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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I've always wondered why the AMT design did not get more attention over the years,with more designs showing them.Maybe a legal thing?

I owned the AMT Rock Monitors back in the early seventies.Sheesh,could these rock out,and with detail to spare.Those were interesting times.

No speaker of the time could do the Doobie Brothers with such dynamic aplomb and airy detail,but of course the fact that my pals were actually "doing doobies" in my room could have affected my senses -:)

Best to all
Lrsky, I identified this same problem with the two way. For me, the 3D sound of the tweeter was too good to pass up; so good, that I built 3way speakers using the ESS Heil air-motion transformer. With the help of an engineer to design the crossover, and a lot of experimentation with drivers; I got a smooth blend that is absolutely fantastic. Not recommended, too difficult.
Reprince, while my speakers sound fantastic, they are "but ugly" and I don't intend to hire a cabinet maker. I would like to audition the Adams speaker, post any information.
I just modified my ESS HEIL 1D and it is 3 times better then the original and is by far the best and most liveliest loudspeaker I have encountered among all loudspeakers I own and have heard and unfortunately I haven't heard many other fine systems.
I added another ess heil 1c transducer separating it from the 1d about 8 inches on top of it using longer screw poles and using a square mesh type square metal frame to place the 1c on top of it. I removed the front 12 inch ess driver and placed it on the REAR, removing the passive radiator and ordered the new ESS 12 inch driver from parts express. I placed that on the front. Now I have a DIPOLAR bass system and the upper highs and mids are done by the ESS HEIL 1C and 1D in a linesource array. I also added the controversial dakiom stabilzers in the crossover to clean up any harsh signal coming from the amplifier. I use paxthon integrate tube amp and a grand fidelity tube cd player and the soundstage is amazing. Modifying the ESS HEIL the way I did puts it another level of performance the original design was unable to do. Everything is wider and bigger. The bass are much tighter and realistic and deeper. The vocals and instruments are as if the musicians are actually there.

If you can afford to add additional ESS heil drivers and woofers, I highly recommend it for you DIY ess enthusiasts.

I collect loudspeakers and I have magnepans, acoustats, eminent techs, klipsch, sls and ohm walsh and by far the ess heils being modded puts me in audio nirvana. I am completely satisified with this set up!
Armyscout41 that sounds like a travesty of a design. Mounting another active bass driver in a location designed for a radiator is subjecting bass response to severe wave cancellation at all levels of the audible band. There is a significant reason the radiator is in place. The cabinet volume (vb) is specifically designed to have the active driver behave and perform to it's potential which is inclusive of the reflex alignment of the accompanying radiator. What you're suggesting is that bass has improved and that just cannot be so. Adding additional amt drivers to the array of only a single, yet again defeats the ability of a single woofer to perform in a somewhat congruous nature with an air-motion transformer.