What have other owners of Tekton Design Ulfberht Speakers discovered?


Now that I have lived with the Ulfberht's for close to a year I would like to share some assumptions about them with GON members, and see what conclusions that other Ulfberht's owners have come to based on their listening experiences. 

There is no doubt in my mind that the Ulfberht's are the most lifelike and musical speaker I have ever had in my reference system.  To think that a seven foot 21 driver speaker completely disappears in a totally accurate sound-stage,  (how large or small is based on the recording) like a small two way monitor is still a remarkable feat, indeed.  Many listeners to my home find it hard to believe how cohesive they are top to bottom and speak with "one voice".  Many large speakers can do "big" power music, but sound "big" on all music.  They can also blow out of proportion the size of individual players.  Not the Ulfberht's, they present any music in a natural manner, never exaggerating anything out of proportion.  Other special qualities of this speaker is it's overall "ease/effortlessness" regardless of volume levels, thunderous dynamics, its ability to pressurize the room with deep accurate bass frequencies and a sense of "aliveness" that you find in live music.

Some guidelines to optimism the Ulfberht's performance:

1) Get them at least four feet off the front wall and two/three feet off the side walls. My dear friend Ezra has his pair in a relatively small space, yet they sound beautiful.  Still, his pair is about five feet off the front wall and two feet off the side walls. 

2) I believe in most rooms a very slight toe-in gets you the the best center image, without narrowing the width of the sound-stage at all. The center tweeter should aim just on the outside of your head at your listening position.

3) Just like all Tekton Design speakers the Ulfberht's are a conduit, anything you put into them you will hear it.  Be prepared to use the finest source and amplification to tailor the sound of your system to your personal taste.

4) Even though the Ulfberht's are an easy speaker to drive, they love high current amplifiers to get the best out of them.  Right now, I have in for review a brand new model from Coda Technologies called the Number#8, beautiful looking with blue lighted meters, which has the current capability of 150 Amperes on a peak!  Without a doubt the Coda Number#8 is a superlative amplifier, you will get all the details when I write the review for hometheaterreview.com, and might be the best amplifier that has ever driven my pair of Ulberht's.  I have have tried six highly regarded amplifiers, they are all excellent in their own right and sounded great on the Ulberht's.  However, the synergy with the Ulf's is very special in many ways.   

   
teajay
@teajay  Thanks for starting this thread. There are Ulfberth related posts in @corellis 's DI thread...perhaps those folks can post summary experiences and findings here as well.

Your guidelines on optimizing the Ulfberths are super helpful.

As you say... I was really surprised by how well Ezra's Ulfberth BEs perform in his room. Given this, I would have no hesitation in bringing a pair into my slightly larger room. 
Mine are 4 feet from the front wall and 3 from the sides. There is 8 feet between them with my seats 10 feet from them and they are toed about 33 degrees. I tried a number of positions beginning with them facing straight ahead but the stereo image was poor. To complicate matters I have 2 seats side by side so I wanted a stereo image that was the same from each seat so it needed to cover about 3 1/2 feet. After much grunt work the mission was accomplished as these speakers are not easy to move. 
mr-m I don't remember seeing this post back in October so it might have gone under the radar a little.Sometimes Audiogon will quickly take down some postings & leave others up for days. I only found it because I wanted to see what Teejay has recently posted.
Do you recommend using Herbie threaded studs to move these heavy speakers around?