Legend/KLH speaker REVIEW
Jeff Giacobbe
This is a follow-up to my posting two weeks ago about the Legend
speakers being sold by Damark Inernational (close-out mail order)
The speakers arrived yesterday. The boxes they came in said "Legend
model T312", which led my to believe that they were made by some
company called Legend (I've never heard of them). However, when I
unpacked these monsters I noticed that one speaker grill had a
"Legend" nameplate on it, but the other said "Heritage by KLH". Maybe
KLH sold their old stock when they moved to a new product line, and
whoever bought them stuck the Legend name on the box. Any ideas??
In any case, the real issue here is sound. The verdict: pretty
impressive. As I expected, with the 12 inch woofer and 12 inch
passive radiator, these speakers have no problem kicking out bass.
They're not booming and over-powering, but they can probably handle
whatever your amp throws at them (I using a 125 watt/ch Pioneer).
The highs are relatively standard. While they certainly hold their
own and don't take away from the systems performance, I wasn't tempted
to say "Wow! listen to those highs!" In fairness, the room (my
basement, finished with carpeting and low suspended tile ceiling) is
far from accoustic excellence. Also, I have the speaker near the wall
on the floor, which is probably favoring the bass end.
By the way, the dimensions are 42" high, 15"wide, 11" deep.
All things considered, I really like these speakers. I only listened
to them for about an hour, and didn't experiment with different
placement yet, so I probably haven't heard them at their best.
If you've got the room for 3 1/2 foot high towers, and don't want to
mortgage your house to buy a pair of speakers, I highly recommend the
"Legends" (or heritage by KLH, or whatever). At $199 a pair ($230
with shipping) you really can't go wrong.
I don't have Damark's address/phone # on hand, but if anyone wants it
send email or post
Jeff Giacobbe
Dana A. Bunner
>This is a follow-up to my posting two weeks ago about the Legend
>speakers being sold by Damark Inernational (close-out mail order)
>
>The speakers arrived yesterday. The boxes they came in said "Legend
>model T312", which led my to believe that they were made by some
>company called Legend (I've never heard of them). However, when I
>unpacked these monsters I noticed that one speaker grill had a
>"Legend" nameplate on it, but the other said "Heritage by KLH". Maybe
>KLH sold their old stock when they moved to a new product line, and
>whoever bought them stuck the Legend name on the box. Any ideas??
>
>"Legends" (or heritage by KLH, or whatever). At $199 a pair ($230
>with shipping) you really can't go wrong.
>
KLH has been marketing a low end line under the name of LEGEND for at least
a few years now. The speakers you describe sound very similar to a current
LEGEND 1700 which KLH is selling. They list at $478/pr but are normally sold
for much less than that. Nevertheless at $199/pr they may be a great buy.
The item I find most amusing about the LEGEND series is that KLH doesn't
hide anything in their published specs. They promote the Legend 1700 as
having a 38-22,000 range plus or minus 8 decibels (yes that was EIGHT).
So that response line is anything but smooth! Also claiming to get a 22Khz
response from a 3" tweeter sounds quite hopeful. But as you stated the
highs were not particularly outstanding.
I would suspect they sound much better than many rack-packaged or low
end Radio Shack speakers (you know the ones in the RS stores that you
feel the bass from when you walk within 200 ft of the store, then when
you go in you find the loudness switch set on and the bass at +8. One
of my favorite activities in a mall is to set the RS receiver tone controls
to their neutral settings and then listen to how bad those speakers
really sound).
Dana Alan Bunner
ARPANET: bun...@macc.wisc.edu BITNET: bun...@wiscmacc.bitnet