gat474 Posted January 4, 2013 Posted January 4, 2013 (edited) ITEM: LEGEND BIG RED LOUDSPEAKERS FULL GLOSS BLACK (PASSIVE CONFIG) LOCATION: MOONEE PONDS, MELBOURNE CONDITION: USED BUT AS NEW REASON FOR SELLING: IT'S AN EOI SO I'M NOT COMPLETELY SURE I WANT TO SELL, IN ANY CASE A DIFFERENT DIRECTION PICS: WILL ADD LATER AND CAN EMAIL AT REQUEST PRICE: $4000 ADDITIONAL INFO: I never thought I'd be here, thinking of selling the Legend Big Reds, I've had these beauties for around two and a half years (not completely sure on that) and they've been quite an experinece, I bought them in the passive configuration which is how I'm selling them. I bought them unseen and unheard direct from Legend but it was a safe bet as I'd had some Legend Kantus and by all accounts the Big Reds were a big step up on them even in the passive configuration. For those that don't know the Big Reds are made up of a powered sub woofer section and a Kurre standmount speaker each. The powered sub section is a sealed unit with two ten inch Peerless XLS drivers back to back and powered by a 600 watt plate amp. The plate amp has some special mods by Rod Crawford. It has a huge separate power supply which resides in the bottom of the box and also four large capacitors mounted within the box, The top section of each speaker is a Kurre standmount speaker. This isn't the current version of the Kurre, mine were $3500 per pair and use the famous Scan Speak crinkle paper look driver and Visaton ceramic dome tweeter whereas the current ones are half that and use much cheaper drivers. The crossovers are mounted externally and are clearly made using quality components. I'm not the expert in crossover components but I note they use large copper ribbon inductors and large caps. When I first bought these I didn't have the money to buy a DEQX unit to run them as fully active speakes. Dr CRAWFORD designed the Big Reds to operate either as passive with the powered sub sections or fully active with the DEQX unit. I ran them for over a year as passive and was more than happy with their performance. A few things happend all at once and I found myself in a position to buy the DEQX unit. I had a Primare five channel amp to run each driver individually and let the bass units power themselves. I was pretty much using all digital sources then and with the DEQX doing it's digital work there was a substantial improvement. Bass was sensational, tight and clean. I'd come from a pair of Rythmik 12" servo subs and found that the Legends subs, even in passive mode, were tighter and much more musical. In H/T they didn't go quite so low but I did measure them flat down to around 21hz where as the Rythmiks dropped down to around 19hz. Around a year ago I started to improve my vinyl rig. I was more than happy with what I was hearing until I heard Cheekyboy's set up. I took a punt and bought a passive pre to muck around with. I found that passively configured with a good pre and good vinyl source the passive configuration was a step up on what the DEQX was doing. There were negatives of course especially in the bass but overall the soundstage was more open and 3D. I decided to sell the DEQX and run them passively. I bought a Metrum dac which I found did more for the sound than what the DEQX could do. To me this was a great indication of how well the speakers and crossovers were designed to operate passively and how well they respond with high quality components. I'm using a Doge 6 pre amp, Primare five channel power amp, metrum/mac mini/hiface combo and rega P25/stock Denon DL103/Graham Slee phono gear. In the scheme of things nothing over the top. I swapped a few emails with Dr Rod Crawford from Legend with my findings. He did say that he's not surprised at the performance of his design and as good as the DEQX HDP3 was it has been surpassed by pre and dac design and assured me that the new DEQX HDP-4 was a huge step up over the HDP-3. I was more than happy with my passive configuration so didn't bother with a new DEQX HDP-4. Now the big question, why am I selling them if they're so good. Well, I had some money burning a hole in my pocket from selling off my HDP-3 DEQX. You know how it goes, you get some coin and just can't keep it in the bank. Quite by accident I stumbled across a pair of Usher Mini Dancer 2's. These are better than the Legends, in some areas, but certainly not all. I find that I use the Legend bass section to fill out the bottom end on the Ushers. The biggest thing in the Usher's favour is that the wife really likes the look of them which is a first. I'm happy to live with them for a while but will be looking at buying a sub, maybe a Fathom 113 or an SVS sealed sub to give that bottom end. Price - They were $9000 new. I didn't pay that and think that's probably top dollar for them but they did sell quite a few pairs. In fully active version they were $14000 and the current price for the passive Big Reds 2 is around $9000 but they only have one 10" driver and have to make to with a passive driver rather than the two. I'm looking for $4000 at which I'm doing a fair few dollars. Active Options - You could always buy a second hand HDP3 or even a new HDP4. Either way they will be a great speaker. I know there's at least one other SNAer who uses the active Big Reds and swears by them. There's another option that I can help out with. There's the option of using a MiniDSP which will give you the crossover configurations and even time alignments but just not the individual driver profiles. To be honest I didn't notice a huge difference in individual driver performance going from active to passive. I have one Mini DSP which I will throw in and you'll just need to source another for a true three way fully active system. You'll get away with one and have the active two way with sub. You'll also need four channels of power for fully active or two for passive. I have all of the packaging and can post although it won't be cheap. There's six boxes, one for each sub, each speaker and each crossover. I'm don't have pics on this computer so will have to add some later. They are very hard to photpgraph so it might be best to get an idea of of what they look like from the net. I'll provide pics to show their condition. There's a couple of reviews available which are pretty much glowing. There's been a few SNAers who've heard them in both two channel and doing HT dutues. If you want any comments from them PM me and I'll ask them to either comment in this thread or PM you. The last pic shows a white mark or two on the bottom of the rear of a speaker. It's white dog hair, I have a Dalmatian who lives outside but anyone who knows Dalmatians will be aware that no matter how much you try to keep their hair outside with them it just ends up all over the place, inlcuding the bottom of my black speakers when I move them around the carpet for photos! Edited January 5, 2013 by GAT474 1
danter Posted January 4, 2013 Posted January 4, 2013 I wish I don't have a mortgage. Redraw my friend, redraw.
holliswhy Posted January 5, 2013 Posted January 5, 2013 (edited) Redraw and divorce....? Edited January 5, 2013 by holliswhy
unclemack Posted January 5, 2013 Posted January 5, 2013 Redraw and deforce....? May deforce be with you... 3
unclemack Posted January 5, 2013 Posted January 5, 2013 GAT, I've heard so many good things about legend speakers but have never heard a pair. If the reviews are anything to go by, these are some very impressive speakers. Good luck with the sale mate. cheers M
gat474 Posted January 5, 2013 Author Posted January 5, 2013 I think we need pics. Just added some. These things are hard to photograph. Any white spots are Dalmatian hair which although the hairy dog lives outside the hair just comes in and attaches to what ever you least want white dog hair on! Funny as you never see any black ones about, just the white ones.
ThirdDrawerDown Posted January 6, 2013 Posted January 6, 2013 Having seen these in person, let me say the photos convey the minimum. They are simply beautiful-looking speakers.
gat474 Posted January 6, 2013 Author Posted January 6, 2013 GAT, I've heard so many good things about legend speakers but have never heard a pair. If the reviews are anything to go by, these are some very impressive speakers. Good luck with the sale mate. cheers M Thanks Michael, I'm not completely sure I want to sell them and I certainly don't need to. I'm using the sub sections to add some bottom end to my new Ushers. Unfortunately my room is bass shy so I'll always need some sort of bass re-inforcement. The subs in the Legends are the most musical subs I've had here, that includes a pair of Rythmiks, Osborn, Peerless XLS 12" DIY and a few others. I just did some quick measurements to work out the best crossover frequency to cross them over with the Ushers and try to work out phase. I was using a Rives test frequency CD and my trusty radio shack level meter. There was audible output at 20hz (just) and the door was rattling, 25hz showed a big jump in output and there it stayed all the way past 100hz where I stopped testing. Not too shabby for two pairs of 10" bass drivers in sealed cabinets. Dr Crawford assures me that the plate amps are capable of 600 wrms with this configuration.
Kamikaze Posted January 11, 2013 Posted January 11, 2013 I was a little disappointed to see the "Big Red Loudspeakers" were actually black in colour Good luck with the sale. 1
gat474 Posted January 11, 2013 Author Posted January 11, 2013 (edited) Their official name is Kumbar Wirri which I believe is indigenous for Big Red Kangaroo. I'd forgotten about that until the last post. Edited January 11, 2013 by GAT474
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