ESS speakers "Translinear" Transstatic

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.

I bought the AMT-3 Rock Monitors in 1975, and still have them in my basement being driven by a Pioneer receiver. I've twice replaced the two 10" woofers and Heil diaphrams. The mid-range is still the original. With a sub-woofer, it still sounds very good. It was my main speakers until about 5 years ago. I now have Legacy Focus speakers in my SACD based main system.

Thank you for your information Rurdangaray. I am most appreciative, Joe

Hi,

I have owned the ESS AMT-3's since 1975 and have the foam rotting problem. I prefer to purchase equivalent drivers (10's and 6's) rather than refoam. Greatly appreciate driver specification data and/or any info on replacement driver manufacturer and p/n. Thanks.

Bob

Hello,my name is frank .I was looking through the net an came across your forum.I bought in 1997 a pair of ess amt 4"s and am in the proces of replacing the drivers ,I'm searching the net for the replacements, i completely re- finished the cabinets and have been very satisfied with their line of speakers. And have just recently purchased a pair of Transtatic 1's in great shape except for one rtr electrostatic panel is blown.They came with three RTR6 electrostatic panels, one 9"x12" KEF flat oval woofer and a 5" midrange per speaker.They are 4 ohm speakers so you need a pretty high end amp to run these babys, recommended power is 60 watt rms min stable into reactive loads and they will handle greater than 650 watts musical peaks without distortion and they are fuse protected.They are 42x20x16 and very heavy 110 lbs per speaker.I run them with a Dynaco st400 amp, 200 watts per channel and these guys sound awesome to say the least, I would recommend that if any one comes across a pair of these rare brutes do not hesitate to purchase them.I know for me i own the last pair of speakers i'll ever purchase. And if any one knows where i can buy a replacement rtr6 panel please e-mail me and let me know.And in case you,re wondering who i bought these from is the same person i got the amt4's from, for a price of $650.00 a pair, they originally sold for $1200.00 a pair in the 70's.ESS also made a top of the line system called SuperQuads which are even rarer, they cost $3000.00 apair which was a lot of money back then.Well thanks for listening and to all happy searching.And if anyone wants to they can e-mail me. Frank J. Rustay