Eminent Technology LFT-8b in Harry's system

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.

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. 

JGH had it right so far as I am concerned. HP had it wrong although he eventually pointed out the midrange deadness I think.

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.

I've only heard the Maggies cum ribbon tweeter in audio salons or at hi-fi shows, but the improvement is obvious, for midrange and treble, in every way.  I think I subsequently owned the Tympani IIIs, with the huge woofer panels sitting in between two outboard midrange/treble panels.  But those preceded the incorporation of the ribbon tweeter.  They were way better than the 1U but not as good as the Martin Logan CLS with which I replaced the Tympanis, once and for all.  From then on, I was exclusively an ESL guy. To get back to the main topic, I have always been aware of the favorable reviews and opinions on the Eminent Technology speakers, but I am guessing that my earlier trauma with the 1Us might have kept me from giving them a try.  Moreover, I was not aware of their tube-friendly impedance character until reading this thread.  I would have thought they were like the Maggies, not at all well suited to tubes.