Had a bookshelf pair around 1978 to 85, with a rear passive driver to augment the 8" bass on the front. The Heil tweeter is very efficient and clear sounding, great for dull LPs and cassettes of that era. The woofer is flabby but can play very loud, great for parties. It can compete very well with the huge Altec Lansing or JBL of that decade.
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/
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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- 37 posts total
I just encountered a new speaker company, GoldenEar Technology, that features its own nicely refined take on the Heil throughout its product line. The company's founder and chief designer is Sandy Gross, who was a co-founder of Polk Audio in 1972 and Definitive Technology around 1990. You can especially see some family resemblance between GoldenEar's Triton 2 Tower and the Def Tech Mythos, but the GoldenEar uses the new Heil tweeter and costs 40% less than the Mythos. I heard them at a high end audio open house at my local high end store just a couple weeks ago. Co-founders Sandy Gross and Don Givogue introduced the speakers while Stereophile's John Atkinson played 24/96 digital masters from his laptop. At $2500/pair list these speakers are stupid good and neutral. Bass extension goes down to a claimed 18Hz thanks to each speaker having a 1200 watt built-in amp to drive twin 5x9 bass drivers assisted by even larger passive radiators. It makes amp matching much easier. The front baffle is only 5" wide, so imaging and soundstage are particularly good. They also make a selection of L-C-R and surround speakers featuring their "folded ribbon" tweeter in a D'Appolito array. |
Just listened to Billy Joel At Shea Stadium Blu-Ray on my pair of AMT 1-D's. The cymbals sounded like a real cymbals with nice bite and smooth decay. The drums sounded deep and, amazingly, didn't overhand by mid-bass bloat. I go a long time without listening to these and with a truly good recording they really still can impress me. Recordings with too much bass, especially sludge-like mid-bass bloat, sound bad no matter how good the mids and highs are. |
- 37 posts total