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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/
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sdcampbell
2,136 posts
 
Back in the mid-1970's, I worked for a high-end audio dealer in Seattle named ElectriCraft (long since defunct) which carried the ESS / Heil speakers. They produced very good sound for their time, but were VERY inefficient. To get loud SPL's from them, we used the PhaseLinear amp (Bob Carver's first commercially successful power amp, which was affectionately known as the "FlameLinear" for its tendency to overheat and "flame out"). The PhaseLinear amp produced 300-350 wpc (immense power output for that time), and it had barely enough power to drive the Heils to high volume levels.
larryi
4,034 posts
 
It has been quite a while since I've heard the original ESS AMT speaker. I recall that the Heil driver sounded quite good, but the bass response did not match up.

At this year's THE SHOW (next door to CES) I heard a current version of a speaker with the Heil driver and it sounded pretty good for the money. The technology is still alive.
rcreations
158 posts
 
purchased a pair of Heil air-motion transformers from ESS a year and a half ago after hearing a pair of AMT's.
love 'em.
driving them with ASL WAV 8's (highs) with audire planar IV (mids) and cerriano subs, with two active 3-way mono crossovers.
still available from ESS for a desent price, even though ebay gets some outrageous bidding on old beatup units with questionable diaphram quality. kurt
rbstehno
1,454 posts
 
i bought a pair back in 1978. used them for years and I liked them very much up until the early 90's. i recently sold them (been in my closet for many years) 5 months ago for $250.
trelja
3,223 posts
 
I have a pair of them in my family room, in the corners. They're my father's, and that's what the conventional wisdom of the day told one to place the speakers. The woofers are now suffering from rotted foam, for the second time. He bought some woofers to drop in there this summer. It will be interesting to give them a listen once he fixes them. My recollection was that some of the midrange and maybe all of the treble sounded very, very good. But, I have not listened to them in yeeeeearrrrrsss.
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