Built for the love of music.....

[MatthewB]

Just joined this site. I had a pair of Legacy Audio Valors installed last month and am now in the process of trying to get the best out of them.

The install came with a new firmware release. I must admit that I did not like it compared to the firmware I heard back in September at the factory. I communicated this to Bill, who forwarded my message to Bernt. It looks like they will have a new release in a couple of months time which will support both Omnio modes. The new mode feels to have more weight, but the old firmware has more space, and I much prefer the space aspect. In the mean time, they sent me another Wavelet 2, but with the old firmware.

I have been doing a fair amount of research online for ideas to try, but it is not easy to find, given that there are only 30 Valor owners in the world. I found a suggestion regarding adding coasters under the rear feet to tilt the speaker forward so that the concentric driver points more directly at the listening (in the vertical plane). I must admit that I liked the result of doing this.

I have seen posts talking about replacing the switched mode power supply with the HDPlex Linear Power Supply. It seems that they are out of stock. I am therefore going to see if the Plixir Elite BDC would work. However, it is unclear to me what umbilical. Does anyone know what the pin configuration needs to be? This PSU can be configured with 2, 4, and 6 AMP configurations. Does anyone know what current would be enough? What changes have people noticed to the sound quality when switching the factory PSU with a Linear PSU? Right now, I have the factory PSU plugged into a PS Audio Power Regenerator.

I am using a Lumin U1 streamer, and am currently trying out different USB cables. I tried the Shunyata Omega cables. Very detailed, but I think I got listening fatigue. Will be trying out the Purist Audio Design 30th Anniversary USB (which arrives tomorrow). It's supposed to be much darker. Any suggestions for other USB cables to try out?

Thanks.

[Masterlu]

MatthewB… Welcome to AA!

[Rick U]

Matthew congratulations on the new Valor’s. I have a wavelet 2 on order for my Aeris so I’ll be following your thoughts. I can’t comment on the new vs old firmware but I have a question about changing the angle? Did you run the setup sweeps after changing the angle?

[SCAudiophile]

Hello Matthew, welcome to AA and congratulations on your new pair of Valor!
I've had mine since June 2020.

I love the new Wavelet 2's musicality and tonality, yet the SUT (Omnio) mode did change and I prefer a blend of v1 and v2 Omnio taking the strong points of each. I have given detailed feedback as well.

If you search for Wavelet here on AA, you will find all the answers to the questions you've posed or nearly so...

"FYI...found an email from 2015 when I was first shopping around with Swagman Labs, Uptone, Pardo, HDPlex and others for someone willing to build a suitable power supply. This quote is from Bill at Legacy:

'The universal power supply unit we provide with Wavelet is rated 12 VDC, 5.0Amp, 65 watts'

If you are looking for a regulated power supply in external chassis, the Wavelet requires 12-13.8 Volts DC, the 13.x V number being boundary testing, 60 watts minimum."

[SCAudiophile]

More detail:

The DC umbilical from an LPSU needs to take your LPSU's output pin spec and plug type into consideration however the input to Wavelet is always 5-pin XLR known as XLR5.

For an HDPLEX 300W LPSU which I highly recommend and personally use:

(Source Output) HDPlex LPSU Out: XLR3 3pin XLR FEMALE plug on cable, pin-2 is +VDC, pin-1 is GND, pin-3 is unused

(Destination Input): Legacy Audio Wavelet In: XLR5 5-pin XLR FEMALE plug on cable, pin-5 is +VDC, pin-3 is GND, other pins (1,2,4) are unused

So we have Pin-2 on XLR3 FEMALE at source going to Pin-5 on XLR5 FEMALE at destination for +VDC, Pin-1 on XLR3 source going to Pin-3 on XLR5 for GND

*Know your LPSU and what connector it uses and ask the manufacturer the pin-out mapping so that you can determine a source LPSU -> Wavelet cable spec like the one above.

In the case of my setup, I have two different DC umbilicals for historical reasons, both of extreme quality:

- Revelation Audio Labs DC CryoSilver Reference Umbilical

- Ghent Audio: “Custom DC-7N16C Neotech UPOCC 7N Copper G DC(JSSG360) Cable Length: 3m, XLR female(3pin XLR3) to XLR female(5pin, XLR5)

Hope this helps.

My advice is LPSU straight to the wall and use an Shunyata Omega QR-s, OR using a Shunyata Alpha NR v2 or Sigma NR v2 either straight to the wall or into something like a Shunyata Triton v3 or Denali 6000 v2 or Everest.

Any other high quality power cord or conditioner can also be used.

HDPLEX frequently go out and then back into stock as they are one of the best and most popular out there...

[SCAudiophile]

As soon as you can, get an LPSU in there that supplies the necessary volts and amps and put the "wall wart" that comes with Wavelet back in the box. The sonic result is worth the extra expense of upgrading to an LPSU and better umbilical.

I've had 3 Legacy setups that used Wavelet going back years; with each one I have ordered an HDPLEX LPSU and umbilical. The result is always the same; the wall wart is sonically "not good" and I'm being kind.

[MatthewB]

Hi Rick U,

When I got my Aeris with Wavelet 1 several years ago, I didn't dare touch the calibration in case I broke something (after it was installed). I did play around with the toe-in to find what I liked the best. I used the Letter track of the Wanderer album by Yosi Horikawa, where I would try to have a constant speed motion of the pencil on paper moving left to right in the sound stage. I found that my preference for toe-in for the Aeris was less than for the Valor. I also moved the Valors out to 10 feet apart, versus the Aeris that was 9 feet apart. My Aeris was configured to be fully active with 3 pairs of XLR cables from the Wavelet.

When Legacy Audio sent me the second Wavelet 2 (with old firmware), I knew that I would have to go through the calibration process, so read the manual. Given that the process is so easy (position the microphone, press the capture button, do the same for the right speaker, upload to server), I pretty much re-calibrate every time I moved the speaker or change the toe-in angle.

[MatthewB]

Hi SCAudiophile,

Thank you for your responses. I did a search and found your answers, then noticed that you reposted them back here. I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised to discover that only 2 of the pins are actually used. That makes things much simpler. Having clear current requirements certainly helps. These power supplies seem so cheap compare to other things, that it seems like a no-brainer to upgrade.

My Valors are currently set up as full internal active, with a switch to allow me to connect an external power amp for the treble section. I may try out a valve amp down the road. The use case that I gave to Brice at Legacy Audio was that since I use my system at least 6 hours a day (with a large part spent on Netflix) and tube amps getting hot, my idea was to stay in full active, until I wanted to specifically listen to music. I would then flip the switches (output from Wavelet, power amp switch, input to Valor). Brice mentioned that I would not need to redo the room correction calibration, assuming the power amp gains remain roughly the same. Have you tried out a tube amp for the treble section?

[MatthewB]

Rick and SCAudiophile,

I should probably clarify my statement regarding old and new firmware. The firmware update was made after September, when I heard the demo. Both these firmware versions were specific to the Wavelet 2. They apply different SUT processing, so would not be applicable to the Aeris.

SCAudiophile - While I did see posts comparing Wavelet 1 and Wavelet 2, I did not see any posts which compared the 2 versions of SUT for the Wavelet 2.

I will say that both firmware versions did not sound like what I heard at the factory. I think that they may have been experimenting with the setup at the time. While I was listening to it, Bill kept on trying to adjust the settings, and finally gave up when things didn't change. He probably felt that something was really off and wanted to correct it. At the factory, I noticed that when I moved my head to the right of the sofa, the sound changed dramatically to a loud hiss. I do not get this at home. When listening to a track by Sting at the factory, the music surrounding the singer felt like mist, and with the textural density of mist. It was like String was wading through a bayou, where the mist was just on the surface of the water, swirling around him. I had never heard anything like this before. It was quite magical. There were also other aspects for other tracks. It was like my memories were being pulled to the surface, and I was getting a visual sense of things (a bit like how the spell of a rose would bring up an emotional memory). There was no way that the musicians who mixed this would ever have experience it. I am kind of wondering how to replicate it. I have very good acoustics for my room. When Bill and Brice did the calibration, there was no EQ modification. Only processing in the time domain. I am kind of wondering if I need to start putting sound reflectors at the sides, and something which is the opposite of what is normally desired. I have sent an email to Bill asking what was happening at the time. It looks like they are extremely busy, so don't know when I will get a response. What this tells me is that really magical things are possible with the SUT drive array and processing. Having you had something similar happen? If so, what did you do to get this?

[MatthewB]

One thing I must admit is that it has been a lot harder to dial in the Valors to my room than the Aeris. The Aeris were dialed in perfectly where things just resonated. The various instruments had specific spatial volumes to them, with well defined edges. The toe-in was such that if I moved it by a couple of degrees, things sounded off, but when I move it back, it sounded fantastic. I am still struggling to duplicate this level of definition with the Valors.