Legend and Reserve use exact same woofers?

lilwolf555

Do they? I realize the crossovers are different, but digging around I can't find much differences aside from cosmetic, crossovers, port. ( Sadly I am a noob on crossovers. Recently starting reading about them but still 'fresh')

I am wanting to know if the woofers themselves are beefier on the Legends. Larger heatsinks, better SPL rating etc?

This is mainly for my own curiosity. I read through the 'Building a L600' and it piqued my interest on further differences.. apologies if this was answered somewhere here and I missed it completely.

VR3

Yes same but the speakers are voiced differently and sound nothing alike

F1nut

The same

rooftop59

lilwolf555 wrote: »

Do they? I realize the crossovers are different, but digging around I can't find much differences aside from cosmetic, crossovers, port. ( Sadly I am a noob on crossovers. Recently starting reading about them but still 'fresh')

I am wanting to know if the woofers themselves are beefier on the Legends. Larger heatsinks, better SPL rating etc?

This is mainly for my own curiosity. I read through the 'Building a L600' and it piqued my interest on further differences.. apologies if this was answered somewhere here and I missed it completely.

The same, but everything else is different. Crossovers, bracing, port system, build quality, all which lead as Trey said to different sounding speakers...

Emlyn

I have a full set of Reserve speakers in my closet being reserved for later use maybe. Bought them cheap.

I see them as built and sounding best for home theater primarily. More like an RT speaker design rather than top of the line. The Legends blend music/home theater better like the LSiM did.

msg

I agree, I enjoyed the LSiM and limited Legend installation for combo use, as well. For me, without a dedicated theater, the bias is always going to be music, primarily, in any combo use setup.

I can see that the Reserve could work in combo use, but not for someone with 2ChO (2ch obsession).

heiney9

Emlyn wrote: »

I have a full set of Reserve speakers in my closet being reserved for later use maybe. Bought them cheap.

I see them as built and sounding best for home theater primarily. More like an RT speaker design rather than top of the line. The Legends blend music/home theater better like the LSiM did.

The Reserve series are not better suited for HT and are much better than the RT line by far. Have you listened to the speakers you have socked away? Yes, the Legend and Reserve series do sound a bit different. But they use the same drivers, just voiced differently and the cross-overs are different as well as the cabinet. The RT line and LSiM line were worlds apart in sound. The Legend and Reserve are much closer in sound. The Reserve series is easily a great music speaker, end of story.

H9

Emlyn

Although my Reserve speakers are now in reserve they had daily use for a few months. They were replaced in a home theater setup by a set of lower end Focal speakers and later in a modest two channel system by Wharfedale Lintons.

Product placement wise I see the Reserve as slotting in where the RT line would have been but no longer exists. Any speaker manufacturer has to build product to meet a price point and limit costs to achieve the objective. It could be argued that cosmetically the Reserve speakers are big step backwards for Polk from their customary next to best offerings in the RT lines and that the money saved there and in cabinet structure went into the drivers that had been engineered already.

Point is, just because the Reserve and Legends use the same drivers that doesn't mean they'll sound the same. I would say they can be mixed together in a home theater system though but I tried an R400 between a pair of L800s and it didn't perform as well as I'd hoped. It's not even close to as good as the L400 but I wasn't expecting it to be for half the price. I find the Reserve speakers to be a bit brighter and thinner sounding overall. I've kept them because they're very competent speakers for the money even at full price.

heiney9

We can agree to disagree. I don't think you give them enough credit as the build and sound q is much better than the RT line and the price point reflects that.

Legend is a better speaker (many disagree when $$ for $$ comparisons are done), but the gap between the Reserve and Legend is far closer than RT to LSiM line.

Obviously I chose the Legends for a reason in my main rig....I chose the Reserve R200's for my office rig not wanting the spend up for the better cabinets and crossover.

H9

Emlyn

I definitely agree that the performance margin is much better now between top tier and second tier Polks. Maybe a little too close.

I'd still like to see Polk develop and sell a heritage based large Monitor 7 type of speaker if they are going to drop the Legend lineup. I was thinking for years that I'd buy a new SDA model as soon as it came out and I did that. Strange that a new line hasn't been announced publicly yet when it's been obvious for a while that the Legends are no longer being stocked.

VR3

I think Polk missed the boat not offering a sda monitor along side the L800. Huge marketing fail, imo.

F1nut

Originally, there was talk of a new CRS+ type speaker along with a floor stander, which they wanted to be about the size of the 1C. I even lent Polk a pair of modified CRS+, the 4.1TL. I never got an explanation as to why they didn't come out with it.

VR3

Yeah it was a bad call.

xschop

Polk can still hit a homer if they come out with an updated CRS+, either side-mounted PR's or rear Power-Ports.