- ESS speakers
ESS Speakers
ESS (ElectroStatic Sound) was a company that was based in Sacramento California. They were one of the only manufacturers of Heil Air Motion Transformer.
Consumer Products
The AMT was first used in 1970 by ESS (ElectroStatic Sound) a Californian company based near Sacramento. The first speaker was called ESS AMT-1. Looking like a truncated, four sided pyramid; the system combined the AMT driver with a 10 inch woofer and bass port.There were several models that followed. AMT-1a. This redesign of the AMT-1 replaced the smaller woofer with a 12 inch woofer and passive radiator. This gave the speaker better bass response characteristics. The AMT Tower was a speaker design with 1 AMT and a woofer and line transmission. The AMT 3, also called Rock Monitor; a design with 1 AMT, a 6.5 inch mid-range and two 10 inch woofers.At the end of the 70s, ESS and Dr. Heil introduced the ESS Transar using one AMT for the high frequency and one low frequency AMT.
Until 2006 it was still possible to get ESS speakers from Sacramento on demand.
The most common use for the AMT driver in consumer electronics today is as a midrange-tweeter or tweeter in high-end multi-driver speakers, sometimes paired with horns, or in the case of Precide's speaker products, with an upward-firing woofer driver. There are a couple of companies producing Heil AMTs: Precide (Switzerland) who calls their version the AVT (Air Velocity Transformer), ELAC (Germany) who calls their version of the transducer JET or PI, ADAM (Germany), FAL (Japan), ETON. In Germany it is also possible to get ESS speakers (new designs or classic ones) as well as the ESS AMT drivers (e.g., Great Heil).Recently the low frequency AMT technology was rediscovered by a company called Tymphany. Using what appears to be one of the embodiment of Dr. Heil patent US#4,039,044, the company tries to produce compact woofers and sub-woofers. Tymphany names this technology LAT ( Linear Array Transducer).
Links
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20000614002208/http://www.essspeakers.com/ ESS Speakers Home Page Web Archive]
*ESS AMT Professional 6
*Air Motion Transformer
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