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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.
bdp24
brucefrederick
11 posts
 
I did try bi amping during the stay at home order and maybe noticed a little more clarity and less smearing of nuances and detail.  Overall I think bi wiring gives me  more of an improvement than biamping.  I guess if covid comes back in the fall I'll try an outboard crossover as I have loss some real estate inside the woofer cabinet with the large sized film caps.  Hats off to Bruce Thigpen for putting up with me as I play around with his genius design.  Every email has been most pleasant and gracious.

bdp24's avatar
bdp24 OP
10,111 posts
 
Likewise Bruce, every time I have spoken with BT on the phone he has been very relaxed, not like he is trying to get off the phone as soon as possible. In my opinion, to realize the full benefits of bi-amping requires the employment of a filter on the inputs of each power amp, to keep the bass out of the m/t amp and drivers. As the x/o is a fairly simple symmetrical 1st order at 180Hz, that can be accomplished with a single cap on the input jacks of each amp, though a means of balancing the two amp’s gain is still required. A volume control on one of the amps (the bass amp being a good choice) works fine.
scothurwitz
113 posts
 
Hi everyone

Has anyone tried to run two separate sets of speaker wires from a stereo amp to the two sets of binding posts on the LFT8B’s? My dealer says this makes a huge difference. Right now I’m using one set of speaker wires with the same wire for jumpers with great results. Thank you.

Scot
sjbrook
2 posts
 
I’ve run my LFT8b’s (and prior to the tweeter upgrade as 8a) bi-wired and bi-amped.

The bi-amp configuration was using 4/5ths of a Sunfire Cinema Grand. Kimber 4VS on top, 8PR on bottom. Have run bi-wire with the same wire combo from a pair of Cary SLM100 mono amps (both with KT88 and EL34). Currently running single wire with the 4VS from the Cary’s with 4VS as the jumper and EL34s.
With the Sunfire there was a subtle but appreciable difference in bi-amping but that was just having brought more muscle to the table. Never did a bi-wire with the Sunfire.

Ultimately I heard no significant difference between bi-wire vs single on the Cary’s. Did compare the 4VS by itself vs the 8PR. The 4VS ultimately had better synergy in the system.


highend666
352 posts
 
I bet these speakers would sound much better with Danny Richie's all new Copper Caps from GR Research !   

 The best Caps on Planet Earth !?
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