Legacy Focus SE or Magico A3

I own the original Legacy Focus speakers. I have heard that the Focus HD is inferior sounding despite the higher quality drivers. The SE version is very similar other than the placement of the ribbon tweeter. The Focus has 3 woofers as does the Focus 20/20. The Focus 20/20 has a slightly more difficult impedance than the original Focus. Besides sounding better, the original Focus sells for about $2500/pair. It can be driven for rock and heavy metal with a 35 watt Yamaha CR-600 ($150) and sound great.

I mention this speaker not because it’s the best but because it provides me with a balanced sound with great detail like a planar or electrostat, wide soundstage, good imaging (with Shakti Hallographs), plenty of bass, beautiful tonality, quick transients (not as quick as a Magico) and dynamic (not as dynamic as a big horn system). It is revealing of your equipment and tweaks, so there is always an upgrade path to owning them. I used to own electrostats, big ones, for 20 years. Then I found out about the Focuses from my friend Robert Pincus. Steve Hoffman, Tom Port and several other friends own(ed) Focus speakers (the originals). There is a good reason for this and it wasn’t because we couldn’t afford a better speaker. My wife of 20 years thoroughly disliked my electrostats because they lacked dynamics, bass and required center only seating to enjoy them. She likes rock and heavy metal. The Focus and Signature IIIs were a perfect replacement for both her music and my music (opera, jazz, orchestral and earlier pop).

Also, Magico’s are more difficult to drive and you can buy 4 used pairs of Focus speakers for the cost of one Magico pair. I hope this helps.

P.S. Be sure that the Focus mid-range drivers have plenty of dacron or other dampening material behind the drivers; otherwise, they are brash and especially bad on brass instruments.  My pair needed a pillowsworth of dacron for the 4 drivers because the prior owner left the chambers bare when he rewired them.

I would not own Tekton Double Impacts because it is noted in reviews that it has a small listening area.  I often have guests (including my wife) and I want them to enjoy the music as much as I do.  It is one of the reasons I sold my electrostats and bought the Focus and Signature IIIs

Let it be known that price does not equate to performance, except at the high end. To better the Focus speakers, I’m looking at $50-60K for Von Schweikert VR55, Einstein and Luminwhite Kyara (also all high efficiency speakers). The Focus will save you big bucks now and can be used with most good amps. As to CD players, I have two, a $6K EAR Acute and a $150 souped up Pioneer DV05 DVD player (twin lasers) which has 6 big new capacitors and a high end A/C cable. The Pioneer sounds 98% as good as the EAR. Shocking. Just ask Oregonpapa about his unit. So, it’s not so much about the cost as it is in the execution of the product and the equipment’s complementing each other. I don’t know about your Anthem equipment sound, but you have a good analog front end. Even Focus SEs used are about half price and probably just as big a bargain.

From a personal perspective, I would not own a Magico speaker and probably not a Wilson. I don’t care for their sound and power needs either.

Much of my equipment is custom built using NOS tubes, NOS capacitors, silver solder, NOS transformers (Altec/Peerless 1568s), NOS subminiature tubes. etc.  It is difficult to duplicate the quality and sound of many of my gear's components in my main audio system. 

However, for the video, I'm cheap and using a Yamaha CR620 with ADS L620 speakers, custom cabling from GroverHuffman.com, stillpoints, SR red duplex and an Omega E-Mat on the circuit breaker panel.  Unbelievable deep bass from this setup and quite dynamic too for a Sony SBR x940d 75" TV.