Are there any current production great speakers using AMT tweeters?


Back in the day, I had fallen in love with the ESS Heil AMT speakers, which were always too large and too expensive.    Now that I am looking for a new speaker, I am wondering if there are any current high end monitors that use these tweeters?  Or have good ribbons made the AMT tweeters less desirable?

My budget is in the $5k to $15k range, new or used, so don’t tell me about some of the $1k speakers that I know are out there, no matter how good they might be.

Stand mount is preferable, but a floor standing with a small footprint might be workable in my smallish room.

 

meiatflask

The Heil AMTs are "current hungry" (3.X ohms) and some amps had a problem with this.

For my ears- no.  Every single air motion / ribbon type tweeter I have heard have had obvious image left/right shifting issues.  Basically center image wander / instability, especially slightly off axis.  This is a deal breaker for me.  

 

I’ve literally never had this problem.   I imagine it could happen with any speaker with a narrow dispersion, but I can say with confidence it isn’t a characteristic of rectangular shaped tweeters (i.e. AMT and ribbons or planar magnetics) I’ve experienced.   

I have had very similar experiences with electrostatics however. 

I cant say I agree with oldauophile's post. I use a pair of '70s ESS AMT 3 rock monitors that have a Great Heil. I have them close to the wall in my 17' deep listening room. Since the Great Heils have broad horizontal dispersion as well as usable dispersion from the sides and the rear, I find they create a very pleasing high frequency sound field that is not at all fatiguing. 

 

Check out Daniel Hertz’s Chiara AMT stand mount if you can stretch the budget to $25k. Biamped, true 20 to 20. Check out Adrian’s of Audio Excellence presentation at Montreal show a year or two ago — and his  unpack/review/show prep. There is an accompanying biamp to complement it but you don’t have to buy that model or brand amp to hear what it can do.