theAnonymous1 said:I hope they start producing a new version of the AMT.
I mean if they can make the most important part of the AMT (the diaphragm), then why not the other bits. What's left after the diaphragm; four ceramic bar magnets, two pieces of angle iron, and some stacked bits of stamped steel? That can be all that hard to reproduce.
It's not like they wouldn't sell.
Actually, they did. Right before they closed up shop, they were selling AMT pairs for $300 (I bought a pair). What I'd like to see is an updated design; some neo magnets and some FEA software used in the design to eek out the best out of an already great design. Something with the same basic parameters as the original that could be mounted in a baffle would be nice. Mundorf is doing it (and charging like they are made of gold), Eton is doing it, Beyma is doing it. Heck, there's even a DIY hobbiest in Germany that makes his own and sells them on ebay from time to time. You'd think the originators could knock out their own updated design.
Ricky - the abundance of new &/or improved derivations of the AMT design, some of which are commanding outrageous (except to the makers) prices, would suggest a growing interest for this type of product, particularly for the DIYer looking to pursue alternatives to domes, or ribbons.
In addition to replacement diaphragms for existing pieces, if ESS has considered updating the design with new magnetic materials and assembly techniques, hopefully they won't engineer our the features that imbued the original with its magic
I've had the opportunity to play with a pair of one of the models of "pleated ribbon" drivers used in Mark & Daniels.
This particular model is much smaller than the original AMT1, particularly in regards to the motor's magnet assembly, and the diaphragm itself is somewhat shorter. Aside from the substantially lower sensitivity, the M&Ds are not quite as dynamic or transparent at the originals.
In addition to replacement diaphragms for existing pieces, if ESS has considered updating the design with new magnetic materials and assembly techniques, hopefully they won't engineer our the features that imbued the original with its magic
I've had the opportunity to play with a pair of one of the models of "pleated ribbon" drivers used in Mark & Daniels.
This particular model is much smaller than the original AMT1, particularly in regards to the motor's magnet assembly, and the diaphragm itself is somewhat shorter. Aside from the substantially lower sensitivity, the M&Ds are not quite as dynamic or transparent at the originals.
JohnL said:
I'm having some aluminum panels made to transform(disfigure?) my AMTs for open baffle use.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
thank you everyone for the support and feedback.
as i said in my first post we will have some new product in the future .
after reading all the posts it seems the diaphrams were most important. we read all of oscars original notes again and we will remain 100% dedicated to the ess quality. we have 1107 1108 1109 diaphrams in stock and we have some ess speakers with the hiel tweeter, will give update early next week .
thank you
ricky
ESS
as i said in my first post we will have some new product in the future .
after reading all the posts it seems the diaphrams were most important. we read all of oscars original notes again and we will remain 100% dedicated to the ess quality. we have 1107 1108 1109 diaphrams in stock and we have some ess speakers with the hiel tweeter, will give update early next week .
thank you
ricky
ESS
Hi Ricky,
Thanks for posting the feedback. I lived in Sacramento and worked at Sun Stereo fixing broken amps and got to know a couple of the techs over at the ESS plant in Rancho - so my memories of your company goes back quite far.
I'm looking forward to your new efforts - and hope that you can get a web site up soon so we can order parts (and maybe some NEW stuff).
I personally want an AMT that is about the size of my front door so I can sit in front of it and use it for a fan while I'm listening!!!
Thanks for posting the feedback. I lived in Sacramento and worked at Sun Stereo fixing broken amps and got to know a couple of the techs over at the ESS plant in Rancho - so my memories of your company goes back quite far.
I'm looking forward to your new efforts - and hope that you can get a web site up soon so we can order parts (and maybe some NEW stuff).
I personally want an AMT that is about the size of my front door so I can sit in front of it and use it for a fan while I'm listening!!!
for all you DIYers you can order NOW please give me a call
310-962-0114 or EMAIL your order to ricky@starvision.us
WE WILL HAVE A MY-SPACE VERY SOON
thank you in advance
RICKY
ESS
310-962-0114 or EMAIL your order to ricky@starvision.us
WE WILL HAVE A MY-SPACE VERY SOON
thank you in advance
RICKY
ESS
AT LAST DIAPHRAGM REPLACEMENT KITS~1107s
For all you DIYers you can order NOW please give me a call
310-962-0114 or EMAIL your order to ricky@starvision.us
OR GO TO: ORANGE COUNTY SPEAKERS *CLICK ON WEBSITE BELOW
http://www.speakerrepair.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=10-126&Category_Code=
Thank You in Advance
Ricky
ESS Laboratory
310-962-0114 or EMAIL your order to ricky@starvision.us
For all you DIYers you can order NOW please give me a call
310-962-0114 or EMAIL your order to ricky@starvision.us
OR GO TO: ORANGE COUNTY SPEAKERS *CLICK ON WEBSITE BELOW
http://www.speakerrepair.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=10-126&Category_Code=
Thank You in Advance
Ricky
ESS Laboratory
310-962-0114 or EMAIL your order to ricky@starvision.us
Hi ESS AMT users.
I need to tip my hat to the crew at Simply Speakers! I contacted them several months ago about the availability of replacement diaphragms for my AMT's and they said they would contact me when they became available. Well that was several months ago - BUT - someone at SS is VERY good at keeping track of their customers needs and took the time to contact me today with this:
Hello,
Please see the “speaker diaphragms” page on our website. The 689-1107 are $89 each and in stock.
Please give us a call or e-mail if you need more information.
We will be happy to help you.
Regards,
Sean Ryan and the crew at Simply Speakers
Visit our website! http://www.simplyspeakers.com/
That's some great news - a great price - and some really great service (and no - I am in no way affiliated with SS other than buying some parts from them).
http://www.simplyspeakers.com/12diaphragms.htm
I need to tip my hat to the crew at Simply Speakers! I contacted them several months ago about the availability of replacement diaphragms for my AMT's and they said they would contact me when they became available. Well that was several months ago - BUT - someone at SS is VERY good at keeping track of their customers needs and took the time to contact me today with this:
Hello,
Please see the “speaker diaphragms” page on our website. The 689-1107 are $89 each and in stock.
Please give us a call or e-mail if you need more information.
We will be happy to help you.
Regards,
Sean Ryan and the crew at Simply Speakers
Visit our website! http://www.simplyspeakers.com/
That's some great news - a great price - and some really great service (and no - I am in no way affiliated with SS other than buying some parts from them).
http://www.simplyspeakers.com/12diaphragms.htm
So, is this correct:
New diaphragms 689-1107, made from polyethylene to original specs are available from http://www.speakerrepair.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=10-126&Category_Code= for $89.99
Probably "New old stock" diaphragms 689-1107, made from kapton (the yellowish ones) are available from http://www.simplyspeakers.com/12diaphragms.htm for $98
New diaphragms 689-1107, made from polyethylene to original specs are available from http://www.speakerrepair.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=10-126&Category_Code= for $89.99
Probably "New old stock" diaphragms 689-1107, made from kapton (the yellowish ones) are available from http://www.simplyspeakers.com/12diaphragms.htm for $98
Heil literature
I have owned a pair of Heil "Elite" tweeters since the 1970's and reluctantly retired them when I tried to get to the bottom of what was causing one of the diapragms to rattle at considerably lower levels than the good one. It was when I was in the process of adding some car body filler to the magnet assembly to fill in a gap where a plastic magnet cover abuts the pole pieces that I saw the problem. More about this later. These Heils, which are probably the same as those in the AMT1 have been notable for a couple of high frequency peaks in their amplitude/freq response. These peaks are more noticeable off axis and occur at around 5.5KHz and 11KHz. The distance between the diaphragm and the discontinuity in the magnet happens to be a quarter wavelength at 5 odd KHz so we have a diffraction problem. Levelling out this groove gets rid of the peaks.
When peering at the diaphragm with the aid of a torch (flashlight) I could see some foreign material adhering to one of the pleats. The material was actually a thin sliver of diaphagm offcut that was either coated with an adhesive or had been bonded to it with a coating process. Gripping it with a pair of tweezers it eventually came away but unfortunately it tore the pleat. Needless to say I was glad to see that diaphragms are now available again.
On the subject of home made Heils Neil Davis described 5 different magnet structures and three diaphragm sizes in The Audio Amateur issue 2 1977. Kenneth Rauen's horn loaded Heil parts 1 and 2 appeared in Speaker Builder issues 3/82 and 4/82 Both builders settled on the same method of diaphragm construction. The aluminium foil conductor was cut out with a knife and bonded to a thin sheet of polyethylene film with rubber cement. A second sheet was then bonded to the first so that the foil was sandwitched between the two. Neil Davis seems to have had an ongoing interest in Heils and posted a few progress reports on a mini Heil on the Madisound forum some years ago.
The mid range and tweeter drivers used in the ADAM (German) monitors are the subject of AES preprint 4984 The diaphragm material is Kapton and author Heinz remarks that the mid range diaphragm had to be coated to "avoid foil resonances" An aspect that caught my eye was the impedance curves which would have to be the most benign of any speaker yet devised. This demonstrates that Heils have a much better impedance match to the air than cones and domes etc. Someone in an early post mentioned piezoelectric Heils. AES convention paper 6579 is titled "Wideband piezoelectric rectangular loudspeaker using a tuck shape PVDF bimorph" I found this paper to be a mine of non-information on how the thing works, but rather concentrated on its acoustic properties. It looks like it owes much to the Heil principal, but there are no references to Heil whatever. The PVDF is a polymer film that has been folded into a zig zag shape. One can only speculate that when apropriate voltages are applied to the pleats the creases either close up or open up thus emulating the Heil diaphragm. The frequency response plots are none too impressive.
An idea that occured to me some time ago was an electrostatic realization of the Heil principal. By getting rid of the magnet we remove a major impediment to the acoustic design of the transducer. There is also no limit to how wide the diaphragm can be made or how deep the pleats can be. By having access to individual pleats there occurs the possibility of controlling directivity by altering the acoustic size of the source. It could be an answer to the problems of wavefield synthesis where the array of separate speakers leads to spatial aliasing. The hard part is having to deal with the needs of ESL's namely having to wrap the membrane around something to give it a defined spacing between pleats and worst of all to have to apply tension to the pleats and put up with the inevitable drum skin type resonances. Hope you found something of interest.
Keith
I have owned a pair of Heil "Elite" tweeters since the 1970's and reluctantly retired them when I tried to get to the bottom of what was causing one of the diapragms to rattle at considerably lower levels than the good one. It was when I was in the process of adding some car body filler to the magnet assembly to fill in a gap where a plastic magnet cover abuts the pole pieces that I saw the problem. More about this later. These Heils, which are probably the same as those in the AMT1 have been notable for a couple of high frequency peaks in their amplitude/freq response. These peaks are more noticeable off axis and occur at around 5.5KHz and 11KHz. The distance between the diaphragm and the discontinuity in the magnet happens to be a quarter wavelength at 5 odd KHz so we have a diffraction problem. Levelling out this groove gets rid of the peaks.
When peering at the diaphragm with the aid of a torch (flashlight) I could see some foreign material adhering to one of the pleats. The material was actually a thin sliver of diaphagm offcut that was either coated with an adhesive or had been bonded to it with a coating process. Gripping it with a pair of tweezers it eventually came away but unfortunately it tore the pleat. Needless to say I was glad to see that diaphragms are now available again.
On the subject of home made Heils Neil Davis described 5 different magnet structures and three diaphragm sizes in The Audio Amateur issue 2 1977. Kenneth Rauen's horn loaded Heil parts 1 and 2 appeared in Speaker Builder issues 3/82 and 4/82 Both builders settled on the same method of diaphragm construction. The aluminium foil conductor was cut out with a knife and bonded to a thin sheet of polyethylene film with rubber cement. A second sheet was then bonded to the first so that the foil was sandwitched between the two. Neil Davis seems to have had an ongoing interest in Heils and posted a few progress reports on a mini Heil on the Madisound forum some years ago.
The mid range and tweeter drivers used in the ADAM (German) monitors are the subject of AES preprint 4984 The diaphragm material is Kapton and author Heinz remarks that the mid range diaphragm had to be coated to "avoid foil resonances" An aspect that caught my eye was the impedance curves which would have to be the most benign of any speaker yet devised. This demonstrates that Heils have a much better impedance match to the air than cones and domes etc. Someone in an early post mentioned piezoelectric Heils. AES convention paper 6579 is titled "Wideband piezoelectric rectangular loudspeaker using a tuck shape PVDF bimorph" I found this paper to be a mine of non-information on how the thing works, but rather concentrated on its acoustic properties. It looks like it owes much to the Heil principal, but there are no references to Heil whatever. The PVDF is a polymer film that has been folded into a zig zag shape. One can only speculate that when apropriate voltages are applied to the pleats the creases either close up or open up thus emulating the Heil diaphragm. The frequency response plots are none too impressive.
An idea that occured to me some time ago was an electrostatic realization of the Heil principal. By getting rid of the magnet we remove a major impediment to the acoustic design of the transducer. There is also no limit to how wide the diaphragm can be made or how deep the pleats can be. By having access to individual pleats there occurs the possibility of controlling directivity by altering the acoustic size of the source. It could be an answer to the problems of wavefield synthesis where the array of separate speakers leads to spatial aliasing. The hard part is having to deal with the needs of ESL's namely having to wrap the membrane around something to give it a defined spacing between pleats and worst of all to have to apply tension to the pleats and put up with the inevitable drum skin type resonances. Hope you found something of interest.
Keith
I have four of the ESS AMT3 Rock Monitors and want to create a 5th center channel version. I need a complete Heil AMT for the project. Anyone know where I can get one?
Here is some additional info that may help with connecting up drivers in ESS speakers.
Usually, but not always:
Negitive wires are colored - Black, Purple, Brown, Red
Positives wires are colored - Green, Yellow, Blue
This information was provided by an engineer at ESS when they were in Sacramento.
By the way, here is the latest ESS that I have seen.
MeanGene
Here is some additional info that may help with connecting up drivers in ESS speakers.
Usually, but not always:
Negitive wires are colored - Black, Purple, Brown, Red
Positives wires are colored - Green, Yellow, Blue
This information was provided by an engineer at ESS when they were in Sacramento.
By the way, here is the latest ESS that I have seen.
MeanGene
Did someone measured the Big AMTs with this new batch of membranes?
http://www.speakerrepair.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=10-126&Category_Code=
http://www.speakerrepair.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=10-126&Category_Code=
New ribbons are great
Hi Ricky,
Got new ribbons for my ESS Heils today and hooked them. They sound fantastic just like when I bought them new back in 1973 in Chicago. You went out of your way covering my lifetime warranty and I wish you much success in your business bringing back one of the best speaker systems ever built.
If you need anyone for a good testimony in the future for your upstanding business practice and standing behind your product, please let me know. You can use this email if you would like to tell others what your all about. You are unbelievable. Thanks again.
Sincerely
Greg Lovick
Fortuna, California
Hi Ricky,
Got new ribbons for my ESS Heils today and hooked them. They sound fantastic just like when I bought them new back in 1973 in Chicago. You went out of your way covering my lifetime warranty and I wish you much success in your business bringing back one of the best speaker systems ever built.
If you need anyone for a good testimony in the future for your upstanding business practice and standing behind your product, please let me know. You can use this email if you would like to tell others what your all about. You are unbelievable. Thanks again.
Sincerely
Greg Lovick
Fortuna, California
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