ESS speakers "Translinear" Transstatic

I just wanted to let everybody know that ESS is still around, it was bought by a German company a few years back and they have some new exciting speakers and is just now being introduced back on the US market.

http://www.audio-intl.com/en/index.html

Peder

Just caught this thread..I had back in the day a pair of ESS Translinear2's with the Kef 9/12 oval woofer as Vintage described..These speakers had incredible bass clarity and speed because of the styrofoam material of the woofer made a great linear piston. The enlosure was very stout and was a transmission line type. I latter built a larger transmission line subwoofer enclosure using this same Kef driver based on a design published in a English Journal..I found it difficult to stay in the room with this woofer playing ..it seemed to reproduce the fundamental resonance of my then Sony TT and Vestigal tonearm equiped with a ADC XLM cartridge..Tom

I too have just come across this thread. My first experience with true hi-end sound was back in 1972 and the ESS Translinears. I heard ELP's Trilogy album being played (it was quite a popular hi-fi demo record in those days!)and there was a cut where this LOUD kick drum enters and I was absolutely flabbergasted by the huge (in those days) bass impact. I haven't heard this speaker in all these years but I agree with what was said here. Transmission lines load the bass into the room instead of an enclosure. They sound very refined and are better for music than home theater. I later heard the Transtatic I and it was even better! I remember the salesman explaining about the Translinear II that ESS was using this fantastic flat woofer which was immune to cone break-up loaded into an EXCELLENT transmission line enclosure. He also mentioned that the midrange was also from KEF (as was the B139 woofer) and the tweeters were made by Peerless with a radical approach for that time of a tweeter facing to the back as well as front to mimic electrostatics. An ad from that time claimed "the closest likeness to electrostatics yet achieved with dynamic drivers" They were right! The Transtatic I did have the RTR panels (actually from a Janszen design).
The orignal Heil AMT ( I still have the sales brochures for all these speakers!) had a crossover of 700 hz but this proved too low and caused 'ribbon-slap' in the Heil so it was later changed to 900 hz before finally setteling on an 800 hz crossover. The early Heils had crappy ported enclosures with a wimpy 10" paper woofer. I was poor back then so I finally bought a Heil speaker made for "Lafayette Radio" by ESS with a "power ring" version of the Heil but the same woofer and enclosure. It did not have the qualities of the 'big' AMTs. ESS did make a really good version of the AMT with the 10" woofer mounted in one of their top-notch transmission line enclosures and the difference was GREAT! This speaker was discontinued shortly because the cost of that type of enclosure (and the increased shipping costs by that time)were too high and people preferred the "Rock Monitor" version that had a big ported enclosure. By the time I scraped together enough money to buy the Tower...it was gone. So then..the "Lafayette".

I wish these things would show up on the auction sites so I could finally get my hands on one, but I guess that is a testament to the great sound of all ESS speakers from the seventies that they still sound good enough to make audiophiles want to KEEP them!

Good data nexusstudio. I visit this thread every time someone posts new comments.

I would love to hear one of these today and see how reality fares, when compared to my rosy memories.

Ahh..I know what you mean Albert! Maybe we are 'romanticizing' the sound of those early speakers because they were so advanced. I have bi-amped Carver Amazing Silvers now which probably are much better than an old ESS? It does seem odd that there is so little info on the web about the early ESS speakers. I will be checking this thread from time to time myself!