ESS speakers "Translinear" Transstatic

Hi, I owned a pair of ESS AMT 1A's in 1975 through about 1980. I gave them to my sister and she still has them and loves them. The woofer surrounds disintegrated about 12 years ago, but the dealer (a local TV store) ordered new ones for me and as far as I know, they are still functioning well. My sister likes them, anyway. They are the highest-end speakers she has ever had.
I remember the day I had these speakers delivered, I thought I had way overdone it in size and cost. However, 30 years later, I see I had many more extreme excesses to go, audio-wise.

Trelja, no, we lost the ESS line about that time, and instead picked up the more popular JBL commercial line and Infinity Systems. I had a hell of a time learning all the technical materials and specification sheets required for JBL. I quoted parts and power requirements for commercial sound applications such as auditorium reinforcement and rock band equipment. It is nice though, to have owned and lived with so many technologies, it does however make me even more committed to my Soundlabs, which I consider to have the fewest compromises.

Thank you Albert. Your postings are always very well written and thought out, not to mention insightful.

By the way, it's been a long time, but I have never hated those ESS speakers the way so many have. The 12" woofers did need to be replaced, due to the surrounds rotting out. It's in the back of my mind to go through them, and see what happens. Does anyone know the crossover point of the speaker? How low the Heil AMT can be crossed over? Any other bits of wisdom? Thank you, Joe

In response to Trelja's question - the crossover of the orignal ESS AMT speakers was set at 1,000 HZ. The most recent version use 800 HZ. The Swiss made Oscar Kithara has a crossover at 730 HZ. While the ESS speakers had midrange problems, I'm not sure why anyone would hate these speakers. The clarity and openess of the Heil puts a lot of high dollar speakers to sham and works wonderfully for a lot of rock and electronic music. The midrange deficiencies of the ESS designs caused by blending a large slow woofer with the ultra fast Heil just made the ESS a poor choice for jass and vocal enthusiasts. I understand that some the recent designs that use the Heil do not have this midrange problem. Alas they are not easily avaialbe in the U.S. The Swiss company Precide distributes the speakers.