ESP Speakers


I am looking for some information on ESP speakers from people who have actually owned them. 

I recently purchased a pair of ESP Bodhran speakers on Ebay and currently am waiting for their delivery.

I have never heard those speakers before but listened, under what I think were suboptimal conditions, to the older version of the ESP Concert Grands (3 woofers). These auditions left me quite puzzled. At times the speakers sounded great, even amazing. At other times they sounded quite awful. My feeling was that there was great potential with these speakers, but as I didn't have the opportunity to fiddle with the conditions under which they were offered, I have decided to look elsewhere.

Then one day I saw on Ebay a used pair of the Bodhran SE at a good price and decided to take the risk and purchase them. I would say that I did it out of curiosity, if not of anything else.    

Now the version of the Bodhran that I bought came out about 10 years after the first CG, and at the time cost more or less the same (16,000$). What I am interested to know is, first, how do the ESP Bodhran SE compare to the older ESP speakers?  I know that some drivers were changed, probably the crossovers, but I have no idea what change was made that justified an increase of 10,000$ from the first version?

Another thing I am curious to know is what people think in general about the brand. Today one can hardly find any information about ESP which is less than 10 years old. It would seem that very few people kept them long from new, and those who did eventually decided to get rid of them at very low prices.
This makes one wonder: has the fashion changed or are there really better offerings today than 10 and 20 years ago that justify such an expensive change? Or perhaps, there was something inherently wrong with the speakers after all?   
 ESP past and present owners, I would appreciate your comments.  
  
taviran
Hi again. thank you rhljazz for the quick reply. Well, I fixed the tweeter problem. I unscrewed the bottom where the crossover is located and found a white wire disconnected. soldered it back and it's working now. What a relief.  And thank you for the correction: this tweeter is firing at 45 degrees indeed. Now as for the other suggestions, yes I connected it in biwire and screwd the spikes on. I will now try to listen with all drivers working.   
Last update: After some soldering and some tweaking, the sound now is excellent: open, detailed, dynamic, very musical. What a wonderful speaker.    
Just curious, what size is your room?  What type of placement did you end up with?
Glad to hear the driver problem was a simple fix.
Hi guys
First of all, all the best from Austria. With great interest I followed your entries to the E.S.P. Speakers. I bought my first Concert Grand in 1997 from Peter Mecek, a very good friend of Sean McCoughen the designer, who was previously with Beveridge Audio. I was playing with VTL MB 750 tubes and it was fantastic. Warm, durchleutend, just great. Later I exchanged the VTL for ML 33h and behold, the E.S.P. could grow one more time. So the weaker part was not the speaker but the amplifier. After some time, I was able to move in my new listening room which had been acoustically pretreated. The room has a reasonable size, about 80 m2, and there the Concert Grand developed its great dominance. The possibility to install the speakers pretty much in the room, so away from the reflective walls, gave the big loudspeaker its full potential.
In 2004, Peter and Sean came with the larger Sii built in Isobarik technology. A total of 9 high-quality Chasis were installed and right a Höchtöner goes sideways away. Now the Bassfundamet gained in importance and it was clear my room was not really exhausted yet. So I set up a Double Bass Aray with 4 Velodyne DD12s. 2 subs in front and 2 in the back. Incredible but just because of the low notes the spatiality increased significantly, so that one would like to reach for the interpreters. Now in 2018 I am very satisfied and believe I am allowed to hear one of the best speakers. Unfortunately, I could not hear Sean the last few years, to my knowledge, he has now developed a small set and cable. Hope he's in good health, one of the best among the elderly and Peter makes PearAudio and builds the Fletcher drives.

Linn Klimax

Air Forsell AirForceOne reference with TonArt control

Mark Levinson 52 with phono

Mark Levinson 33H

4 Velodyne DD12

E.S.P. Concert Grand Sii

TonArt cable

with Love from Austria
Ravin
Hi Guys. 
Do you have a schematics of the crossovers of the Bodhrans?
After living for a few months with my speakers I came to the conclusion that something was wrong. I just couldn't get them to image properly. So a few days ago I unscrewed the bottoms and after some soldering exposed the two crossovers.
To my dismay, I found out someone was fiddling with these crosses and there were some "anomalies", like changed parts and wrong phase connections. 
Anybody knows where I can get the schematics?
Thanks.