Owners Manual For The Whisper XDS Loudspeaker System
Table of Contents Registration Owners Record The Cabinetry / Our Commitment Warranty Page 3 4 5 Setup Speaker Placement Hooking Up Cables Amplification Speaker Connections Installer Calibration Instructions Whisper Wave Launch Processor 6 7-8 9-11 12-13 14 15-23 Technology Designer’s Notes Continuing the Pursuit of Perfection Specifications 24-25 26-27 28 2
Owners Record The serial number is located on the rear of the unit. Record this number in the space provided below. Refer to this when calling your dealer regarding this product. Model: Whisper XDS Serial No: _________________________ Date of purchase: ___________________ Thank you for selecting a Legacy Loudspeaker System. These handcrafted instruments will provide you with many years of listening enjoyment.
The Cabinetry / Our Commitment Handcrafted Beneath the surface of Whisper XDS’s elegant exterior lies rigid MDF construction. Interlocking joinery maximizes the strength of the cabinet parts. Polyester fiberfill is selected for internal damping. A sharp rap on the enclosure will leave you with little more than bruised knuckles. Each cabinet is impeccably finished on all exposed surfaces with select veneers.
Warranty Legacy Audio supports its customers and products with pride. We cheerfully warrant our loudspeaker products we manufacture from defects in materials and workmanship for a period of seven (7) years. Electronic components such as internal amplifiers and digital processors are covered for three (3)years. Please register your product with Legacy Audio. Should you require service Legacy will require a proof of purchase in order to honor the warranty - so please keep your receipt.
Speaker Placement Positioning Whisper for good performance is quite a bit easier than for most speakers. Remember that whisper is actually an acoustic gun with a highly controlled directivity pattern. Corner placements are actually quite workable though not necessarily optimal. Whisper will not become “boomy” like a conventional system and it will not interact strongly with the sidewalls of your room. Simple Guidelines: 1. You may position the Whisper speakers farther apart than most other speakers.
Hooking Up Cables The ideal conductor would have negligible resistance, inductance and capacitance. The table below shows how a few actual speaker cables measure up. Cable 12 ga. 14 ga. 16 ga. 18 ga. Ωs/ft 0.0033 0.0048 0.0079 0.0128 pF/ft 24 17 16 28 µH/ft 0.21 0.13 0.18 0.21 Capacitance is considered insignificant in each cable because its effect is well out of the audio bandwidth; inductance can be decreased (at the expense of increased capacitance) by keeping the conductor pair closely spaced.
Hooking Up Cables What about phase shift due to frequency dependent travel times down the speaker cable? Measurements show that 100 Hz waves will be delayed about 20 billionths of a second behind 10 kHz waves when traveling to the end of a 10 foot speaker cable. Since the cilia of the ear requires 25,000 times longer than this just to transmit phase information, phase shifting is obviously not the primary concern when considering speaker cables. What about resistance? Finally we are getting somewhere.
Amplification Ideally the loudspeaker would be among the first components selected when assembling a playback system. This would allow the user to choose an amplifier capable of delivering adequate amounts of current into the frequency dependent load presented by the loudspeaker. However, when upgrading a system, audiophiles may find themselves matching their new loudspeakers to their existing amplification.
Amplification How much power will your new speakers need? That ultimately depends on your listening environment and musical tastes. As little as five watts per channel should drive them to a level satisfactory for background music. A typical 45 watt per channel receiver may fill a room with the compressed mid-band energy of “heavy metal,” but seem to lack weight or control with classical recordings.
Amplification When an amplifier is unable to fulfill your loudspeakers demands, a damaging harmonic spike may be leaked to the high frequency drivers. Another important point regarding loudness is that the dB scale is a logarithmic one. This means that a 150 Watt amplifier will potentially sound only twice as loud as a 15 Watt amplifier. If all of this discussion of power and loudness seems a bit abstract, consider the example below.
Speaker Connections The Terminal Plate At the rear of each of your loudspeakers you will find a terminal plate housing one pair of binding posts and two XLR Connectors. Hook the high level speaker inputs from the main amplifier to the pair of binding post. Be sure that you observe polarity when making the connections. The positive (+) terminal of the amplifier should be connected to the positive terminal of the loudspeaker.
Speaker Connections Xilica XD Cable Connections From To Left channel of preamp output USE Y ADAPTER Processor Input 1 & Processor Input 3 Right channel of preamp output USE Y ADAPTER Processor Input 2 & Processor Input 4 Processor Output 1 Left Legacy Whisper Back 15” Drivers (Bottom XLR) Processor Output 2 Left Legacy Whisper Front 15” Drivers (Top XLR) Processor Output 3 Left Channel of Customer Provided Amplifier Feeds to Left Legacy Whisper Processor Output 5 Right Legacy Whisper Back 15” D
Installer Calibration Instructions Be sure to feed left input to both 1,3 and right input to both 2,4 with XLR splitter cable off preamp Step 1: -start with everything muted -un-mute input 1 -un-mute output 1 and verify the rear left woofers are all playing.
Whisper Wave Launch Processor The high definition Digital Wavelaunch Processor hosts a LEGACY custom algorithm which automatically loads when the processor is powered on. Factory settings are ‘plug and play’, and do not require a computer to utilize. Connections between the preamp, power amplifier, and speakers should be as shown on previous page. Programs 1 Whspr Normal 2 Bass Plus 3 Bass Minus standard settings for flat response (increases bass, +2 dB) (shelves bass, -2 dB) Selecting the Program 1.
Whisper Wave Launch Processor Downloading and Installing the XConsole software Downloading From Included CD Your Wave Launch Processor will come with a CD or USB drive containing the XConsole software. Insert the CD and find the install file. Move/Save the install file to your computer. From Xilica Website - Go to www.xilica.
Whisper Wave Launch Processor The XD processor will allow you to make adjustments to your system from a laptop computer from your listener position. Connecting Your Computer with the Xilica Processor - Connecting will require a long USB Device cable. These can be found at most electronic or big box stores. It is the same cable that a USB printer would use. This 16 ft cable is available at Radio Shack. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3584358&filterName=Length&filterValue=16-20+ft.
Whisper Wave Launch Processor - Go back to the XConsole software. At the top of the screen click “Setup” then “Port Connections” This bring up a new dialog box. Select the COM port number you obtained from the device manger and click “OK.” The software will warn you that you must restart the software for your changes to take effect. - Restart the XConsole software. This time, when it asked “Do you want to connect to the device?”, answer “Yes”. - You should now be connected to the device and ready to use.
Whisper Wave Launch Processor Making Adjustments with Wavelaunch Processor After installing the included software, connect the processor to the computer via a USB cable. Launch the XConsole software. When asked if you want to connect to the device, click yes. In the Device List, click on the device that is connected. This will launch the program that is currently on the processor.
Whisper Wave Launch Processor In the Device List, click on the device that is connected. This will launch the program that is currently on the processor. Adjustments to the processor can be made to “Input 1: Left” and “Input 2: Right”. Clicking on “In 1: Left” opens the controls for the Left speaker. In this window, you are presented with 31 channels of graphic EQ and 8 channels of parametric EQ.
Whisper Wave Launch Processor Making a boost with the parametric EQ In this example, we have selected Parametric EQ 2 (PEQ2) by clicking in its box, which will turn red to indicate your selection. Once highlighted, locate the blue boxes with up and down arrows, at the bottom of the interface. These arrows are used to increase or decrease the gain, frequency and Q of the selected parametric EQ. This column shows a 4.00 dB boost at 41 Hz with a Q of 6.551.
Whisper Wave Launch Processor Making a cut with the graphic EQ In this example, we have selected Graphic EQ 8 by clicking in its box which will turn red to indicate your selection. Once highlighted, locate the blue boxes with up and down arrows, at the bottom of the interface. These arrows are used to increase or decrease the gain of the selected graphic EQ. This column shows a 4.00 dB cut at 100 Hz. Only gain is adjustable in the graphic EQ section because graphic equalizers have a fixed frequency and Q.
Whisper Wave Launch Processor Adjusting using the EQ plot Adjustments made to both the parametric and graphic EQ are reflected in the graph occupying the upper portion of the screen. You can select them by clicking on their number, and dragging up to boost, and down to cut. Dragging to the left decreases the frequency, while dragging to the right increases the frequency. Recommendations Boosts greater than 6 dB can result in ringing, driver overload, or mechanical buzzing.
Designer’s Notes (From Bill Dudleston) The ideal speaker would stop and start on cue regardless of the combinations of frequency and level. It would have the same radiation pattern throughout the spectrum. It would sound as true to the last voice in a large choir as it would a soloist and never overload. Back to reality. For a given size diaphragm the displacement requirements for uniform output increase by a factor of four for each octave dropped (frequency halving).
Designer’s Notes (From Bill Dudleston) The name Whisper was derived after a conversation with Bob Carver over 15 years ago. He had suggested that speakers with a solid stereo center image rarely conveyed image size and a broad, deep soundstage. And that sounds should extend both forward and back in the mix, as they do on the live stage. Carver commented we haven’t succeeded fully as designer’s until we can virtually portray the warm breath of a female whispering softly in one’s left ear. Wow.
Continuing the Pursuit of Perfection (Legacy Air Motion Ribbons) LEGACY Audio has been benefiting from low mass ribbon and leaf drivers since 1984. I have a collection of ribbon tweeters from the world over and always loved the way good ribbons reproduced the swishing sound of brushes on a snare- and the simple honesty in the reproduction of strings without imparting an edgy ringing effect found in most tweeters. There’s just something right about the sound – like a C12 mic capsule.
Continuing the Pursuit of Perfection (Legacy Air Motion Ribbons) The recent Aeris loudspeaker development gave me the opportunity to tool a new AMT folded ribbon tweeter to integrate with the smoothest high efficiency 8” midrange built to date. I have yet to find a driver to challenge it. This silky 8” mid has a range of 7 octaves with nary a wrinkle in the response, yet a sensitivity of 98 dB.
Specifications System Type: 11 driver, 4 way Tweeter Dual Air Motion Tweeter System- 1” AMT super tweeter Midrange: Dual Air Motion Tweeter System4"AMT tweeeter (4) 7" Rohacell reinforced Silver Graphite, cast frame Midwoofer: Subwoofer: (4) 15” cabon/pulp composite, synchronized launch (1) 12” Aura Bass steering Low Frequency Alignment: 2nd Order Differential Frequency Response: 22Hz – 30 kHz includes 24 bit processor Impedance: 4 Ohms Sensitivity: 95 dB Recommended Amplification: 10 - 60
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