suspect many of you would use these speakers. In part two I will move them downstairs and listen to them in my reference system. Any speaker that is small enough I start in the upstairs system for break-in purposes. but the Calibre sounds so good in this system that they haven’t made it downstairs yet.
My digital/video system consists of an Electrocompaniet PI 2D Prelude Integrated Amplifier at 100 watts per channel and has two built-in DACs. The sources in this system are an OPPO UD205, a DirectTV Genie and a computer connected to the USB DAC in the Electrocompaniet. All of the cabling was from Audience, most of it is Au24SX.
Listening to Movies and Video Concerts
These speakers are the most fun of any speakers I have ever had in my digital system. They are the second pair of speakers I have review this year that has a version of a ribbon tweeter in them, and I have really liked how they sound in this room and system. In my review of the NEAT Iota Alpha speakers I said, “If you have never heard a speaker that uses EMT planar-magnetic tweeters, you are in for a real surprise . . . The treble information and midrange sound sweet, smooth, airy and spacious. They are magical when it comes to space; the sound literally floats above, behind and to the outside of the speakers. Their placement of instruments and voices is more lifelike than for most speakers in that they are all part of the whole that floats above the speakers.” The AMT ribbon of the Calibre speakers isn’t quite as airy at the EMT tweeter, but still, it does everything else in that quote in spades.
I let them just play 24/7 for about 10 days, and then I decided to watch the movie Across the Universe. I really like this movie of Beatles’ music and have watched it many times. I didn’t have the sub I use in this system for movies connected, but with The Calibre speakers in this system were by far and away the best I had ever heard this movie sound. The soundstage was huge, the dialog was clear, the bass was incredible and the music put a big smile on my face.
The next night I listened to the DVD of The Kennedy Center Honors: Paul McCartney with Oprah, Merle Haggard, and Jerry Herman. This was even more impressive. I was moved to wanting to clap and cheer. When it was over, I wanted to tell anyone I could get what a great concert it was and they should buy the DVD. I don’t care what you want to say about sonic attributes of audio, this kind of excitement is what I feel music is all about.
Next, I listened to the Les Misérables in Concert: The 25th Anniversary on Blu-Ray. If you like Les Mis and don’t have this Blu-Ray, buy it. This is an incredible performance/concert. At the end, they bring on stage many of the different actors who have played Jean Valjean, and they join together to sing. Well, it was incredible. The Calibre speakers brought this performance to life in a way I had not experience at home before.
I could go on and on with videos I have enjoyed playing over the Calibre speakers, but I’ll just mention one more; the Austin City Limits’ Florence and the Machine concert. Her voice was clear and extended. The audience sounded huge as they sang the choir part of “Shake It Out.”
The keyboards and the drums sounded so wonderful, and the enthusiasm of the crow came through in a way that made me want to sing along as well. These speakers make music on videos come to life and move me like I had been to the performance; what more could I ask for. I think it is safe to say I have never enjoyed music on video like I did with the Calibre speakers, but now it was time to try them out in my analog system.
Listening to Just Music
So, now it was time to turn off the television and just listen to music. The first CD I played was Rob Wasserman’s Duets. I started with his duet with Jennifer Warnes of Leonard Cohen’s “Ballard of the Runaway Horse“. Warnes’ voice sounded near perfection considering it was being played from a Redbook CD. it was soft, full of emotion and placed well with real air around her and from her breath as she sang. You could hear Wasserman play his bass with such touch and feel. The bass had real decay and sounded very alive. When he plucked the bass, it sounded so natural and whimsical. I listened to the entire CD, and let me say, I was very impressed. These speakers have a way of letting you feel the music.
When listening to Cheryl Bentyne and Rob Wasserman on “Angel Eyes,” Bentyne’s voice went from very soft to very loud without a hint of edginess or hardness. Wasserman’s bass was just a tad fat, but I expect that has more to do with the placement of the speakers in my video/digital system than with the Calibres. This is a cut that I always listen to at shows and when setting up my reference system. I can tell you it isn’t a cut that most systems can get right and overall this was the best I have heard it in my digital system.
In this system, the Calibre also produced a nicely coherent midrange. They are very transparent with the ability to resolve small amounts of information and keep them separated from each other and at the same time produce incredible dynamics. These aren’t speakers that are about ease and grace. They’re about power and dynamics and huge scale. The Calibres are not little speakers that float a wonderful soundstage and sound very police. They sound much more like a big pair of high-efficiency floor-standing speakers.
Conclusion
I’m not going to get too critical about how these speakers sound on just music in this system, which is really only set up for video and occasionally for music in the living room, dining room, or kitchen at my house. Part 2 of my review will cover how they perform in my primary analog system, which will be a real test for listening to music. I’ll just conclude this post by saying so far I’m more than impressed!
Specification
System Type: 3 driver, 3 way
Low-Frequency Alignment: 6th order mass loaded radiator
Impedance: 4 Ohms
Sensitivity: 90.5 dB
Dimensions (H x W x D, inches): 16.25 X 10 X 15.25
Cabinet Weight: 50 lbs each
Shipping Weight: 56 pounds each
Price: $5,500
Cool Blog Dude, Man home theater speakers are awesome, makes you feel like you are in the movie.