ESS and Heil air-motion tranformer - any thoughts?

In response to Bill's post, I have heard the Adam speakers on one occasion, the $10K stand-mounted one with the powered woofers and the Heil type midrange and tweeter (I believe it is the smallest model in the Tensor series), and was extremely impressed. I was prepared for what Larry describes, but at least on first listen to me Adam seems to have done a great job, at least in this model, in minimizing that discontinuity between the midrange and the woofers. I had come in to my dealer's to hear the Wilson Sashas, which did sound very good, but the Adams had a dynamic realism to them, especially with transients, that made them sound like a live musical event vs. the Wilsons which, good as they were, sounded more like speakers reproducing a live event in comparison. I would like to listen to the Adams more to see how good they are in long-term listening, and perhaps also to the larger model in the line with deeper bass response to see if adding the last octave of bass to the speaker might highlight any discontinuity between the woofers and that remarkable performance in the midrange and treble. It could be that my enthusiasm for the dynamic realism of the speaker and the open and clean sound of the Heil drivers caused me to overlook some flaws in the speaker that ultimately might make it something I couldn't live with, but for now they are definitely a speaker that I would consider on my short list for purchasing.

I've always wondered why the AMT design did not get more attention over the years,with more designs showing them.Maybe a legal thing?

I owned the AMT Rock Monitors back in the early seventies.Sheesh,could these rock out,and with detail to spare.Those were interesting times.

No speaker of the time could do the Doobie Brothers with such dynamic aplomb and airy detail,but of course the fact that my pals were actually "doing doobies" in my room could have affected my senses -:)

Best to all

Lrsky, I identified this same problem with the two way. For me, the 3D sound of the tweeter was too good to pass up; so good, that I built 3way speakers using the ESS Heil air-motion transformer. With the help of an engineer to design the crossover, and a lot of experimentation with drivers; I got a smooth blend that is absolutely fantastic. Not recommended, too difficult.

Reprince, while my speakers sound fantastic, they are "but ugly" and I don't intend to hire a cabinet maker. I would like to audition the Adams speaker, post any information.

I just modified my ESS HEIL 1D and it is 3 times better then the original and is by far the best and most liveliest loudspeaker I have encountered among all loudspeakers I own and have heard and unfortunately I haven't heard many other fine systems.
I added another ess heil 1c transducer separating it from the 1d about 8 inches on top of it using longer screw poles and using a square mesh type square metal frame to place the 1c on top of it. I removed the front 12 inch ess driver and placed it on the REAR, removing the passive radiator and ordered the new ESS 12 inch driver from parts express. I placed that on the front. Now I have a DIPOLAR bass system and the upper highs and mids are done by the ESS HEIL 1C and 1D in a linesource array. I also added the controversial dakiom stabilzers in the crossover to clean up any harsh signal coming from the amplifier. I use paxthon integrate tube amp and a grand fidelity tube cd player and the soundstage is amazing. Modifying the ESS HEIL the way I did puts it another level of performance the original design was unable to do. Everything is wider and bigger. The bass are much tighter and realistic and deeper. The vocals and instruments are as if the musicians are actually there.

If you can afford to add additional ESS heil drivers and woofers, I highly recommend it for you DIY ess enthusiasts.

I collect loudspeakers and I have magnepans, acoustats, eminent techs, klipsch, sls and ohm walsh and by far the ess heils being modded puts me in audio nirvana. I am completely satisified with this set up!