Legacy Audio Aeris XP

I talked to Bill Duddleston. Sales, James Thompson, mentioned XP in one of the hi fi shows. With XP, no Wavelet is needed. Run the amps like normal to the XP with normal speaker wires. There is a knob on the back of the speaker panel so you can adjust the input of the bass. Bill said the crossover inside samples the frequencies from your external amp and send the target frequency to the internal amp for the bass section. This setup allows for frequency domain adjustment but not time domain adjustment which requires Wavelet 2. I don't' know its sound quality compared to the standard Aeris XP. That is why I am asking.

I don’t own Legacy speakers however, I have owned the Wavelet pre/x-over and can tell you that it is pretty amazing. I really enjoyed the Bohmer room correction. If I can say one negative thing about the Wavelet is that the x-over is not user adjustable. Meaning, if you get new speakers, the unit has to be sent back to Legacy to get re-programmed. Other than that, pretty awesome unit and I would definitely want it in my system. Specially a system of that caliber. 

May I ask why you would want to ignore the XD version? I too have the Focus XD's but with the Wavelet II. It is a pretty amazing combination. My room is 14 x 18 so I was afraid the Aeris was too much plus it was far above what I could pay for speakers. I was completely rebuilding my system and had other components to add. 

The Wavelet II is an extra layer in the electronics. I just bought a new preamp which I like a lot. I am afraid the extra Wavelet II may alter the sound in a negative way. The Wavelet II is a preamp/DAC/room correction processor for only $8k. My preamp alone costs more than the Wavelet II. Additionally, you need to add another interconnect. Extra component and extra wire would not affect the sound negatively? With the Wavelet II, I defeat the purpose of having a high quality stand alone preamp. 

Ok, yeah understood.  I don't use a preamp, the Wavelet does that. I do have an outboard DAC I like though. And of course the DSP is used along with an outboard amp for the mid/tops. So the internal amp on the XD's is used for only bass.