My first posting ever in the web!!!!!
My ESS-Transar ATD 2 is still going strong and beautiful ...
I bought them in germay in a HiFi-Shop 20 years ago. They are priced 10 000 DM... Why more than twice this price now in Italy? I'm not shure if this are brandnew items?
Never heard that replacement parts are available for the HEIL-woofer, only for the tweeters. Can anybody tell me were to get then, if it's true?
To Tymphany:
I visited their site:
Their principle is not to move diaphragms fixed to one driver against fixed plates on the housing but instead two opposite mounted drivers moving diaphrams (or plates) aigainst each other (every second plate is fixed to the opposite driver)
The principle is like clapping hands by both: Tymphany and HEIL-woofer!!!!!
Nevertheless i will try to get the biggest tymphany they produce for testing purpose: (Perhaps replacing the sub-woofer of my ATD to get an all 'clapping hands principle'- LS'.
So long i have no price , no dealer for it in germany!!
P.S Are there other Transar-owner listed? Found none...
My ESS-Transar ATD 2 is still going strong and beautiful ...
I bought them in germay in a HiFi-Shop 20 years ago. They are priced 10 000 DM... Why more than twice this price now in Italy? I'm not shure if this are brandnew items?
Never heard that replacement parts are available for the HEIL-woofer, only for the tweeters. Can anybody tell me were to get then, if it's true?
To Tymphany:
I visited their site:
Their principle is not to move diaphragms fixed to one driver against fixed plates on the housing but instead two opposite mounted drivers moving diaphrams (or plates) aigainst each other (every second plate is fixed to the opposite driver)
The principle is like clapping hands by both: Tymphany and HEIL-woofer!!!!!
Nevertheless i will try to get the biggest tymphany they produce for testing purpose: (Perhaps replacing the sub-woofer of my ATD to get an all 'clapping hands principle'- LS'.
So long i have no price , no dealer for it in germany!!
P.S Are there other Transar-owner listed? Found none...
Here's the diagram of the crossover I've been using for the past couple years. The RS225s are in a sealed box, the q of the box is around .6 if I recall. They sound pretty good, and I'm even using electrolytics for the two big shunt caps.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
AMT with two RS-225's
John:
Thanks for posting your crossover for the speaker in question. I posted some questions on another thread about a similar design that I am doing, and maybe you can save me some time......
Did you ever measure this speaker, or was it an analytic design? I am having a devil of a time coming up with a voicing for my rendition (different mid bass drivers) and am curious what relative level you came up with between the heil and the woofers at the crossover point. Flat is not right, of course, since the heil is a dipole. Where did yours end up for relative sensitivity of the heil and the woofers?
Dick M
John:
Thanks for posting your crossover for the speaker in question. I posted some questions on another thread about a similar design that I am doing, and maybe you can save me some time......
Did you ever measure this speaker, or was it an analytic design? I am having a devil of a time coming up with a voicing for my rendition (different mid bass drivers) and am curious what relative level you came up with between the heil and the woofers at the crossover point. Flat is not right, of course, since the heil is a dipole. Where did yours end up for relative sensitivity of the heil and the woofers?
Dick M
Hi guys
Dick: I saw your other post and had meant to get back to you there. Sorry, the holidays have kept me very busy. To answer your question, yes I measured it, but it was before John K had written his instructions on how to measure a dipole. When measured from 1 meter the AMT was a little hotter than the woofers. I don't have a plot in front of me, but I think it was 2-3 db up. I should measure the darn things properly sometime, but hopefully I'll be replacing them with full dipoles soon. That's another adventure that's gone on longer than expected.
Tad: No, I never tried putting a cap on there. I spoke a bit with Jon Marsh from the 'other' forum to get the CE thing right. This sounded the best out of the few other designs I tried.
No problem being the info corner for the AMT's, I have no problem touting something I believe in.
Dick: I saw your other post and had meant to get back to you there. Sorry, the holidays have kept me very busy. To answer your question, yes I measured it, but it was before John K had written his instructions on how to measure a dipole. When measured from 1 meter the AMT was a little hotter than the woofers. I don't have a plot in front of me, but I think it was 2-3 db up. I should measure the darn things properly sometime, but hopefully I'll be replacing them with full dipoles soon. That's another adventure that's gone on longer than expected.
Tad: No, I never tried putting a cap on there. I spoke a bit with Jon Marsh from the 'other' forum to get the CE thing right. This sounded the best out of the few other designs I tried.
No problem being the info corner for the AMT's, I have no problem touting something I believe in.
JohnL said:Hi guys
Dick: I saw your other post and had meant to get back to you there. Sorry, the holidays have kept me very busy. To answer your question, yes I measured it, but it was before John K had written his instructions on how to measure a dipole. When measured from 1 meter the AMT was a little hotter than the woofers. I don't have a plot in front of me, but I think it was 2-3 db up. I should measure the darn things properly sometime, but hopefully I'll be replacing them with full dipoles soon. That's another adventure that's gone on longer than expected.
Tad: No, I never tried putting a cap on there. I spoke a bit with Jon Marsh from the 'other' forum to get the CE thing right. This sounded the best out of the few other designs I tried.
No problem being the info corner for the AMT's, I have no problem touting something I believe in.
Thanks for the reply John. I confess that I have not read John K's paper on dipole measurement, and this needs to be my first stop. I had assumed (and may yet still!) that the AMT will have some interesting polar properties, but its not like a dipole mid or woofer since it has what appears to be an effective baffle width of about 12" (BTW, never stick a steel ruler into an AMT!), and the real dipole behavior will be below the 1200 Hz crossover point I have now.
The really puzzling part is that the power response of the AMT is clearly not like a dome or ribbon tweeter at all, and that simply doing a level match at the crossover point is NOT the right thing to do here. I have no science to descrbe this, but when I level matched the speaker from the front at 1 meter, it was way too bright. As I adjust this by ear, I got all the way to -12 dB before it was obviously off. After listening and tinkering, I arrived at about -3.5 dB attentuation from the natural sensitivity. When I measure this the same way I measure a monopole (Gated), it looks like about an 8 dB difference between my woofers and the tweeter (The woofers are much higher), although being an MMT with a pair of 8's, its tough to ensure equalized distances AND stay on axis for the tweeter.
This math works with the estimate. I have heard that the Heil is about 101 dB, although the gated 1 meter measurements do not support this, since, its a dipole! I do know that my woofers are 95 dB each, yielding a raw 101 dB. With 3.5 dB of baffle step and 3.5 dB tweeter attenuation, it all makes sense. Except that pesky measurement showing an 8 dB step down at the crossover point.
The other pesky point for me is your crossover. I modeled your highpass section with my measurements, and your filter and mine are virtually identical except that you have about 7 dB of attenuation. If the Heil IS a 101 dB driver, then yours will be matched to a pair of RS-225's.....with zero baffle step compensation. Yours should have been about 10 dB down???
All this leads me back to the measurement not looking right. Its also possible that my AMT is not 101 dB at all, or maybe none of them are! Anyways, I was hoping to see someone else with a set of measurements that look like mine, or tell me why mine are wrong. Perhaps John K will do that for me.....again.
Thanks again,
Dick
Hello All, very interesting reading. I am currently using 4 ESS AMt3's in a 5.1 Home Theater configuration. I would like to build an AMT driven center channel. I am thinking of using two Seas Excel 7" drivers to sing along with the Heil. I am looking for a couple of the AMT to complete the parts gathering process. If you find any good working units, please let me know. Any suggestions on everthing from box design to xover is welcomed.
Heil Crossover Slope
I am thinking about matching the large heil's with a pair of audax 8" woofers at 1500 hz but am stuck on the best slope to use.From what I have read,24db will cause insertion loss(can anyone tell me what the audible effect is ?),18db can cause lobing(does this also apply to the heil's ?) and 12db may not be steep enough.Also what is the best filter type for this setup ?
Maybe this would all be simplified by crossing over higher,but I don't want to give up any more of the heil's definition than necessary,just high enough to "relax" them.
Any help you ESS fans can supply is greatly appreciated.
I am thinking about matching the large heil's with a pair of audax 8" woofers at 1500 hz but am stuck on the best slope to use.From what I have read,24db will cause insertion loss(can anyone tell me what the audible effect is ?),18db can cause lobing(does this also apply to the heil's ?) and 12db may not be steep enough.Also what is the best filter type for this setup ?
Maybe this would all be simplified by crossing over higher,but I don't want to give up any more of the heil's definition than necessary,just high enough to "relax" them.
Any help you ESS fans can supply is greatly appreciated.
Re: Heil Crossover Slope
I spent several months trying to do a design similar to the one you propose. Tried, because ultimately I surrendered in frustration. The Heil is a superb tweeter, no question. It is however, a dipole, and this causes some very unusual power response characteristics to appear that are very much room dependent. My story is a long one, but let me offer a few tidbits for consideration.
- I started with an MMT, Heil mounted on top. Use this design. The MTM style had way to many compromises
- Set up the woofers in a bipole configuration - one front, and one rear firing. After talking to Planet10 on this for a bit, he came up with this approach, and it has its merits. I have not tried it (yet), but there is no doubt that this is the way to go.
- I tried all the slopes (I have an electronic crossover I used for auditioning), and a third order slope worked best for my box. The Heil does not seem to care, but the woofer will. More importantly, the power response in the 1 - 2 KHz range is critical. This is where the woofers are finishing their baffle step transition, and where the Heil is starting. Slope in this area is critical, and will depend upon the shape of your cabinet. In a bipole configuration, this will likely change.
- Because of the power response a flat measurement on axis does NOT sound right. I wound up padding mine a lot to prevent the speaker from tearing my head off, despite some very nice looking on axis measurements. Check out John K's website for a releveant, but not definitive analysis of dipole power response issues.
- Voice it in your placement area by ear. Heil used to have a mid and high LPAD for users to do this. The sound of the speaker is totally dependent on your room placement. We are taliking Jekyl and Hyde different here.
- Make sure you know the diaphragms you have. I encountered three different styles, all of which have different impedance and response characteristics. For all I know, there are thirty different ones out there.
As to your specific questions, The heil will be fine with 2nd order at 1500. It might even do 1st order, but I did not try this extensively. All crossover topologies have lobes and radiation patterns, there is no magic bullet to eliminate this. This design is much more complex than just the crossover pattern because of the Heil's inherent dipole radiation pattern. Good luck with it.
Dick
hndaaudio said:
I spent several months trying to do a design similar to the one you propose. Tried, because ultimately I surrendered in frustration. The Heil is a superb tweeter, no question. It is however, a dipole, and this causes some very unusual power response characteristics to appear that are very much room dependent. My story is a long one, but let me offer a few tidbits for consideration.
- I started with an MMT, Heil mounted on top. Use this design. The MTM style had way to many compromises
- Set up the woofers in a bipole configuration - one front, and one rear firing. After talking to Planet10 on this for a bit, he came up with this approach, and it has its merits. I have not tried it (yet), but there is no doubt that this is the way to go.
- I tried all the slopes (I have an electronic crossover I used for auditioning), and a third order slope worked best for my box. The Heil does not seem to care, but the woofer will. More importantly, the power response in the 1 - 2 KHz range is critical. This is where the woofers are finishing their baffle step transition, and where the Heil is starting. Slope in this area is critical, and will depend upon the shape of your cabinet. In a bipole configuration, this will likely change.
- Because of the power response a flat measurement on axis does NOT sound right. I wound up padding mine a lot to prevent the speaker from tearing my head off, despite some very nice looking on axis measurements. Check out John K's website for a releveant, but not definitive analysis of dipole power response issues.
- Voice it in your placement area by ear. Heil used to have a mid and high LPAD for users to do this. The sound of the speaker is totally dependent on your room placement. We are taliking Jekyl and Hyde different here.
- Make sure you know the diaphragms you have. I encountered three different styles, all of which have different impedance and response characteristics. For all I know, there are thirty different ones out there.
As to your specific questions, The heil will be fine with 2nd order at 1500. It might even do 1st order, but I did not try this extensively. All crossover topologies have lobes and radiation patterns, there is no magic bullet to eliminate this. This design is much more complex than just the crossover pattern because of the Heil's inherent dipole radiation pattern. Good luck with it.
Dick
Dick:
What are your thoughts about a design for utilizing the largest of the baffle-mounted heils (like from the PS series).
I happen to have 4 of them, along with a pair of PS5's and PS8's, and was thinking of making a center channel and maybe some some main speakers that would utilize 3 10" woofers for my home theatre room, and have my ML Quests and Velodyne ULD-18 with their own system just for music.
What are your thoughts about a design for utilizing the largest of the baffle-mounted heils (like from the PS series).
I happen to have 4 of them, along with a pair of PS5's and PS8's, and was thinking of making a center channel and maybe some some main speakers that would utilize 3 10" woofers for my home theatre room, and have my ML Quests and Velodyne ULD-18 with their own system just for music.
I did not know there were any baffle mounted Heils, so I cannot advise you. I have seem some of the monopols AMT's others have done - these would be used just like any other tweeter I assume. What made the Heil I worked with so tricky was the dipole aspect. Are the baffle mounted ones still dipoles??
Dick
Dick
Heil Bipolar System
Dick,
Thanks for the interesting info.What do you think about a bipolar woofer setup on an open baffle ? I am new to open baffle designs,any suggested reading for designing such a system ?
My heils are from the 1D model,the diaphrams look silver.Do you know what the impedance is ?
ESS used to make baffle mounted monopole heils for the smaller models.I have not heard all of them,but what I did hear sounded terrible.I would stick with the large heils.
Dick,
Thanks for the interesting info.What do you think about a bipolar woofer setup on an open baffle ? I am new to open baffle designs,any suggested reading for designing such a system ?
My heils are from the 1D model,the diaphrams look silver.Do you know what the impedance is ?
ESS used to make baffle mounted monopole heils for the smaller models.I have not heard all of them,but what I did hear sounded terrible.I would stick with the large heils.
Re: Heil Bipolar System
I agree with your definition of the baffle. There is no reason one could not take a large heil and baffle mount it with an enclosure behind to swallow the back wave. One of my collaborators suggested just such a strategy. With a good box design, it would work. A monopole version of the heil would be one that has such a rear enclosure already installed, like standard tweeters do. In any event, I'm not a Heil guru, simply a speaker designer who tried a dipole Heil, and got my butt kicked. Conceptually though, a monopole Heil would be the same as any other tweeter in terms of the overall design process. MUCH easier than the dipole version.
Dave is right, anything with an open baffle is a dipole by definition. The reason this might be even TOUGHER to do is that the large Heil is, by any definition, a dipole.....BUT it behaves more like a bipole. This is because it has an effective 12" baffle due to the design, and the front and back waves never really coherently meet each other at the frequencies of interest creating the characteristic dipole radiation pattern. Its radiation pattern is much more bipole-like. It sprays treble against the back wall the same way a bipole does. A Bipole woofer setup allows the radiation pattern into the room to be much more even over a wider range. Setting up the woofers as dipoles would be fiendishly difficult to get right I think.
As for the diaphrams, I cannot advise you, but an ohm meter can. The three versions I had (two different ones in the tweeters from Fleabay, and a pair from SimplySpeakers) were different. The new ones available on line were not as good as ONE of the diaphragms the tweeters came with, but I needed a matched pair. The new ones had a couple of items of interest.
- The cheesecloth covering them needs to be removed. They vibrated at 300 Hz rather loudly when it was left on. It just peels off easily.
- There is a wicked response peak at 7100 Hz on axis. It softens off axis, but you would need to notch it out....its about 6 dB high. Its about 2 KHz wide.
The impedance on these is 4.5 ohms. One of the others was just over six, and the other was just over seven. You have to measure it. The good news is that all three were dead flat down to 800 Hz, where they dropped a few hundred milliohms. Sorry, but two of them were visually identical, and the other very similar, so I would not trust a visual description as a replacement for a measurement. As I said, I have no reason to believe that there are not MANY diferent diaphragm versions out there.
Dick
Brad-Man said:
I agree with your definition of the baffle. There is no reason one could not take a large heil and baffle mount it with an enclosure behind to swallow the back wave. One of my collaborators suggested just such a strategy. With a good box design, it would work. A monopole version of the heil would be one that has such a rear enclosure already installed, like standard tweeters do. In any event, I'm not a Heil guru, simply a speaker designer who tried a dipole Heil, and got my butt kicked. Conceptually though, a monopole Heil would be the same as any other tweeter in terms of the overall design process. MUCH easier than the dipole version.
hndaaudio said:
Dave is right, anything with an open baffle is a dipole by definition. The reason this might be even TOUGHER to do is that the large Heil is, by any definition, a dipole.....BUT it behaves more like a bipole. This is because it has an effective 12" baffle due to the design, and the front and back waves never really coherently meet each other at the frequencies of interest creating the characteristic dipole radiation pattern. Its radiation pattern is much more bipole-like. It sprays treble against the back wall the same way a bipole does. A Bipole woofer setup allows the radiation pattern into the room to be much more even over a wider range. Setting up the woofers as dipoles would be fiendishly difficult to get right I think.
As for the diaphrams, I cannot advise you, but an ohm meter can. The three versions I had (two different ones in the tweeters from Fleabay, and a pair from SimplySpeakers) were different. The new ones available on line were not as good as ONE of the diaphragms the tweeters came with, but I needed a matched pair. The new ones had a couple of items of interest.
- The cheesecloth covering them needs to be removed. They vibrated at 300 Hz rather loudly when it was left on. It just peels off easily.
- There is a wicked response peak at 7100 Hz on axis. It softens off axis, but you would need to notch it out....its about 6 dB high. Its about 2 KHz wide.
The impedance on these is 4.5 ohms. One of the others was just over six, and the other was just over seven. You have to measure it. The good news is that all three were dead flat down to 800 Hz, where they dropped a few hundred milliohms. Sorry, but two of them were visually identical, and the other very similar, so I would not trust a visual description as a replacement for a measurement. As I said, I have no reason to believe that there are not MANY diferent diaphragm versions out there.
Dick
Those diaphragms are truly a work in progress from start to finish. The earliest being physically taller than their successors and without mesh cloth, made from teflon sheet. I believe the next versions were shorter by a quarter inch and eventually incorporated the mesh. I have found the virgin teflon units superior in performance. Those early ones were also 6 and sometimes 8ohm diaphragms. Later circuit builds decreased pleat count to 13 vs the previous 17/18/19 pleat diaphragms. Membrane construction soon thereafter turned to mylar.
Right in there is where response degraded IMO. Inherent and undesirable response peaks such as suggested by dickmorgan22 became prevalent in the 10k range and in some cases, results show an unacceptable 9-10db increase. I think IIRC the next step incurred was a kapton dual-sided and later a single-sided circuit and it performed very well, in fact it still to date is the out-performer of all membrane materials, per test results both in the US and abroad. They had significant trouble with thermal handling and soon aborted it. Those were easy to discern as the membranes were urine colored.
Returning to the mylar and going with single-sided circuits seemed to be the winning choice for them. To my knowledge the mylar was produced almost exclusively for 26 of the last 33 years they were in business folding them, before pulling up shop and spending 2 fruitless seasons in Frankfurt.
Now relocated stateside again, they're folding the same mylar 13-pleat membrane and (having auditioned them extensively) i must say, they're not the diaphragms of old and i would feel confident to place an older AMT with a vintage diaphragm in an A/B with the modern piece - blindfold myself - and i feel which AMT would be the finer transducer of the two - to be the vintage.
Oh well, i still couldn't be asked to part with a new Heil vs a conventional 1k-16k driver... if they existed
Right in there is where response degraded IMO. Inherent and undesirable response peaks such as suggested by dickmorgan22 became prevalent in the 10k range and in some cases, results show an unacceptable 9-10db increase. I think IIRC the next step incurred was a kapton dual-sided and later a single-sided circuit and it performed very well, in fact it still to date is the out-performer of all membrane materials, per test results both in the US and abroad. They had significant trouble with thermal handling and soon aborted it. Those were easy to discern as the membranes were urine colored.
Returning to the mylar and going with single-sided circuits seemed to be the winning choice for them. To my knowledge the mylar was produced almost exclusively for 26 of the last 33 years they were in business folding them, before pulling up shop and spending 2 fruitless seasons in Frankfurt.
Now relocated stateside again, they're folding the same mylar 13-pleat membrane and (having auditioned them extensively) i must say, they're not the diaphragms of old and i would feel confident to place an older AMT with a vintage diaphragm in an A/B with the modern piece - blindfold myself - and i feel which AMT would be the finer transducer of the two - to be the vintage.
Oh well, i still couldn't be asked to part with a new Heil vs a conventional 1k-16k driver... if they existed
I just wanted to thank all of you for your assistance. I just finished my set of AMT 1B's. I picked them up several months ago. They were just the cabinets, grills, x-overs and grills with one manual. Now they are totally restored. I used your forum for several tips and I thank each and everyone. They sound fantastic. I have a set of AMT 1AM's too. All are for sale. If I knew how to post a picture I would. Assistance? Thanks
Attachments
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.