[@cycles2] @decooney Thanks for all the pics of the ESS speakers. I never realized they made so many models. I used to own the AMT-1B’s which I believe was basically an AMT-1A but added a rear facing 12" passive radiator. A friend of mine also owned a pair and had the ESS 500 watt amp. Talk about a revolutionary sound in the late ’70’s.
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@cycle2, You bet. We are all products of the environment we grew up in as they say. :) I worked at ESS in the early 80s on the assembly lines. Like you, I had the same AMT Monitors and AMT 1B speakers as you had. They were one of the speakers to have at the time, including those ESS 500 amps. Super cool, glad to hear it. Later i discovered more improvements with really good SS and TUBE amps! All the sudden the AMTs really started to sound wonderful. A re-discovery!
For three decades, I felt the big AMTs with 12" woofers and passives were slightly off, with a commonly discussed "hole" in the midrange yet to be mastered. Then came the i.e. AMT3 Rock Monitors (with midrange) came out, even closer to what was needed compared to what you and I had before. Hence my DEC-AMT28s I finally designed and built. They blow away any prior ESS factory unit I had before.
I’ve had some discussion with Nelson about my speakers. His teams also had some updated versions of his own speakers too, super cool to see what came out later by others, over the years. While I did my updated version, so did Pass Labs later on. Check these babies out, Pass Labs Rushmore. Modern day AMT3s, and better. Big $.
