ESP Speakers


I am looking for some information on ESP speakers from people who have actually owned them. 

I recently purchased a pair of ESP Bodhran speakers on Ebay and currently am waiting for their delivery.

I have never heard those speakers before but listened, under what I think were suboptimal conditions, to the older version of the ESP Concert Grands (3 woofers). These auditions left me quite puzzled. At times the speakers sounded great, even amazing. At other times they sounded quite awful. My feeling was that there was great potential with these speakers, but as I didn't have the opportunity to fiddle with the conditions under which they were offered, I have decided to look elsewhere.

Then one day I saw on Ebay a used pair of the Bodhran SE at a good price and decided to take the risk and purchase them. I would say that I did it out of curiosity, if not of anything else.    

Now the version of the Bodhran that I bought came out about 10 years after the first CG, and at the time cost more or less the same (16,000$). What I am interested to know is, first, how do the ESP Bodhran SE compare to the older ESP speakers?  I know that some drivers were changed, probably the crossovers, but I have no idea what change was made that justified an increase of 10,000$ from the first version?

Another thing I am curious to know is what people think in general about the brand. Today one can hardly find any information about ESP which is less than 10 years old. It would seem that very few people kept them long from new, and those who did eventually decided to get rid of them at very low prices.
This makes one wonder: has the fashion changed or are there really better offerings today than 10 and 20 years ago that justify such an expensive change? Or perhaps, there was something inherently wrong with the speakers after all?   
 ESP past and present owners, I would appreciate your comments.  
  
taviran
Taviran
Perhaps I can add a little insight on the subject. Back when ESP was still a US based company and attending CES, I heard the Bodhran speakers and was quite taken by their sound. Basically I viewed them as a smaller version of their Concert Grands. After CES I came very close to buying a new pair but at the last minute opted for a pair of Verity Parsifal Encore speakers instead. Pretty sure it was a matter of price. Years later a pair of ESP Concert Grands came up for sale locally and I bought them. This pair had the latest driver upgrades as well as new cloth socks and looked new. I was a little hesitant about the purchase, not because of the sound but because my room is only 14x16 and the Concert Grands is a really large speaker.  The Bodhrans would have been a much better fit.  However it turned out they worked very well in my room, the sound was full, warm and rich.  I liked how they presented the performers as life size. The bass was very good and not boomy. My only complaint was the top end extension could have been better. The Concert Grands has two tweeters, one front and one rear firing and I think, but not 100% that the designer rolls these off around 15,000 hz. I mean it was still very good but I wanted it better so I added a pair of Tannoy supertweeters crossing over around 15,000. These worked well. These speakers are rather bass rich so matching them with the right speaker cable was essential, I used Jena Labs Twin19 speaker cables which was a great match. I kept the Concert Grands for a few years and had no plans on ever selling them but my "End All" speaker the Ascendo System M came up for sale at a price I could actually afford and opted for these instead.  I ended up selling them to a guy in Montreal, it was shameful how cheap these sold for, new  they were around $40,000. Had these not come up for sale I would have kept the ESP Concert Grands.   There is nothing quirky or out of place with ESP speakers whatsoever, both of their models, th Concert Grands and Bodhran are very fine speakers, Iam sure you will like their sound.
My system was and still is Joule Electra Heaven Gate Mono SET amps, 70 wpc, Class A, Joule LA 150 MkIi Preamp, Audiomeca CD, Transrotor Fat Bob Reference turntable.

George
I have the Bodhran SE which I purchased after hearing them at RMAF 2007.  I took delivery in the spring of 2008.  So, I've owned them for over nine years.  
What initially attracted me to investigate these was they had to be tube amp friendly and non ported bass.  The unusual styling was also a plus over the typical monkey box.
IME, the speakers are very picky as far as room setup and connected components.  The speakers must be biwired.  My favorite amp so far is the BAT vk 55 which is heat generating class A triode which the other responder also found the speakers like class A triode power.  Due to my location in the desert southwest, the speakers are my winter system.
I hope to have them setup again in a couple of weeks.  In my room I prefer a live end dead end setup with the speaker end being the live end.  The speakers have side firing tweeters so need a bit of a reverberant field.  
I place them about 25 inches from the front wall to the back of the cabinet which places the leading edge about 42 inches into the room.  The speakers are designed to be parallel to the side walls resulting in a 45 degree toe angle.  I like a bit of toe out, approximately half an inch which gives about a 37 degree toe angle. M
Crap, I bumped the post button.  So anyway, my listening position is about 9 feet away.
I never could really achieve the bass impact I was looking for so my solution turned out to be a pair of Gallo subs.  I'm used to full bass from my summer N802's.  I now have plenty of mid bass Punch and slam with response down to 25 hz.

So, how do they sound?  Like real music, real instruments especially anything acoustic piano, drums, cello, bass fiddle and voices.  I can pretty much play anything I want.  Both of my systems offer a lot of pleasure but the winter system is my favorite.

 I can't think of another speaker on the market today that would serve my needs any better.