Legacy Audio's Signature SE

The other day I had a chance to visit a friend and listen to his Legacy Signature SE floor standing speakers. I would not call this a review, but just sharing a bit of my experience. These particular speakers have some factory upgraded crossovers using Clarity capacitors. Having heard other Legacy speakers from the recent lines, I knew these would not disappoint. The top end driver configuration is similar to the Signature SE's big brother, The Focus SE (which a pair just happen to be in the same room) utilizing a pair of folded ribbon tweeters. A single 7" silver graphite driver for the midrange and the bottom end driven by a pair of sealed 10" drivers. These were setup as full range in a home theater configuration with 3 across the front and a pair of Legacy Phantom surrounds. A couple M&K subwoofers were also in the system, but they were turned down quite a bit. Simply level balanced with no EQ being used at all, these speakers sounded well balanced. I attribute this to the way these speakers are "voiced" from the factory. Bill Dudleston, President of Legacy, puts a lot of effort in tuning the speakers for typical room environments, so natively out of the box they can already sound good. Some minimal use of EQ should dial in the frequency response to perfection. Of particular note is the smoothness of the vocal range. Just like their big brother, they convey an effortless reproduction of vocals. Legacy has made me a fan of ribbon tweeters, which is where I suspect some of this smoothness formula comes from. The high end was perhaps a touch hot but only noticeable on a couple of recordings we heard. The bass range was well defined and tight but didn't have the same depth as the Focus SE. Any home theater system will utilize a separate subwoofer, so deep bass is a non-issue here. We rolled through a variety of SACDs and Bluray discs during the late evening. It was a pleasure to listen to about anything. I'm sure on my next visit these will be further dialed in using an Audyssey EQ system. I can't wait for that! If anyone in the South Central Pennsylvania area would like to learn more about Legacy speakers, drop me an email and I can point you in the right direction.