LEGACY Deco Loudspeaker System Owner’s Manual

Owners Manual For The
Deco Loudspeaker System

Owners Record

Thank you for selecting a Legacy Loudspeaker System. These handcrafted instruments will provide you with many years of listening enjoyment.
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: Deco
Serial   No: ____
Date of purchase: __

Register your product at legacyaudio.com/register
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The Cabinetry/Our Commitment

Handcrafted
Beneath the surface of Deco’s elegant exterior lies rigid MDF construction. Interlocking joinery maximizes the strength of the cabinet parts.
Each cabinet is impeccably finished on all exposed surfaces with select veneers. The exquisite finish is hand-rubbed several times to assure a patina at home with the most elegant decor .

Our Commitment
A great deal of forethought, love, and satisfaction is instilled in each piece of Legacy workmanship. We take pride in getting to know many of our customers on a first-name basis.
Your purchase of this product is backed by the renowned “Legacy Satisfaction Guarantee”.

Warranty

Legacy Audio supports its customers and products with pride. We cheerfully warrant the 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 proof of purchase in order to honor the warranty – so please keep your receipt.

• The warranty applies to the original owner and is not transferable.
• The warranty applies to products purchased from an “Authorized Legacy Dealer”.
• The warranty on active components such as digital processors or internal amplifiers is limited to three (3) years of coverage.
• The warranty on dealer stock will extend for a maximum of two years from the invoice.

The warranty does not cover transportation costs of the product to or from the customer, distributor or dealer, or related shipping damage.

Exclusions from Warranty
The following situations or conditions are not covered by the Legacy Audio warranty:

• Accidental damage, electrical abuse, or associated equipment failure.
• Use inconsistent with recommended operating instructions and specifications
• Damage caused by modification or unauthorized service
• Costs associated with the removal and reinstallation of defective products. Consequential damage to other products.
• Normal wear such as fading of finishes due to sunlight.

Unpacking Your Speakers

Your new speaker system has been very carefully packaged to ensure that it travels to you safely. Each speaker is protected by a double wall outer carton with heavy  V-board corner protectors. Custom fitted foam end caps are used to protect the elegant cabinetry, and a custom bag is included to provide further protection. Please save this packing for future transportation. If cartons become damaged or misplaced, new ones can be purchased from legacy Audio.

Speaker Installation

Precautions
If you have any doubts about your ability to properly install on-wall loudspeakers, you should consider the services of a custom installer. If you plan to install them yourself,  always use high-quality tools to save time and make the installation go more smoothly. The Deco On-Wall Loudspeakers mount on standard stud walls. Determine the final location of both left and right speakers before drilling any holes since changes to one speaker may affect the other either aesthetically or acoustically. Look for pipes, wiring or any other conflicting material that might be damaged before beginning the installation.

The Deco surrounds are provided with a pre-installed solid aluminum wall bracket. Locate the desired height for the top of the speaker with the lower edge of a piece of masking tape on the wall. Now measure downward 1.75 inches. This is the height that the additionally provided bracket will need to have the two mounting screws installed.
Once this height is determined, use a level to set the bracket position and mark the two-hole locations on the wall. The grooves in the bracket should be against the wall and
oriented downward as illustrated on the next page.

If the hole locations do not coincide with wall studs, use the included plastic wall inserts. These threaded inserts do not tear out as a molly bolt or expanded inserts can. Screw the inserts into the drywall until flush (do not strip by overtightening). Now attach the bracket with the provided screws.
When sliding the Deco surround onto the wall bracket,  start with the top of the speaker an inch or two above your tape mark, press gently against the wall, and lower the speaker down slowly. Do not let go of the speaker until you are certain it is fully locked into the wall bracket.

Hooking Up Cables

Before you purchase loudspeaker wire, check local building codes to make sure that the wire is rated to comply with applicable local safety codes such as UL or CL-2. Use only stranded wire-no thinner than AWG 16. For runs longer than 100 feet, we recommend a minimum of AWG 14. When pulling wire, take care not to pull the ire too fast to prevent stretching the wire or scorching the insulation from friction. Leave 2 to 3 feet of excess loudspeaker wire at both ends; it is easier to trim off excess wire than to splice additional wire. When securing the wire inside the walls, be careful not to pierce the insulation with nails or staples.

The Terminal Plate
On the top of each of your Deco speakers, you will find a terminal cup housing one pair of binding posts.
Hook the high-level speaker inputs from the main amplifier to the pair of binding posts. 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. The negative (-) terminal of the amplifier should be connected to the negative terminal of the loudspeaker.

The ideal conductor would have negligible resistance, inductance, and capacitance. The table below shows how a few actual speaker cables measure up.

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.

How long would a cable have to be before inductance effects would impinge on the audio spectrum? Approximately 300 feet of 12 gauge would be required to establish a  corner frequency of 20 kHz with an 8 Ohm loudspeaker. As you see, inductance is not a problem for most of us.

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 require 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. Resistance is the controlling factor of the amplifier/loudspeaker interface. Excessive resistance can cause major shifts in speaker crossover frequencies. The lower the impedance of the loudspeaker , the greater the effects of series resistance. A 20 foot run of 18 gauge cable can cause up to 10%  deviations of crossover center frequencies. That same 20 feet can un-damp your damping factor and reduce your systems’ output by one- half decibel.
In summary, there are no perfect cables. The best way to approximate the ideal would be to keep loudspeaker leads as short as is practical.

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 watching their new loudspeakers to their existing amplification. For this reason, extensive measures have been taken to ensure that each Legacy speaker system represents a smooth, non-reactive load to virtually any amplifier .

Often there is much confusion regarding amplification and loudness levels. It should be understood that the role of the amplifier goes beyond that of driving loudspeakers to a given sound pressure level. The amplifier should be able to CONTROL the loudspeakers across the entire music spectrum. This means that parameters such as damping factor (values greater than 60 are acceptable) and dynamic headroom should not be overlooked when comparing amplifiers.

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. Some audiophiles feel that 200 watts per channel are the bare minimum to avoid audible clipping distortion when reproducing music at “live” playback levels. Your Legacy speakers are designed to take advantage of “high-powered” amplifiers, so don’t be afraid to put them through their paces.

How much is too much power?

Rarely is a drive unit damaged by large doses of music power. More often than not the villain is amplifier clipping distortion. Even though decades of refinement, loudspeakers are still notoriously inefficient transducers, requiring huge amounts of power to recreate the impact of the live performance. Typically less than 1% of electrical power is converted into acoustic output. (For example, an omnidirectional transducer with an anechoic sensitivity of 90 dB @ 1w/1m has a full space efficiency of only 0.63%)

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.

The average acoustical power developed by a person speaking in a conversational tone corresponds to a mere 0.00001 Watts. The power that would be developed by the entire population of the city of New York speaking at once would barely illuminate a single 100 Watt light bulb.

Specifications

compensation plug
Low-Frequency Alignment:| Vented, boundary compensated
Inputs:| 1 pair binding post, recessed cup
Mounting:| Wall mount bracket included
Frequency Response:| 55Hz-25kHz
Impedance:|  4 Ohm
Sensitivity:| 91.5 dB (2.83V@1m)
Recommended Amplification:| 25-200w
Crossover:|  2.8k
Cabinet Size:| 19.375″ x 14″ x 9.875″ (HxWxD)
Weight (each):| 24 lbs

CE Declaration of Conformity

Legacy Audio
3023 E. Sangamon Ave.
Springfield, IL 62702 USA
800-283-4644
States that this product is in conformity with the essential requirements and other relevant provisions of Low Voltage Directive 2006/95/EC EMC Directive 2004/108/EC All information contained in this manual is accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. In keeping with our policy of ongoing product improvement, we reserve the right to make changes to the design and features of our products without prior notice.

WEEE Compliance

Product Disposal –
Certain international, national, and/or local laws and/or regulations may apply regarding the disposal of this product. For further detailed information, please contact the retailer where you purchased this product or the Legacy Audio Distributor in your country. A listing of Legacy Audio Distributors can be found on the Legacy Audio website www.legacyaudio.com or by contacting Legacy Audio at 3023 E. Sangamon Ave., Springfield, IL 62702, USA—
Phone: +1 217 544-3178.

©2021 Legacy Audio
3023 E Sangamon Ave.
Springfield, IL 62702
Phone: 800-283-4644

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