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Eminent Technology LFT-8b in Harry's system

I recently signed up for the V.P.I. Industries newsletter, and today received my first such. In it, Harry Weisfeld reviews a Grado phono cartridge, but this post concerns one of the speakers he listed as being those he uses to listen to music and evaluate recordings through. All but one are traditional dynamic cones/domes in a box designs, only one being a planar/dipole. That planar is the Eminent Technology LFT-8b. I'm pretty sure Harry could, if he so chose, have instead as his sole planar a pair of $6000 Magneplanar MG 3.7i's, or even $14,000 20.7's. But nope, he instead chose the $2500 ET LFT-8b, imo the greatest value in a loudspeaker on the market. I compared it to the 1.7i, and the difference was dramatic.
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bdp24 OP
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Scot, I went through a similar learning curve back in the mid-70’s. I bought a pair of Magneplanar Tympani T-I’s in ’73, but grew dissatisfied by their slightly opaque lack of transparency and missing bottom octave. In ’74 I replaced them with a pair of Fulton Model J’s, which cured both problems (the J’s had an array of six of the great RTR ESL tweeter, and a transmissionline-loaded woofer that went pretty deep). But I soon missed the qualities large planar loudspeakers excel at, and sold the Fultons, forever after a diehard planar lover and owner.

People continue to ignore the LFT-8, buying Maggies instead. I have nothing against them (I currently own a pair of Tympani T-IVa’s, though I don’t have a room big enough to use them), but compare the LFT-8b to the MG1.7i; if you have already bought a pair of 1.7’s, you’ll wish you hadn’t ;-). The problem is, ET doesn’t have many dealers, so one can’t easily audition them. Luckily, Brooks Berdan Ltd. had a pair (Brooks was a big fan of ET and Bruce Thigpen), where I heard them. ET has a money-back offer on the LFT-8, with I believe a 30-day audition period. I suppose the consumer has to pay the shipping, but to hear the LFT it might be worth it. Consumers without a dealer within 150 miles can buy factory-direct, at list price.

lewm
13,321 posts
 
I owned Tympani 1Us, purchased right after they hit the market with rave reviews from HP and others. I set them up right next to my homebrew KEF/RTR speakers described here in 2017. It was no contest; my speakers blew away the Tympanis in every way. Not only were the 1s bass deficient but also the midrange was opaque and the treble was so lacking as to fail to reproduce primary tones in the hf range. Cymbals easily reproduced by the RTR ESL tweeters in my speakers were absent with the Tympani’s. I sold them within a week. This is no slur on modern magnepans with ribbon tweeters, just a comment on how far we’ve come.
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bdp24 OP
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Lew, do you remember J. Gordon Holt's reaction to the T-IU? He drew a line on a chart, representing what the speaker's frequency response sounded like to him. It looked like the side profile of the top of a single-hump camel: a midrange hump with the response above and below the hump falling off in both directions. Owners of the T-IU were not happy when the T-IA was soon introduced, incorporating changes made to correct that. The IU could NOT be updated to IA status. 
lewm
13,321 posts
 
JGH had it right so far as I am concerned. HP had it wrong although he eventually pointed out the midrange deadness I think.
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bdp24 OP
9,966 posts
 
Agreed. Magnepan kept at it though, the 3-panel Tympani line culminating in the T-IVa, a pair of which I now own. Though the two woofer panels don't do the bottom half-octave (30-20Hz), if braced (either to the ceiling or the wall behind the panels) make great bass above that. And their ribbon tweeter (present in the T-IVa, and in the current MG3.7i, 20.7i, and 30.7) is a real good one.
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