ESS and Heil air-motion tranformer - any thoughts?

I had a pair of ESS amt-1a bookshelf speakers for about 25 years. In October 2003 I replaced them with a pair of Paradigm Studio 40 v.3's. The ESS had plenty of high end and bass. When I had them I thought the high end was clear. The Paradigm's are far clearer. The bass in the ESS is mushy. The Paradigm has a better punch. When it comes to midrange I feel there is no comparison. The Paradigm's are far superior.

Back in the '70s Ess released the AMT-1 speaker. I own it's predecessor the Ess Transsatic. The TS uses a Kef 12x9 flat piston driver in a four foot long floor ported transmission line woofer. The mid-range is handled by a Peerless 5in polypropalene cone driver in a short rear firing transmission line. The tweeters were 3 RTR ESR-6 electrostatic drivers, one mounted horizontally above the mid-range, two more mounted vertically below the mid-range. This speaker is the best sounding speaker I've ever heard. The bass is crisp, taut and very deep. Reference 2001's low D organ opening of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" or the bass riff in Stevie Wonder's "Superstition". The highs are clear, sweet and shimmer transparently on the most difficult to reproduce instruments. Find any well recorded piece containing triangle strikes. Response is dead flat from 20 to 30K Hz. The speaker combined transmission lines and electrostatic tweeters hence "Transstatic". It's sonic strength was offset by the weakness of the RTR ESR-6's. They find any number of ways to self-destruct, from arcing grids to just losing thier ability to respond to the high voltages required to drive them.

The Heil based speaker was released immediately after Ess ceased production of the Transstatic. To my ear comparing the two speakers the AMT-1's bass was weak and muddy. The mid's and in particular the highs sounded screechy and strained, but then my ear may have been spoiled.

I still have my Transstatics if anyone knows how I can get my hands on some RTR ESL-6 drivers please write.

Thanks, Jim Miller

My first "real" stereo, back in 1975, was a system with SAE pre-amp & amp, with ESS AMT-1a bookshelf speakers. I really liked them. As with most of them, the foam eventually deteriorated & fell apart in the late 80's.

I have been a stubborn fan of ESS speakers since I first heard, and then bought them, back in 1974. I have long felt, like others have mentioned, that the bass and low mids could be better, but I would not give up on the transients that the Heils can produce.
After a long search for a speaker builder, I was finally able to have my AMT 1 Towers rebuilt, earlier this year. We replaced the old paper drivers with new kevlar mid woofers, and he designed and built completely new crossovers. I also use a subwoofer and an external digital crossover to help extend the lows. Well, I now own the best sounding pair of speakers that I have ever heard. We will be teaming up again, this time to build a speaker system from scratch. We will be using the Heil as the tweeter, in a bi-amped system, with a powered sub(s). I could never find a speaker company that used the Heils to their full potential, so with these two projects, we are building our own.
Sonny

Thought I'd revive this thread.

I'm now in the process of rehabbing a pair of ESS AMT 1 (transmission line) Towers and was wondering why there is nothing in the A'gon blue book. Certainly in the last 5 years some have sold on the 'gon!

ESS is now active and actually never went out of business. They still have the originaly ownership and I've been chatting with the President of ESS, Rico. If I heard him correctly the owner simply put the business into retirement until deciding to bring the brand back into production.

They're going to have 2 rooms at CES, one devoted to a very large scale HT system. Legacy products are being serviced, many from NOS parts. Apparently crossover rebuilds are popular for the larger AMT 1 models.

Any ESS folks out there? Thoughts?