Steve Guttenberg finally reviews the Eminent Technology LFT-8b loudspeaker.

@bdp24 Grant quoted CAD$ 900 for the Mye stands. I initially thought they were quite steep for two structs. Now I understand that it is the entire stand + struct combo. 

Someone on Audiogon posted the use of Townshend Pods  in lieu of the SA spikes to very good results. With both Towshend Pods and the Mye stand, that would take  the LFT 8s' into another level. The only thing i don't like about the Pods is that they raise the speaker several inches. And the alignment of the tweeter and my listening height is rather critical. If a bit off axis, details suffer. 

Just heard back from Bruce. The 8C woofers come with brackets to fit the Sound Anchors-:)

Harry

@bdp24: So that we are being clear, the LFT8b/c do not have a wood frame. The frame is entirely welded steel. There are narrow strips of wood that screw onto the steel frame, but they add no structural rigidity - that’s all up to the steel frame. The wood is there for appearance (and I wish they were a bit nicer, to be honest).

I can push against our frames (panels) and they flex a little due to the leverage, but there is no such pressure against them at any other time. An earthquake bad enough to cause the panels to bend would bring down the house, so not really sure there would be an advantage to added rigidity. I can MIG, TIG or gas weld my own stands and modifications, but saw no reason to do so. I considered it when I was replacing the panel with the buzzing midrange ribbon with the entire new panel sent by Bruce, but my real interest in future mods was to install threaded inserts into the wood woofer box for the steel panel frame to screw into more securely.

Damn, you’re right @gktaudio! I have both the LFT-4 and LFT-8b in my room, and use the latter with it’s grill cloth frames in place. The LFT-4 didn’t come with (a) grill frame(s), and it is the LFT-4 which has the LFT driver assembly (containing bass, midrange, and tweeter sections) attached to a solid oak frame. No wonder the LFT-8b is so heavy! Actually, so is the LFT-4. I thought the weight was a result of all those bar magnets ;-) .

@ledoux1238: Yeah, the listeners ears really have to be within the height of the tweeter, that’s how a line-source tweeter behaves. The original version of the LFT-8 had the tweeter strip at the top of the panel rather in the middle, and people were complaining that the high end dropped off when they sat down. In the a or b revision Bruce lowered the tweeter to it’s present location.

But there is a solution to the tweeter being too high with the Townshend Pods in place: put shims under the Pod(s) at the rear of the 8b, which will then point the tweeter down towards your ears. Little blocks of something stiff will do, like birch plywood (painted black). Adjust the height of the rear of the LFT-8 until you get the center of the tweeter to be aimed at the height of your ears. That's how the tweeter pods in the big Wilson speakers are aligned.

You’re most welcome Leo. The Starkrimson amps with GaN FET power supplies are great.

Eric and others-

It seems that one of my LFTs is about 3-D be louder than the other. I’ve tried swapping amps, cables and all the usual stuff. My room tends to lean slightly left (it must know my politics-:) but it tends to sound like everything is coming out of the left channel now when I’m off axis. I wrote Bruce and I’m hoping to figure it out, but any suggestions would be welcome.