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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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iseekheils
131 posts
 
I have been a stubborn fan of ESS speakers since I first heard, and then bought them, back in 1974. I have long felt, like others have mentioned, that the bass and low mids could be better, but I would not give up on the transients that the Heils can produce.
After a long search for a speaker builder, I was finally able to have my AMT 1 Towers rebuilt, earlier this year. We replaced the old paper drivers with new kevlar mid woofers, and he designed and built completely new crossovers. I also use a subwoofer and an external digital crossover to help extend the lows. Well, I now own the best sounding pair of speakers that I have ever heard. We will be teaming up again, this time to build a speaker system from scratch. We will be using the Heil as the tweeter, in a bi-amped system, with a powered sub(s). I could never find a speaker company that used the Heils to their full potential, so with these two projects, we are building our own.
Sonny
yours4sound
1 posts
 
Thought I'd revive this thread.

I'm now in the process of rehabbing a pair of ESS AMT 1 (transmission line) Towers and was wondering why there is nothing in the A'gon blue book. Certainly in the last 5 years some have sold on the 'gon!

ESS is now active and actually never went out of business. They still have the originaly ownership and I've been chatting with the President of ESS, Rico. If I heard him correctly the owner simply put the business into retirement until deciding to bring the brand back into production.

They're going to have 2 rooms at CES, one devoted to a very large scale HT system. Legacy products are being serviced, many from NOS parts. Apparently crossover rebuilds are popular for the larger AMT 1 models.

Any ESS folks out there? Thoughts?
walkerent
1 posts
 
I have several pairs of Heil AMT-1 tweeters. I've had a pair on a 3 way system with Altec 416-8Bs, Altec 311-60 horns and Altec 288 drivers for almost two years. They easily keep up to the large Altecs, with head room, and they sound clear and musical. I love them.
hotmailjbc
571 posts
 
wow, you guys have photographic memories. i had a pair 35 years ago and loved them. i would really like to hear them now on some good gear. i was using a crown d-150 and a sae preamp. probably a thorens td-160 or bang and o 3000 table. later i was a rep for the heil tweeters and sold them almost exclusively to pro music shops. they loved them. big dudes in kansas city was a retailer i remember well.
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,846 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.
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