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

The LFT-8b can be turned into a world class speaker that has few equals... for those who appreciate coherence and staging. They play loud enough and only change level, not character no matter the request.

Replace the passive XO with active DSP. Time align the system. Drive the mid and tweets with very good tube gear. Replace the woofer drivers if they are original Usher or Tymphany with the Dayton RS225-8 and drive it with 200WPC of good SS. Roll the bottom octave from the woorfers w first order HP. Add a pair of subs with controls to integrate properly: multiple XO slope, polarity inversion, continuous phase.

Add in a decent cable loom and put them in a very good room.

They will "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee" when required.

Former bi-amped Tympany IV owner - a long time back...

See ieLogical Audiophilia Redux

...just hook 'em up to a nice amplifier and enjoy.  

Years before Steve Guttenberg had a listen to the LFT-8b, Robert E.Greene gave the speaker a very interesting review in TAS (in 2014).

TAS reviews are the worst on the planet. They love everything and do no equipment comparisons because it makes their lives much easier and the ability to crank out reviews because they do none of the hard work that would constitute a real review.  They’re total hacks.  Ok, maybe hifi+ is worse.

ALL equipment reviews are specious and designed to sell product to the naive.

There is now an LFT-8c. It has a new woofer and a price jump to $4800 pair.

First off, this is the speaker value of the century. It is a Line Source Dipole (for the most part) with a force over area drive. All points of the diaphragm are controlled by the signal unlike regular dynamic speakers. It creates way less room interaction than a regular dynamic speaker.  It will create a much more life like image. The width of the drivers was properly chosen to create even horizontal dispersion. It's transient response is excellent. 

Like every loudspeaker out there, it is not perfect. When you stand up the high frequencies disappear as soon as your head gets above the tweeter. The vast majority of us listen seated so it is a quasi problem. But, the same thing happens if you are on the floor having fun with the wife listening to Sade.

The woofer is not a line source. It is a point source radiator. It is going to loose acoustic power with distance much faster than the rest of the speaker which is line source. Consequently, the balance is going to be right only at one distance. For most rooms this is a trivial problem because you can not get that far away from the speaker. The driver is actually a subwoofer driver and is capable of very long excursions vibrating the heck out of the rest of the speaker. The woofer set up was a compromise ET had to make to keep the price down and the morphology of the speaker more acceptable to most people. You have to be able to sell speakers. Ideally there should be four subwoofers spread across the front wall creating a line source and isolating the rest of the speaker from direct involvement with the woofer driver. 

As suggested by ET I would definitely biamp this speaker. It is not very efficient and two lower powered amps are probably less expensive than one very high powered one. You also get to lose an analog crossover that is probably limiting efficiency to some extent.

Mr Guttenberg has not heard 8 foot ESLs with a line source subwoofer array. But, that speaker system costs $100,000.  The ET  LFT 8c is accessible to just about all audiophiles at a very reasonable price. I hate the tonearm but I love the speakers!