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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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mapman's avatar
mapman
22,299 posts
 
Lafayette branded Ess/heil speakers were my first good speakers circa 1977.

FWIW, they did not stick around long. The heils continuously got fried and the bass was fat/muddy. Not sure the heils were really that well integrated into the overall design.

I realized their shortcomings a few months after getting them when I left my summer job at Lafayette and worked part time at TEch Hifi during college years.
weseixas
519 posts
 
Very familiar with the Heil AMTT, built quite a few speakers using them during the late 70's right up until 1990 when i could no longer get the units.

Never cared for the ESS version, Very good driver and a Pity they ( ESS) never went into production with the full range version...

regards,
pvanosta
25 posts
 
I had a pair in the late 80's (bought them used then).
I had to get the woofer surrounds replaced. Other than that, I was very pleased with them. The tweeter was spectacular in its day.
dangcaonguyen
206 posts
 
I just bought a pair of ess amt 1b, and like them so much. The only concern is the high is a little grainy. Any thought? If you are having the same model, where do you set the mid and high adjustment? Thanks
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dbphd
1,629 posts
 
I had a pair of what I recall being ESS Heil AMT speakers: about four feet tall with a removable cover for the top. I thought they sounded very good driven by my Marantz Model 18 receiver. It was when I got the notion of using them with my TV that things went awry. Even having the speakers in the same room with the TV caused distortion of the picture that required deGaussing. IIRC the period of use was late 60s to late 80s.

db
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