Owners Manual For The
AERIS
Loudspeaker System
1
THANK YOU FOR
CHOOSING
LEGACY AUDIO
Aeris is a full range loudspeaker system utilizing the present state of
the art in driver, crossover, amplifier and acoustic radiation control
technologies.
The system is designed, assembled and tested in Springfield, Illinois
by a dedicated group of engineers, craftsmen, and music lovers.
Please take a few moments to learn more about the features and controls of these instruments to assure full enjoyment.
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Table of Contents
Registration
Page
Owners Record 3
The Cabinetry / Our Commitment 4
Warranty 5
Setup
Speaker Installation 6
Hooking Up Cables 7-8
Amplification 9-11
Speaker Connections 12-15
Wavelaunch Processor 16-24
Technology
Continuing the Pursuit of Perfection 25-26
Specifications
27
Wavelet for Aeris 28
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Owners Record
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: AERIS
Serial No: _________________________
Date of purchase: ___________________
Thank you for selecting a Legacy Loudspeaker System. These handcrafted instruments will provide you with many years of listening enjoyment.
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The Cabinetry / Our Commitment
Handcrafted
Beneath the surface of AERIS’s elegant exterior lies rigid MDF
construction. Interlocking joinery maximizes the strength of the cabinet
parts. Polyester fiberfill is selected for internal damping. A sharp rap on
the enclosure will leave you with little more than bruised knuckles.
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”.
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Warranty
Legacy Audio supports its customers and products with pride. We cheerfully warrant our 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 a 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 invoice.
The warranty does not cover transportation costs of 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.
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Speaker Placement
To allow more flexibility in seating arrangements, your Legacy loudspeaker is
designed for broad lateral coverage. Optimal listener position is actually
about 5 to 15 degrees off the axis normal to the loudspeaker baffle. Assuming a listener distance of about 10-12 feet, begin by placing the speakers approximately 8-10 feet apart and about 1 – 3 feet from the wall behind them.
In most rooms this will afford a speaker position at least 2 feet or more from
the side walls. The amount of recommended "toe-in" is a function of the listening angle. As the overall listening angle increases from 40 degrees, the
amount of toe-in should increase. Your Legacy speaker is optimized for a flat
response in the far field. Best results are obtained vertically with the listener's ear at tweeter level with the loudspeakers gently toed in toward the
listener. Increasing the degree of toe-in is recommended when placement
next to sidewalls is required. Placing the loudspeaker or the listener near a
room boundary will generally increase low frequency impact. If you are
forced to position one or both of your loudspeakers in a corner, be prepared
to reduce bass output via the XP-4080 or with your preamp's bass tone
control.
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Hooking Up Cables
The ideal conductor would have negligible resistance, inductance
and capacitance. The table below shows how a few actual speaker
cables measure up.
Cable Ωs/ft pF/ft µH/ft
12 ga. 0.0033 24 0.21
14 ga. 0.0048 17 0.13
16 ga. 0.0079 16 0.18
18 ga. 0.0128 28 0.21
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.
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Hooking Up Cables
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 requires 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 of 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 onehalf 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.
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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 matching 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.
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Amplification
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 is 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 through decades of refinement, loudspeakers are still notoriously inefficient transducers, requiring huge amounts of power to recreate
the impact of the live performance. Typically less that 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%)
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Amplification
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.
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Speaker Connections
Connecting the Speakers
Connect the L, R speaker cables from each upper range amplifier channel
to the respective speaker’s +, - binding posts. You may use spades, bare
wire or locking banana pins. Be sure that no stray wires bridge between
the input posts to prevent electrical shorting and take care that correct polarity (+, -) is observed .
When wiring connections are completed as above, complete the AC connection to the external socket of the internal amplifiers of each Aeris speaker
by connecting the provided cord to the room wall plate, power strip or
power filtration unit. Power up the processor next via the rear panel
switch, and finally rock the I/O switch on the rear panel of the Aeris to the
“I” position to turn on the internal amplifiers. Note that these amplifiers are
green compliant, idling at a few watts. They will automatically turn themselves on when a music signal is present, providing up to total of 1000
watts of power to the woofers.
Crossover Illumination
Aeris benefits from premium Clarity capacitors, Kimber HF Silver wire and
custom wound copper coils. We have made it possible to view the internal
crossover and the dipolar midrange/midbass alignment by rocking the
Crossover Illumination switch to the ON position. A series of low-voltage,
long-life LEDs will allow viewing. To defeat the illumination feature, simple
rock the switch into the down position.
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Speaker Connections
XP-4080 Processor Cable Connections
For use with standalone amplifiers
From To
Left channel of preamp output Processor Input 1 and Input 3*
Right channel of preamp output Processor Input 2 and Input 4*
(use Y adapter)
(use Y adapter)
Processor Output 1 Left Aeris rear panel Bass Input (XLR)
Processor Output 2 Left channel input to amplifier driving Aeris upper range
Processor Output 5 Right Aeris rear panel Bass Input (XLR)
Processor Output 6 Right channel input to amplifier driving Aeris upper range
*The redundant feed of left and right input signals to the processor allows a low frequency correction algorithm to be applied. This compensates for the decrease in channel separation at longer wavelengths in listening rooms. This algorithm
may be defeated at any time by muting inputs 3,4 on the processor’s front panel.
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Speaker Connections
XP-4080 Processor Cable Connections
For use with integrated amplifiers
From To
Left channel pre-out of integrated Processor Input 1 and Input 3*
Right channel pre-out of inegrated Processor Input 2 and Input 4*
(use Y adapter)
(use Y adapter)
Processor Output 1 Left Aeris rear panel Bass Input (XLR)
Processor Output 2 Left channel amp in on integrated amp driving Aeris upper range
Processor Output 5 Right Aeris rear panel Bass Input (XLR)
Processor Output 6 Right channel amp in on integrated amp driving Aeris upper range
*The redundant feed of left and right input signals to the processor allows a low frequency correction algorithm to be applied. This compensates for the decrease in channel separation at longer wavelengths in listening rooms. This algorithm
may be defeated at any time by muting inputs 3,4 on the processor’s front panel.
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Two 1m Y-cables with RCA Male to XLR Male
Two 1m XLR cables with XLR female to RCA Male
Two extended length balanced XLR cables to bass section
Speaker Connections
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Wave Launch Processor
The high definition Digital Wavelaunch Processor hosts a LEGACY custom algorithm which automatically loads when the processor is powered on. Factory settings are ‘plug and play’, and do not require a computer to utilize. Connections between the
preamp, power amplifier, and speakers should be as shown on previous page.
Selecting the Program
1. Press the enter button
2. Scroll through the programs using the job wheel
3. Press enter to select the program of choice
4. Press enter again to confirm selection. The program will now load.
Users are welcome to load the included software and learn to make individual adjustments as desired. However it is recommended that any changes be saved as Program 6 or higher to avoid overwriting the factory settings.
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Wave Launch Processor
Downloading and Installing the XConsole software
Downloading
From Included CD
Your Wave Launch Processor will come with a CD or USB drive containing the XConsole
software. Insert the CD and find the install file. Move/Save the install file to your
computer.
From Xilica Website
- Go to www.xilica.com
- Click on the “Downloads” tab at the top of the screen
- Click “XConsole” on the Left and then Click “Software”
- Click “XConsole software” to start the download
- Save and Extract the installation file on your computer
Installing
- Double click on the install file and follow the on– screen instructions to install the software.
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