Steve Guttenberg finally reviews the Eminent Technology LFT-8b loudspeaker.
Over the past few years I and a number of other owners of the Eminent Technology LFT-8b have on this site extolled the virtues of this under-acknowledged loudspeaker. I myself have encouraged those interested in Magnepans to try and hear the LFT-8 before buying. That is not easy, as ET has only five U.S.A. dealers.
I am a long-time fan of Maggies, having bought my first pair (Tympani T-I) in 1973, my last (Tympani T-IVa) a few years ago. But the Tympani’s need a LOT of room (each 3-panel speaker is slightly over 4’ wide!), which I currently don’t have. So I gave a listen to the MG 1.7i, and didn’t much care for it. As I recounted in a thread here awhile back, I found the 1.7 to sound rather "wispy", lacking in body and tonal density (thank you Art Dudley ;-).
Brooks Berdan was (RIP) a longtime ET dealer, installing a lot the company’s linear-tracking air-bearing arm on Oracle, VPI, and SOTA tables. After Brooks’ passing his wife Sheila took over management of the shop, continuing on as an ET dealer. I knew Brooks was a fan of the LFT-8, and he had very high standards in loudspeakers (his main lines were Vandersteen, Wilson, and Quad). The shop had a used pair of LFT-8’s, so I gave them a listen. They sounded good enough to me to warrant investigate further, so I had Sheila order me a pair, along with the optional (though nearly mandatory) Sound Anchor bases.
I wouldn’t waste your time if I didn’t consider the ET LFT-8b to be just as I have on numerous occasions (too many times for some here) described it: the current best value in all of hi-fi. Hyperbole? Well, you no longer have to take it from just me and the other owners here: Steve Guttenberg finally got around to getting in for review a pair (the LFT-8 has been in production for 33 years!), and here is what he has to say about it. After watching the video, you can read other reviews (in a number of UK mags, and in TAS by Robert E. Greene) on the ET website.
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If you want to take it to another level......here are some suggestions: 1. Hardwire everything......no spades on your speaker wires.....hardwire your speaker wire right to the xover parts. Remove the connectors from the xover to the panels. Hardwire the wire to the woofer right to the voice coil wire.......where it is attached to the tab on the speaker. 2. Make an external xover and mount it either behind the speaker (damped and isolated from floor or isolated from the woofer box on top of the woofer box). Use cryoed 12 gauge wax coils from Jantzen and make sure you go into the inside of the coil and out the outside. Hardwire all the xover parts together. Use the best caps and resistors you can afford. Check out this custom xover (bottom of page) I made for some Apogee Duetta speakers a couple of years ago: http://tweakaudio.com/EVS-2/Speaker_ideas.html 3. Put felt all around the front of the tweeter.....overlapping a hair over the inside edge that the tweeter sees. Way more focused and pure. Please share with everyone the xover for the speaker.....so we can all do mods and help each other. You cannot hurt ET by doing this. These are custom drivers.....he cannot lose anything by you sharing the xover schematic. He can only win....if people tell him what sounds better that what he uses......he can then build a better speaker and we won't have to mod it. Its a win-win. Be Happy......it is your birthright......Be a smile Billionaire......its free!.....S M I L E ...Start My Internal Love Engine........rev it up! |
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