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Pairing Planar Speakers With A Subwoofer (Eminent Technology)

What do you think of pairing the Eminent Technology LFT 8-B planars with a pair of Rythmik F25 subwoofers?

Please check out my room on my system page. I am attempting to emulate a set of Infinity IRS Betas.

System page: https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/876

Eminent Technology LFT 8-B: http://www.eminent-tech.com/main.html

Rythmik F25 subwoofer: http://www.rythmikaudio.com/F25.html

128x128mitch4t
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,788 posts
 

Hey @grigorianvlad, is that a Yorkie? Great little dogs!

As an owner of Maggies, ET LFT-8b’s, and Quad ESL’s, I have to ask you: is where your panels are located in the pics where you listened to them at? The common wisdom is that planars need to be at an absolute minimum 3’ from the wall behind them, but I consider 5’ a better number.

And as an owner of a number of subs (GR Research/Rythmik, Rythmik, HSU, KEF B139’s in transmissionline enclosures, former Infinity RS-1b owner), I have to ask: did you try the F25 in different locations in your room? Corners are the absolute worst place for subs, if sound quality rather than quantity is the priority.

Damn that F25 is big!

grigorianvlad's avatar
grigorianvlad
11 posts
 
Here is another video of the LFT-8b and F25
grigorianvlad's avatar
grigorianvlad
11 posts
 
@bdp24 Yes, that is a Yorkie.
Regarding the positioning of the speakers. There is a panoramic picture in that link, it shows a sofa with a pillow on it. That is the listening position. As you can see there isnt much space to give the Eminents. They need 3-5 feet behind them and the listening position should have at least that from the back. I guess I should have placed the speakers on the left. Then there would have been plenty of space behind them and also behind me. But when I tried that the sound became muddy, but with excellent depth and imaging. I prefer resolution and details, so I left them almost against the wall.
About the sub placement. I am afraid the speed of the sub or lack of thereof cannot be improved by positioning. Yes, it may become less muddy, but it still will have a heavy woofer that is slow to respond. It will swallow some bass notes. It is all about engineering. A slow sub will create a loud boom. A faster and more resolving sub will create different notes, you will be able to her a pluck of bass guitar or even several guitars just from the sub alone, the attack and decay are clearly heard. Even a better sub with a light driver will create more details, you will hear your midrange (violins, trumpets and voices) with more body, more space, more palpable. It will not be earth shattering, but that is precisely the point.
I m afraid if a sub cant reproduce bass correctly it doesnt matter where you placed it. This video explains how a subwoofer should be used in an audiophile setup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YvlxKb1fp4
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,788 posts
 

The perceived "speed" of a sub is greatly influenced by the room, where in the room the sub(s) is(are) positioned, not merely the mass of the sub’s driver. "I am afraid the speed of the sub or lack thereof cannot be improved by positioning". No, but it certainly can be made worse by poor positioning! By the way, do you know the mass of the Rythmik and REL woofers? How about that of the GR Research 12" paper-coned woofer? How about the gauss figure of those woofers motors (magnets), without which the cone's mass figure is irrelevant?

Regarding the distance a planar is from the wall behind it, that distance effects not only depth and imaging, but also frequency response via comb filtering. The back wave of the planar reflects off the rear wall, meets the front wave, causing frequency-related cancellation and reinforcement.

grigorianvlad's avatar
grigorianvlad
11 posts
 
@bdp24  Good to know, thank you. 
I wonder if @mitch4t ended up buying both the Eminents and the Rythmiks?  What are his thoughts?
The Eminents are notoriously inefficient. Before them I had Polk LSiM705's with sensitivity of 88dB/W/m. Room calibration set them at -7dB (from -12dB to +12dB). The Eminents are rated 84dB/W/ml. So, naturally I assumed that auto calibration will set them at -3dB to create the same sound level, to compensate for low sensitivity. Guess what. It set it at +7dB, a whole 14dB louder! You need a lot of juice to power them, the 75W minimum power rating isn't realistic. I had a 600W@8ohm power amp and it barely did the job. They also took around 6-7 months to break in.
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