The bass help comes from an ET-designed 8" woofer, operating in a 0.8-ft3 sealed enclosure. The woofer's 56gm cone is purposefully massive…
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The ET's crossover is wired for first-order, 6dB/octave slopes, but what's really interesting is that the 42" by 3" LFT midrange panel covers the entire 180Hz–10kHz range. That's no typo: 180Hz to 10kHz, with shallow 6dB/octave slopes to boot! Large enough to move bass air but light enough to cover all but the highest harmonics, the LFT midrange handles a much wider range than usual, only needing a bit of help in the deep bass and the highest octave.
Wait a second—I'm a reviewer, that's who! Ah gots POWER! So: if a speaker like the LFT-VIII makes John Atkinson's DI bass sound like a bass caught by a microphone in a room, it's doing something wrong.
At the frequency extremes, the LFT-VIII has a bit of trouble matching its terrific midband performance. The bass, while it goes down surprisingly low and strong for such a narrow-profiled speaker, is not as tight or as tuneful as that of the Spica Angelus or the ProAc Response 2, or especially that of the Muse Model 18 subwoofer I normally use in conjunction with these two speakers. The…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Three-way planar/dynamic hybrid speaker. Drivers: 8" acoustic-suspension, paper-cone woofer, 42" L by 3" W midrange panel, 18" L by 1/4" W tweeter panel. Crossover frequencies: 180Hz, 10kHz, 6dB/octave slopes. Sensitivity: 83dB/W/m. Impedance: 8 ohms. Phase accuracy: 100Hz–31kHz, ±20°.
Dimensions: 13" W by 60" H by 1.75" D (panel), 24" D (bass bin, including feet). Weight: 65 lbs each.
Serial numbers of units tested: 892015446L/R.
Finish: oak standard.
Price: $1500/pair (1993); $1899/pair (2008). A tweeter update is available to convert…
Sidebar 2: System
The ETs were hooked up to my reference system: LP playback was courtesy of the Well-Tempered Record Player, Audio Research SP-14 phono stage, and a Sumiko Blue Point Special cartridge; CDs were fed to the Theta Data II/Basic II combo, along with a PS Audio Ultralink; DAT playback came from a JVC DAT deck feeding the processors; preamp was the cool-man Melos SHA-1 headphone amplifier; amps were VTL Deluxe 225s, Muse Model One Hundred, Forté Models 4 and 6, and Aragon 4004 Mk.II; Aside from the AudioQuest Lapis between the 'table and phono stage, Kables were Kimber KCAG…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
Though Eminent Technology specifies the LFT-VIII's sensitivity as 83dB/W/m, I couldn't get anywhere near that figure, my B-weighted sensitivity on the midrange axis being some 4.7dB lower than that of the BBC LS3/5A, which weighs in at around 82.5dB/Wm. Partly this is because the British speaker has a rising treble compared with the Eminent's sloped-down high end (see later). Even so, looking at just the octave band centered on 1kHz, the LFT-VIII still played 2dB quieter than the LS3/5A for the same 2.83V input. This is a speaker that needs to be fed plenty of…
WAGNER: Siegfried
Siegfried Jerusalem, Siegfried; James Morris, Wanderer; Peter Haage, Mime; Eva Martón, Brünnhilde; Theo Adam, Alberich; Jadwiga Rappé, Erda; Kurt Rydl, Fafner; Kiri Te Kanawa, Forest Bird; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bernard Haitink
EMI CDS 7 54290 2 (4 CDs only). Wolfram Graul, prod.; Martin Wöhr, eng. DDD. TT: 3:49:25
Siegfried Jerusalem, Siegfried; James Morris, Wanderer; Peter Haage, Mime; Eva Martón, Brünnhilde; Theo Adam, Alberich; Jadwiga Rappé, Erda; Kurt Rydl, Fafner; Kiri Te Kanawa, Forest Bird; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bernard Haitink
EMI CDS 7 54290 2 (4 CDs only). Wolfram Graul, prod.; Martin Wöhr, eng. DDD. TT: 3:49:25
Das Rheingold is not even properly part of Der Ring des Nibelungen, which Wagner called a trilogy; it's a brief, concise prologue from which no one expects a great deal of passion or emotional catharsis. After all, there's not a single…
I believe Ken Kantor said it first: a couple of years ago, in his September 1990 interview with Robert Harley (Vol.13 No.9), he remarked that "there's no reason why a two-way 6" loudspeaker can't be the equal of almost the best speaker out there from a certain frequency point upward, with the possible exception of dynamic range." When I read those words, they rang true. If you put to one side the need to reproduce low bass frequencies and can accept less-than-live playback levels, a small speaker can be as good as the best, and allow its owner to enjoy the benefits of its size—visual appeal…
Higher in frequency, the midrange was in general superb (though with one problem area, which I'll come to in a moment). Midband coloration seemed remarkably absent, voices and strings reproducing about as naturally as I can remember. A current favorite test track of mine for violin and cello tonality is the introduction to John Tavener's The Protecting Veil (Virgin Classics VC7 91474-2), which sets a solo cello playing high in the soprano register against some of the most glorious divided string writing I've heard since Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia. On a foundation of double-bass…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: two-way, reflex-loaded, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" (25mm) aluminum-alloy dome tweeter, 6.5" (170mm) aluminum-alloy cone woofer. Crossover frequency: approximately 3kHz. Crossover slopes: 2nd-order, 12dB/octave high-pass. Frequency response: 35Hz–24kHz ±3dB. Sensitivity: 88.5dB/W/m (2.83V). Maximum spl: 120dB. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Amplifier requirements: 30–200W.
Dimensions: 20.1" (510mm) H by 7.9" (200mm) W by 8.9" (255mm) D. Shipping weight: 48.5 lbs/pair (22kg) (matching stands weigh 62 lbs, 28kg each!).
Finish…
Sidebar 2: Reference system
I used four amplifiers with these speakers: the $995 Acurus DA1, Audio Research's Classic 60 stereo amp and Classic 120 monoblocks, and a pair of Mark Levinson No.20.6 monoblocks. Preamp was either the Melos headphone amp or the McCormack Line Drive Deluxe, each coupled with the McCormack Phono Drive. Front-end components consisted of a fully loaded Linn Lingo LP player, a ReVox PR99 open-reel recorder, VTL Reference and PS Audio UltraLink DACs driven by Meridian 602 and Wadia WT-3200 CD transports (connected with Mod Squad Wonderlink or AudioQuest Digital/…