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I've owned the Heritage Special for about 3 years, and if it weren't for the fact that I recently purchased the Confidence 60 I'd be all over the Contour Legacy. The Contour 20 active looks like an audiophile version of their pro monitors, the 20 Black seems like a beefier Heritage Special (not a bad thing at all).
Since KM didn't say anything about the Confidence 50's sound, I'll give y'all a taste based on my 60's. I expect the main difference is in the bass, where the 50's actually ~5.5" cones can't keep up with the 60's actually ~7" cones (and mo' volume in its' enclosure). Can we all start following Lawrence Dickie's driver size system at Vivid? Pretty please?
From the low mids up they're the most revealing speakers I've ever heard - I've tried 6 different amps with the 60's, and all sounded different. Moon 761 (HARD treble, nope) and 400M (dark and a bit murkey, nope), McIntosh 452 (sounds like rock 'n roll, a little rolled off highs and a mid-bass bump w/ some bass overhang... so the Mac sound), Bryston 4B^3 (very clean, "pinched" treble, will play very loud without strain), Gryphon Essence stereo (amazeballs imaging, smoove AF, wobbly bass), and the Parasound A23+ (best bass of the bunch by a mile, treble sounded like golden fluffy cotton - needs cleanin' up). Haven't tried my Pass XA30.8, but it will probably be a bit like the Gryphon but less smoove (MOSFET vs BJT output transistors). If you don't believe amps sound different, listen to the Confidence 50 or 60 with different amps and be astonished how different they sound. I suspect the JC1+ is the answer (or really, the Gryphon Apex but... $100k, gulp).
3 songs into my first listen after they got to the dealer and we set them up (where they are still, house remodel has a month+ to go), I turn to the salesman and say, "the DAC uses a brickwall filter, doesn't it?" - Moon 791, and it does in fact use a brick wall filter (min phase) which you can hear down around 1kHz as a hardness in the sound on 44.1Khz sample rate material. With the Essence, the imaging is wall to wall and from a foot or two in front of the speakers to way behind. And occasionally around. I've actually heard a couple things behind me! They do NOT sound like the Confidence 30, the 60 is twice as good at about twice the price.
You will need a better amp for the 50's than the 60's due to their impedence drop in the bass but high current is rewarded regardless. The Dyn's love lotsa current. Oh, and these are very much *not* nearfield speakers. You must sit back 9 or 10 feet to get the full beam forming effect and driver integration. They legit have less room interaction than other speakers - a low mid mode in my dealer's room is inaudible with the Confidence 60, but it's there with the 30's and all the other speakers I've heard there. They won't work in a small room, but the 50's need less space than the 60's.
They have an uncanny ability to pull apart a multitrack mix. If you have mixing experience, it's easy to figure out how the sound of a given song was achieved. I won't be surprised if the Confidence 60 starts popping up in mastering rooms in place of the Evidence Master and other high end consumer speakers. They are transparent AF to everything that comes before them in the signal chain.
I'd also like to give a shoutout to the dealer, Origin Hi-Fi in Austin, for being so cool about holding my ~150 lbs each speakers for a few months while I finish my house; and keeping them set up so I (or you if you're in Austin) can come in and listen to them pretty much any time they're open. You don't get that kind of service from interweb dealers. They also provided 4/6 amps that I tried so far. The Bryston and Parasound are mine, and I was surprised I liked the Mac more than the Bryston... or at all lol, but the 452 is a genuinely good sounding amp.
