One look at the Legacy Audio Whisper with its grille off and it's easy to see that Legacy's Bill Dudleston is one of the more seriously experimental designers of loudspeakers. Thankfully, his philosophy is based in well-…
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More than any other component, it is the loudspeaker that seems to invite the most audacious—some would say flat-out lunatic—efforts at design. There have been attempts at full-range plasma speakers, speakers one had to hook up to tanks of pressurized gas, speakers with drivers attached to what looked like copper salad bowls (the infamous Tri-Torr of the early 1990s).
One could reasonably expect that four 15" woofers per side will move a lot of air, and the Whisper's are capable of doing so. But the system's design produces a very different sort of bass. When dialed in correctly, which in my room meant setting the Step One's single control somewhere between 12:00 and 1:30, depending on the type of music—a bit higher for big rock, lower for acoustic music—the Whisper produced bass that had the sheer speed and taut definition that characterize the best panel speakers. (I've had plenty of time to assess the nature of planar bass: I've owned Magnepans and…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Four-way, bi-ampable, floorstanding loudspeaker with ten drive-units and external bass processor. Drive-units: 4" ribbon tweeter, 1.25" fabric-dome midrange, four 7" double-layered Kevlar Hexacone midrange units, four 15" carbon-fiber/pulp composite-cone woofers. Crossover frequencies: 300Hz, 3kHz, 10kHz. Low-frequency alignment: sixth-order differential. Frequency response: 22Hz–30kHz, ±2dB. Sensitivity: 95dB/2.83V/m. Impedance: 4 ohms. Recommended amplification: 10–600W.
Dimensions: 63" (1615mm) H by 17" (435mm) W by 13" (333mm) D. Base: 24" (…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Source: SOTA Cosmos Series III turntable, Graham 2.2 tonearm, Dynavector XV-1S cartridge.
Digital Sources: Classé Omega SACD/CD player, Simaudio Moon Orbiter universal player, Plinius CD-101 CD player.
Preamplification: Manley Labs Steelhead phono stage; VTL TL-7.5 Reference, Audio Research Reference 3 line stages.
Power Amplifiers: Lamm Industries M1.2 Reference, Chord SP14000 monoblocks; Plinius SA-Reference.
Loudspeakers: Wilson Audio Specialties MAXX 2.
Cables: Phono: Hovland Music Groove 2. Interconnect: Cardas Golden Reference,…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
Because of the Legacy Whisper's bulk and mass, I decided to measure the speakers in situ in Paul Bolin's Minnesota listening room rather than have them shipped to my Brooklyn home. It wasn't possible, therefore, to do as complete a set of measurements as I usually perform.
The Whisper is specified as having a very high voltage sensitivity of 95dB/2.83V/m. It appeared to be just over 2dB more sensitive than the 90dB-sensitive Wilson MAXX 2, which PB was also auditioning during my visit (both figures B-weighted). However, the Legacy's impedance plot (fig.1)…
When I went to my shelf of Stereophile back issues to find Paul Bolin's seminal review of the Halcro dm58, I was shocked to find myself leafing further and further back—through not only 2004 but 2003 as well, all the way back to October 2002 (Vol.25 No.10). It doesn't seem possible that it's been almost four years since Halcro exploded onto our radar screens, the dm58 emblazoned on that issue's cover alongside the banner headline "THE BEST AMPLIFIER EVER!"
Trish might chalk it up to my own advancing age having compressed the passage of time, but I don't think so. I know that…
I don't know about you, but in a world in which superlatives are cheap and revolutionary technologies are touted daily, I find Candy's understated honesty kind of humbling.
Unplug the dm58s, plug in the dm88s
The system I surrounded the Halcro dm58s and dm88 References with consisted of my VPI HR-X turntable with Lyra Titan cartridge, the EMM SACD stack for digital, Wilson Audio Specialties Sophia loudspeakers, and Halcro's own dm10 full-function preamplifier or Sutherland's PhD phono stage with VTL's TL-7.5 line stage. The cabling varied a bit, but most of the time was Shunyata…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Solid-state monoblock power amplifier with active power-factor correction. Inputs: 1 pair balanced (XLR) Voltage Mode; 3 pairs unbalanced (RCA): Voltage Mode, Current Mode, Minimal Path. Outputs: 2 pairs speaker binding posts. Output power: >270W into 8 ohms, >500W into 4 ohms. Distortion: <–126dB (<500 parts/billion) up to 20kHz at full power output, all harmonic-distortion orders. THD: <–140dB (<100ppb) at 1kHz. Intermodulation products: all <–126dB relative to power output for sum of 19+20kHz tones, each delivering 100W into…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Source: VPI HR-X turntable-tonearm, Lyra Titan cartridge.
Digital Sources: EMM CDSD/DCC2 SACD system, Simaudio Andromeda CD player.
Preamplification: Sutherland PhD phono stage; Placette Active, Sutherland Director, VTL TL-7.5 line stages; Halcro dm10 preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Halcro dm58, Mark Levinson No.20.6, Simaudio Moon Rock, VTL Ichiban monoblocks, VTL S-400.
Loudspeakers: Thiel CS6, Wilson Audio Sophia.
Cables: Interconnect & Speaker: Nirvana SX-Ltd., Nordost Valhalla, Shunyata Research. AC: Shunyata Research.
…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I preconditioned one of the Halcro dm88 monoblocks (serial no. 00136) by running it for 60 minutes at one-third the specified power into 8 ohms. With the amplifier cold, the measured THD+noise was just 0.00093%! The figure was the same at the end of the hour; while the left-hand side panel was gently warm, the right-hand panel was still cool. It wasn't possible to measure the dm88's Current Mode input; I performed complete sets of measurements via the dm88's balanced and unbalanced Voltage Mode inputs, as well as via its unbalanced Minimal Path jack.
The…