Eminent Technology LFT-8c Robert Greene review

So thanx to @wlamt22  assistance, my previous reference (Apogee Duetta Signatures) have been moved to my upstairs office - sitting Idle for now.

These are endgame speakers. It’s that simple. Thus far (2 months in) I prefer NOT using the DSP and AD/DA for the Mid/treble amp/panels… better/more purity and soundstage depth in particular, especially on Vinyl; but noticeable on digital via Yggdrasil Singular as well. I’ve got them 7 feet apart (on center) with outside edges 44” from sidewalls, and almost 7 feet out into the room. Sweet spot is about 10 1/2 feet out - room length is 25.5 feet, width is 15.5.

Anyone in New England want to listen, just drop me a line.

Full Disclosure: I’m an ET-authorized “dealer” (of sorts) as well as the newest (first) Schiitr… (hope not violating any rules here, kinda new). 

@wlamt22 just left, spent about 3 1/2 hours tweaking with placement, etc. tried with tweets on inside (normal) and reversed em. Tried multiple positions with the tweeters to the outside, but in the end I just found that way far too “variable” across known excellent soundstaging music - in some cases an odd “double lobed effect” with a diminishing/pinching of the middle of the stage. But wow, even wider…

worked our way back to where I started: 7 feet apart, 44” from side walls, toed in about 1” each (axis crossing about 2 feet behind sweet spot head place).

One other observation now almost two months in: they also sound darn good outside the sweet spot, far less off-axis diffraction effects from the tweeter and the mid not being same element than I would have expected. This is the ONE area where the Duetta’s were slightly better: the ribbon for mid and tweet is one and the same unit.

@bowmoreman I think you posted similar observations on Audiokarma. And you refer to  bypassing the DSP on the 8c as the ‘naked’ mode. When Steve Guttenberg reviewed the 8c, he also used the ‘naked’ mode. And to be honest, I was a little put off by it. I thought then that he was not reviewing the speakers as the designer had intended However, having used the 8c as intended for the past 4-5 years, your suggestion of using it in the ‘naked’ mode intrigued me. Having only two hours of listening before work this morning, I was really surprised by the sound. 
 

I think it’s the first time I heard the 8c as a 8b with powered sub-woofers. I just assumed that the ‘naked’ mode just might screw up enough of the presets to make the 8cs’ not listenable. Well, on that I was wrong. It was a very promising listening session. And I intend to continue this weekend. 
 

 Thanks for the suggestion. 

I just got a reply from Bruce Thigpen regarding running amps directly into the panels + tweeters, about half of his customers prefer it. This is a surprisingly high percentage to me. 
 

I spent a bit more time listening to the direct mode last night. The time delay setting between the woofer and the panel will not work in this configuration. But the gradient dipole woofers’ original settings are intact, as well as the volume control. I was advised that adjusting the phase degree setting might help in cleaning up any upper bass bump, though not in my case. This configuration change is a bonus after the introduction of SET amps to drive the speakers.  An artifice  of the A-D / D-A chain has been unveiled. The difference is not night and day. As I did not play around with the parametric settings to optimize the in-room response, this direct setting probably is a better fit. 
 

@Bowmoreman You mentioned that your Duetta Signature is sittling idle. Did I read your post  correctly in that you prefer the bass response of the 8c over the Duetta? 

So, at our last listening session about a week ago now, @wlamt22 and I tried out the “tweeters on the outside” configuration, including messing with side to side distancing and varying toe-in. We both felt the resulting soundstaging (on classical Mercury and RCA recordings from the golden era of epic recording quality) was - at best - weird and “lobed”, at worst we completely lost the middle, oddly enough.

@ledoux1238 Yes, the LFT’s bass is indeed “better” than the Duetta’s (in this room), it’s “nimbleness” has exposed a bit of “one note-ishness” with the Duetta’s.  It’s long been my experience that - for dipole bass panels (Apogees, Maggies, etc.) one can either optimize for bass, or for soundstaging/imaging, but never both at same time. These LFT’s change that dynamic nicely.

Most shocking to me (thus far, it is an ongoing adventure) is just how amazingly better they are with Tyr mono-blocks (epic soundstaging, especially depth) than they are with the Wotan (which I think of as a more modern, and slightly less “warm” Classe’ DR9 - which was one of THE speakers for Duetta’s back in the day).

My change (after about 3 weeks in “stock” configuration) to having the Panels driven full range and not going through AD/DA conversion removed some “glare” in the upper mids we had heard on a few cuts.  In my talks with Jason at Schiit, he was like” I’m not putting my carefully created analog output of my Yggy, etc. through an additional AD/DA conversion. Hard no”.  For me, in my room, he’s right.

I can easily imagine, however, that in some rooms the DSP wizardry might well be mandatory. But with mine WAY out into a nicely rectangular and symmetric room, it’s just not really NEEDED to tame bass issues.

My next battle is getting at least SOME diffusion on the front wall. They sound great right now (as the reflection back to listening seat is well over 12ms (good symphony halls are more like 15) which means it is sufficiently delayed as to not “corrupt” the soundstaging - which is the deepest I have personally ever heard in any of my rooms over the last 40+ years.

Anyone in New England want to listen, just drop me a line.

Full Disclosure: I’m an ET-authorized “dealer” (of sorts) as well as the newest (first) Schiitr… (hope not violating any rules here, kinda new). 

For those who want a picture, Visit my “About” page: BAT Schiitr Listening Room with ET LFT-8’s