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ESS and Heil air-motion tranformer - any thoughts?

These seem like interesting speakers, has anyone on this board had any experience with the ESS line of speakers?

A.M.T. description:

"The Heil diaphragm, made of soft, quiet mylar to reduce background noise, is bonded with conductive aluminum strips. It is equivalent in surface area to a conventional cone type eight inch midrange driver, but is accordion-folded down to a compact one-inch band for better point source dispersion. The low mass diaphragm is suspended in a massive magnet structure concentrating an intense magnetic field around the diaphragm.

When a signal passes through the aluminum strips, the bellows-like motion of the folded "pleats" squeezes air out five times faster then the air motion of a conventional cone driver. The virtual "instant acceleration" provides high definition, crisp transients, and overall spaciousness with superb dynamic range. This type of performance distinguishes the heil from all other transducers."

http://www.essspeakers.com/
128x128dawgbyte
tubes444
91 posts
 
Dawgbyte,

It just so happens I have a pair of ESS MT with Optional
sub-woofer bass cabinet the made for the ESS main cab
FITS into.
I Bought ALL NEW BACK IN THE DAY!!Late 70's
The sub woofer is a KEF Rectangular 6 X 12" floor firing.
It's set-up for Tri Amp operation only.

How good are they? 15+ years back. I hauled them to buddy home who had just bought a pair of Sound Labs Electro's

Their were (4) of us. We did blind. TEST both were hooked
to ARC-D150M (Mid to Highs.)(2) ARC 120 for mid-bass & woofer on my EES MK11 all thru ARC-SP15-2 Pre-amp. Test record was a Telarc: Grand Canyon Suite. THE TEST(4) chairs turn backs to speakers. His wife JOB turned the balance L to R as the Pre was in Mono, playe SAME 15-SEC track over/over. We all wrote down. L is better. or R is 5 plays.
3 of the 4 picked the ESS for best upper Mid range to Highs.
All 4 including myself picked the S-Labs detail in lower Mids to upper bass hands down. But the EES SUB had punch all could feel the standing wave on our backs.

No of us were told which speaker was L or R.
Hope that helps your question.

Tube444

milpai's avatar
milpai
2,402 posts
 
I recently came across this brand. Looks like high efficiency loudspeakers. Any comparisons or experiences?
hifisoundguy
630 posts
 
They came out with some headphones that uses these Heil air-motion tranformers, the new Obravo HAMT-1's for $1500 that sound as good as.. Reference Floorstanding Speakers!!

http://www.absolutesounds.com/pdf/main/press/Obravo_HAMT-1_HFN_JAn15.pdf
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,925 posts
 
Recall that I heard Born to Run all the way thru for first time on a pair of AMT 1 B with a B&O table, Apt Holman Pre and Power...to this day trying to get that ROCK sound..ha
...the memory..altered..of youth is a great thing.....
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,821 posts
 
Before ESS introduced the Heil AMT, they already had a line of really good speakers using KEF drivers. The way Dr. Heil and ESS hooked up was that the Doctor came into the ESS dealer in San Jose (TV-Audio Center, Inc. I was a customer of theirs.) to see about getting a pair of KEF B-139 woofers (the 9" X 12" flat-faced oval driver you may have seen pictures of) to use in the speaker he was developing (the AMT, of course.). ESS was using the B-139 in their Transtatic model speaker (Dave Wilson used it as well, in his WAMM loudspeaker. It's a REALLY good woofer.), along with a KEF Bextrene 5" midrange driver and a trio of RTR electrostatic tweeters. The Transtatic was actually a much better speaker than the Heil AMT, but cost $1200 in 1971 dollars. It was competition to the Infinity Servo-Static loudspeaker. I found a pair in the early '80's, one of them having a replacement woofer. I called ESS in Sacramento and got their last remaining B-139! Still have the speakers.
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