I would like to hear what anyone has to say about this comment!! -- My Dad gave me a pair (of broke down Cabinets) of ESS Performance Series (Model 5) Heil Air Motion Transformer Loudspeakers... They sounded horrible, but me just being a kid, they gave me something to tinker with. For the specifications number: Each ESS cabinet consists of: one 5" tweeter, one 10" woofer, one 10" passive radiator at upper half of cabinet on the back[(flat-disk style)(rear firing.) and a snap on dark cloth-coverd grille with the small aluminum ESS name plate on bottom right-hand corner... On the inside of the Cabinets: Acoustic Baffling and a Crossover Panel. Crossover Panel used to provide overload protection and frequency ratio for the 5" Tweeter. The Cabinets still have a black front and back, but the sticky back vinyl "wood grain" covering for the top, bottom and sides has fallen off, (finally some 8 years ago)... So to get back to my story, Both of these ESS Loudspeakers were stored in my Dads moisture air filled garage, thus leading to all the foam surrounds on the woofers and passive radiators to become non-existent over time as well as the faux wood grain de-adhering from the Cabinets... So to make a long story short , I purchased new OME 10" woofers (with rubber surround this time) with same 125 watts RMS and purchased new OME replacement passive radiators (which means I'll have to rubber cement them to the existing octagon shaped aluminum frame on the back of the cabinet which holds the diaphragm into place)...with a couple coats of semi-gloss black spray paint to touch up the bare looking 3/8" Heavy Compressed (High Fidelity Grade) Particle Board (Pre MDF technology era ), not only will these Loudspeakers look good, but they will rock the house, just like they did in the 80's...these speakers will perform optimally when placed 45 degrees in the corners of a room...the bass from the passive radiator reflecting out from the corner and woofer firing at front, what an outstanding combination for low,low bass ...Now some trivia questions that I would like answers to: What year did the ESS Performance Series (Model 5) come out? How much money did a pair of these speakers cost when they first hit the shelves? Was ESS top-of-the-line for its time? Why did ESS shut down (go out of business)-(in Southern California?) Thank for for you interest in ESS Vintage AUDIO as much as I am -- Dave
ESS speakers "Translinear" Transstatic
These were speakers designed by California based company called ESS, that is, Electro Static Sound before they used the Heil Air Montion transformer. These models were current in 1970-1975. I am curious if any one still owns either of the above models, or has seem them listed on any of them listed in the used audio web sites. They were incredible speakers for their time,and sounded as good as many of so-called elctrostatics of today. They used good driver elements, for example, the KEF B-139 oval driver for the bass response.If anyone has knowledge of either of these above vintage speakers,please leave info on this Web page. Thank you!!