Built for the love of music.....

[MatthewB]

Well. Just moved my Valors out from the front walls a bit (1.5 from wall for right speaker, and 7 feet from wall for left speaker), and pretty much got rid of the toe-in, so that it is very slight. This speaker seems to behave quite differently from the Aeris when it comes to toe-in. Just goes to show that reading the manual can be useful.

I use a track called Letters by Yosi Horikawa to test imaging. There is a pencil that scribbles on paper from left to right in the sound stage. With the Aeris, I had gotten it to move at constant speed from left to right. If there is not enough toe-in, the pencil spends a bit more time at the sides, and then jumps the middle. The Valor is quite different. Even with very little toe-in, the pencil moves at a constant speed from left to right, without a drop in level in the center. With more toe-in, it spends more time on the sides. It still goes through the middle.

It does feel that the Valor has more of a wall of sound feel than the Aeris, a bit like my old electrostatic Martin Logan SL3s from a while back. Maybe its all this driver surface area.

Slowly getting there with the setup.

[SCAudiophile]

The Valor are unique among all Legacy speakers I have owned including Aeris, going back 17 years...they require very little toe-in.

Will respond in more detail later.

FYI...this is my system thread,...they are meant for users to share their system history and updates. It would be great if you guys could open one as well.

It would be better to take this whole discussion over to either the Wavelet II thread or to open a new Legacy Valor (or new Legacy speaker lover) thread than to continue to camp out here.

Matthew, where are you located?

[MatthewB]

@SCAudiophile.

Moving to the Wavelet II thread would be fine. I originally posted here as this one came up with a google search. If you send responses to the Wavelet 2 thread, I will stick with that one.

I am located in Kansas City. Visiting the Legacy Audio factory was a 5 hour drive.

[SCAudiophile]

Originally Posted by MatthewB

@SCAudiophile.

Moving to the Wavelet II thread would be fine. I originally posted here as this one came up with a google search. If you send responses to the Wavelet 2 thread, I will stick with that one.

I am located in Kansas City. Visiting the Legacy Audio factory was a 5 hour drive.

Great to meet you...Greenville SC for me.

Thanks and will do!

[SCAudiophile]

JJust completed a major upgrade in terms of totally decoupling an almost 300 lb speaker that stands 6 feet 1 inch tall from the room to eliminate the prodigious amounts of energy this speaker can produce from feeding into the floor and subfloor (and crawlspace under house) and ultimately feeding back into the speaker. This delivered a lot more than even the highest expectations I had. I'd researched available options for over a year and even considered going back to the use of Stillpoints Ultras 5's (now v2) or other footers like Magico MPODs (sized for M6 speakers) or the larger IsoAcoustics footers and received a great recommendation from a friend to look at Townshend Audio from the UK.

Townshend Audio custom podium journey…. began this design project back in January after several months last year of investigation into many other excellent products in this space from HiFi-Stays, Magico MPODS, IsoAcoustics and many others.

I decided upon Townshend after quite a few conversations with other “big speaker owners” who had bought and used all other top offerings for high-end footers with the larger speaker models from YG Acoustics, Wilson, Magico and Legacy Whisper XDS and MBL 101e MkII and MBL Extreme owners. They all wound up with Townshend’s podiums as their preferred solution, some after spending many thousands more on competing solutions.

Townshend makes 5 different standard sizes of the platforms for different combinations of size plinth and weight-bearing capacity from 50kg up to 200kg. They can accommodate any speaker over 200kg of any weight through a custom design and going from 4 to 6 load cells.

Due to the unique angled back profile, the size of the Legacy Valor plinth, a 298-pound actual weight of my speakers as-built and the height (6 feet 1") plus their load distribution a custom sized Townshend product was needed. The same is true of the other Wilson, larger Magico, MBL and YG owners I spoke with. The process of collaborating with Townshend was great and they were extremely responsive at all points even allowing me firsthand calls and emails with their lead engineer to arrive at the CAD drawings needed to commission the project. As a result, they now have an option for any Legacy VALOR owner in their design portfolio.

Townshend completed the order after commit in the shortest time possible (about 5-6 weeks) and then shipped them in custom-built real wood crates. They arrived without any issue whatsoever.

The finish quality is heavy duty, beautiful and first class in every way. I am very happy with the end product. This project was measured and designed down to millimeters to facilitate the CAD and laser-cutting processes. When I got them out of the crates, they were exactly to promise and to measure.

Pardon the blue masking tape in the photos...I am still tweaking final speaker position based upon original best-position.

The playback quality of the speakers once installed on them far exceeds any expectations I had, and have markedly improved every single aspect of playback, including bass of course, all the way up through midrange and treble clarity, total imaging, soundstage depth, density, 3D rendering, etc.

It's also an amazing thing to see an almost 300 lb., 6' 1" speaker "float" and when pushed, easily move in 3 dimensions, and quickly absorb the shocks and return to stationary in a matter of seconds. The bigger surprise is to feel absolutely zero vibration and resonance in the floor directly in front of the speaker and yet feel the force of bass, mid-bass, etc... moving air.

Very happy with the results and looking forward to listening to a lot more music to re-explore my speakers!

https://www.audioaficionado.org/atta...9&d=1652060777

https://www.audioaficionado.org/atta...0&d=1652060790

https://www.audioaficionado.org/atta...1&d=1652060799

https://www.audioaficionado.org/atta...2&d=1652060812

[crwilli]

Fantastic Mark. I am intrigued by this tech. My speakers are on the second floor above my garage. While I am not worried about sound traveling through the floor, I do wonder what the ‘floor’ sounds like and whether it is a positive or a negative.

[SCAudiophile]

Originally Posted by crwilli

Fantastic Mark. I am intrigued by this tech. My speakers are on the second floor above my garage. While I am not worried about sound traveling through the floor, I do wonder what the ‘floor’ sounds like and whether it is a positive or a negative.

Thank you Craig! I was of the same mind throughout the last year or more while I looked into all the options.

I guess you'll need to come for a visit and hear it for yourself

[Antonmb]

Fascinating project Mark - they look great and the sound must be remarkable.

[SCAudiophile]

Originally Posted by Antonmb

Fascinating project Mark - they look great and the sound must be remarkable.

Thank you very much Tony!

[SCAudiophile]

Had this Townshend platform cut to fill the Adona platform under my master clock..

I put it in late yesterday and it improves imaging, staging and other aspects over and above a quality rack, clock designed/shipped for Stillpoint UltraSS feet and my HRS Damping plates.

I'm quite happy and impressed.

It's not out of level in the 2nd photo...that's the floor and the photographer [emoji1787]

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