LEGEND L800

warren

Has anyone, listened too own the new SDA POLK LEGEND L800 ?

displayname

warren wrote: »

Has anyone, listened too own the new SDA POLK LEGEND L800 ?

Have fun: https://forum.polkaudio.com/discussion/187813/looking-forward-to-l800-but-have-concerns-what-are-your-thoughts/p1

Emlyn

Crutchfield has most of the Legend on sale today, but not the L800s. $300 off on a pair of the L200 and $500 off a pair of L600.

https://www.crutchfield.com/S-v08yOuv9j3H/p_107L600BA/Polk-Audio-Legend-L600-Black-Ash.html

joecoulson

Warren. How you holdin’ up in Tucker my man?

warren

joecoulson wrote: »

Warren. How you holdin’ up in Tucker my man?

Good Joe, thanks.. some one mentioned that the L800 had doubled in price so I’m holding off on buying them now..

Clipdat

They're still the same price that they launched at, $6k/pair: https://www.musicdirect.com/speakers/Polk-Audio-Legend-L800-Tower-Speakers

mhardy6647

Emlyn wrote: »

Crutchfield has most of the Legend on sale today, but not the L800s. $300 off on a pair of the L200 and $500 off a pair of L600.

https://www.crutchfield.com/S-v08yOuv9j3H/p_107L600BA/Polk-Audio-Legend-L600-Black-Ash.html

That was quick

rooftop59

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Emlyn wrote: »

Crutchfield has most of the Legend on sale today, but not the L800s. $300 off on a pair of the L200 and $500 off a pair of L600.

https://www.crutchfield.com/S-v08yOuv9j3H/p_107L600BA/Polk-Audio-Legend-L600-Black-Ash.html

That was quick

That’s only slightly over 10% off retail...that’s hardly a sale as far as I’m concerned...just an extra little push for someone on the fence, which I am not 😂

mhardy6647

I thought that the L200 were $1800 the pair.
$300 is 16-2/3% of $1800.
I am bad at maths but I can use a calculator


Crutchfield, today...

aprazer402

Has anyone here seen or heard the L600?

mhardy6647

aprazer402 wrote: »

Has anyone here seen or heard the L600?

I have a funny feeling that its the "red-headed stepchild" in the Legend family.

aprazer402

^^^^ It seems as if it's all alone, distant of the others, out in the middle of the line-up, like it's just an intentional place filler. It needs an SDA mod, to make the "new and improved" SDA affordable to more buyers!

F1nut

aprazer402 wrote: »

Has anyone here seen or heard the L600?

I've seen it, touched it, haven't heard it.

Hermitism

What did it feel like?

mhardy6647

F1nut wrote: »

aprazer402 wrote: »

Has anyone here seen or heard the L600?

I've seen it, touched it, haven't heard it.

Sounds like something from Tommy...

OldCrow

Last year I bought the L800s to upgrade my SDA1 and SRS (purchased new in '85, used in '15). They they both sound great, but I was concerned about component aging. I upgraded the tweeters in the SRS with no discernible improvement, still great. I was on the fence about upgrading the crossover then the L800 came out.
The dealer a 60 day return, 10% military discount and shipped them out the next day. They arrived on a pallet, beautifully packaged, beautiful speaker, sounded better than mine. But I could not get the SDA effect to compare to my old ones. I'm very familiar with the SDA quirks regarding amplifiers and speaker placement. I get outstanding SDA effect with my old speakers. I played swaptronics with equipment configurations and cables to no avail. Mono testing and balance indicate the SDA speakers were working properly. They were certainly spacious sounding but they could barely project sounds into the front corners of the room let alone the back corners. They generated no WTF moments whatsoever.

I talked to Polk a couple times, but their only suggestion was burn in. I had hundreds of hours in 2
months. It cost $500 to ship them back but that's the price of doing business. The silver lining is I am no longer overly concerned sonic performance of my old speakers. Overall I'm disappointed; the new SDA doesn't seem to compare to the old.

Clipdat

What amplifier(s) were you using with them?

OldCrow

Hi Clipdat, I have a Carver Crimson 275 and m 1.5, Yamaha integrated amp and Kenwood AV receiver. When I got my SDA1s in '85, I had the Carver cube. It was a floating ground and only the left SDA speakers would fire. I had never heard of floating ground and common ground!?! I thought the speakers were defective. Replaced with the m1.5 and they worked like a champ. All my current equipment works fine with the SDA1 and the SRS.

Clipdat

I heard the Carver Crimson 275 is very powerful.

rooftop59

Other guys will chime in, but I think the setup re distance from walls is very different with the new L800s as compared to older sda…hope you tried proper placement before sending them back…

OldCrow

I have a 22 by 14 listening room and had all the furniture and speakers on carpet sliders. My SRSs are on the long wall, one foot from the front wall, 8 ft apart with 5 ft of elbow room. I have always found SDAs love elbow room! I tried every possible location with no success. I bet I pushed 3 tons of speakers around! All three owners manuals suggest close to the front wall and as far away from sidewalls as possible, preferably three feet or more. Listening spot's about 9 ft from the speaker front and two feet off the back wall. It seems to boil down to the old SDA effect is spectacular and the new SDA doesn't compare.

Emlyn

OldCrow wrote: »

I have a 22 by 14 listening room and had all the furniture and speakers on carpet sliders. My SRSs are on the long wall, one foot from the front wall, 8 ft apart with 5 ft of elbow room. I have always found SDAs love elbow room! I tried every possible location with no success. I bet I pushed 3 tons of speakers around! All three owners manuals suggest close to the front wall and as far away from sidewalls as possible, preferably three feet or more. Listening spot's about 9 ft from the speaker front and two feet off the back wall. It seems to boil down to the old SDA effect is spectacular and the new SDA doesn't compare.

The SDA Pro sound is a bit different from the SDA in the original models. I consider the overall sound more "precise" if I had to use one word. You have a good size room for the L800 or other SDA speakers.

Did you use more than one amp to test the L800s with and got the same impression of them?

I'm curious about the Carver M1.5 amp design. I know Carver was known for using a lot of novel approaches that defied normal categorization. Anyone know if it's a differential design?

FWIW, I think the effect of putting the L800s close to the front wall is to boost the perception of bass and doesn't do much if anything to the SDA function. I have one pair of mine away from the front wall 3 feet or so because I prefer the overall sound of the speakers that way in that room but I have the second pair 18 inches away from the front wall because that's the way they fit the space best. I find the L800s work best about six feet apart inside edge to inside edge in either space.

OldCrow

The Crimson 275 seems to be much more powerful than the 75 watt rating would imply. When I purchased it from Jim Clark, I also purchased the 10 Octave Audio LP1R preamp which claims a higher output (20 volts max)) to drive the power amp. I have an Adcom GFP-1A that puts out 10 volts. With the Adcom, my max volume listening level might be 11:00 to 11:30 on the dial. With the 10 octave, it's more like 8:30 to 9:00. I never realized preamps had different level outputs. But regardless, the Crimson 275 is a bit of a beast!

nooshinjohn

The 275 is not a good fit for the L800's. For a time there was even a buy-back program going because they were nowhere near capable of rated power.

OldCrow

Here are some pics:

audioluvr

I believe the "t" in the 1.5t stand for "Transfer Function" which makes it a differential balanced amp. The Carver crimson is probably the same thing.

nooshinjohn

audioluvr wrote: »

I believe the "t" in the 1.5t stand for "Transfer Function" which makes it a differential balanced amp. The Carver crimson is probably the same thing.

I have to agree… it was probably not a speaker problem as much as an amp problem. The SDA imaging I get from mine in a similar space is off the charts, and the imaging is incredibly precise.

pitdogg2

.

OldCrow

The owner manuals for the SDA1 and SRS stressed in necessity for a common grounded amplifier. The L800 makes no mention of it. I talked to Frank Malitz before purchasing the Crimson 275. He said the 275 and the M1.5t were both common ground. I also used a Yamaha integrated amp and a Kenwood and a Fisher receiver. Always with the same results - great SDA on the old speakers, disappointing SDA with the L800s.

According to the Old Polk manuals, older amplifiers are almost always common ground. The grounding terminology is slippery. It seems there is a common ground and a floating ground. I think this can translate to unbalanced and balanced. It may or may not translate to single ended and differential.

I reread the stories about Bob Carver about the "t modification." It discussed the transfer modification as a method for a black box comparison of amplifiers. I didn't see any mention of differential amplifiers.

I just posted this today and I'm very pleased with the number of responses I've already gotten. They've been quite thought-provoking and caused me to do some reading up. I've tried to reference my sources and mean no disrespect to the forum members who have graciously responded.

F1nut

Don't feel bad, I didn't like the way the L800 presents the music either.

pitdogg2

Frank Malitz

This guy is a world class buffoon.