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

Today I took delivery of a pair of Orchard Audio Starkrimson GaN mono amps. They are Class D analog switching amplifiers with outboard power supplies. 
I bought them from the owner of ArgentPur cables, a nice fellow named Ernie Meunier. They came with a short run of silver speaker cable wired to each amp manual. The Starkrimson monos were the TAS Budget product of the year in 2021. I can see why; more aptly, I can hear why. 
 

 I’ve generally been a tube guy over the past 25 years, but I’ve never owned a high power tube amp nor tried any with LFTs (I became a dealer aroun2004 or so).  I should have; my QS EL34 monos are underpowered at 35wpc into 8 ohms.  And so is my Pass Aleph 30 and it’s gain and input sensitivity are low and I use a Khozmo passive balanced pre. The Orchards are balanced only and my Sim Moon LP5.3 phono stage and Soekris DAC 1541 are also balanced with SE  option. I also have both original Quads and ESL 63s in lovely condition. To my ears, the 8B beats them in my room with these amps. They are utterly liquid, natural, dynamic, spacious and  resolving. So beautifully balanced and relaxed that I can listen all day.  I don’t want for anything else; they have the virtues of nice tube amplifiers and none of the problems plaguing so many solid-state devices I’ve heard over the years, such as dryness, brightness or any hardness or other artifacts.

All that remains is to get the 8C upgrade. I’ve already sent Bruce an email-:)

Thanks Ledoux1238-

I imagine that the 8B is great with higher power tubes amps and I’ve experience some magic with my lower powered ones, but I prefer the Starkrimson amps. They just seem to work better with my associated gear in my room. As I noted, I’ve never had sound like this, even with wonderful horn speakers and original quads.

I bet that the 18s are magnificent and I’d love to hear them someday. I’m certain that they will be too big and too much speaker for my room.   Bruce has already responded and I’m going to order the upgraded woofers. 
 

Harry

Hey Eric-

Did you replace the Sound Anchors with the Mye stands? I thought I had read that you had…

Harry Z

Thanks Eric. Following your idea of fabricating something, I’m wondering if it would be possible to weld in a rod diagonally on each back leg of the Sound Anchors. There’s got to be a way to mod the stand. 
 

I forgot to ask Bruce if the 8C woofers will screw onto the SA stands. I hope so-:)

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

Harry

Tomorrow or Friday I’ll try my quicksilver amps and precision fidelity C7 which has dual mono volume. It will be interesting to see how they sound compared to the class D amps…

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. 
 

Thanks ledoux1238-

I don’t have the 8C woofers yet; it will be about six weeks. I’m pretty certain it’s the speakers because I’ve checked everything else and I’ve tried various sources. I’m playing my quad ESLs now with no issue. I’m going to measure the output and impedance of the 8Bs to see what’s going on.

Overall, I prefer the 8B to the Quads but it’s pretty damn close-:) They both do different things really well but the 8Bs are more dynamic and more full range. And still, it’s hard to find fault with the Quad’s naturalness and glorious midrange…

Turns out that the problem may have been the Khozmo passive preamp… I switched to my Precision Fidelity C7 tube pre and output seem to be the same in both channels. Will be doing some measuring as soon as I can borrow a 0hm meter from a friend-:)