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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Showing 1 response by dbphd

I had a pair of what I recall being ESS Heil AMT speakers: about four feet tall with a removable cover for the top. I thought they sounded very good driven by my Marantz Model 18 receiver. It was when I got the notion of using them with my TV that things went awry. Even having the speakers in the same room with the TV caused distortion of the picture that required deGaussing. IIRC the period of use was late 60s to late 80s.

db