A few of the less seen versions pictured here, and a home project version a few years back. Where the Dr. Von Heil Air Motion Transformer (AMT) all started from here in Sacramento California. Fun thread, great memories digging these up. :) ESS AMT1A (early model) ESS AMT3 Rock Monitor ESS AMT6 Professional Series ESS AMT Monitors (late model) 80s
ESS Transar ATD ESS Transar ATD
DEC-AMT28 my own custom version in 2018 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- @cycle2, You bet. We are all products of the environment we grew up in as they say. :) I worked at ESS in the early 80s on the assembly lines. Like you, I had the same AMT Monitors and AMT 1B speakers as you had. They were one of the speakers to have at the time, including those ESS 500 amps. Super cool, glad to hear it. Later i discovered more improvements with really good SS and TUBE amps! All the sudden the AMTs really started to sound wonderful. A re-discovery! For three decades, I felt the big AMTs with 12" woofers and passives were slightly off, with a commonly discussed "hole" in the midrange yet to be mastered. Then came the i.e. AMT3 Rock Monitors (with midrange) came out, even closer to what was needed compared to what you and I had before. Hence my DEC-AMT28s I finally designed and built. They blow away any prior ESS factory unit I had before. I’ve had some discussion with Nelson about my speakers. His teams also had some updated versions of his own speakers too, super cool to see what came out later by others, over the years. While I did my updated version, so did Pass Labs later on. Check these babies out, Pass Labs Rushmore. Modern day AMT3s, and better. Big $.
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A lot was going on down in the bay areas while we had our oddity speaker builders and companies designing and building different stuff up here in NorCal. All disappeared now. This thread is such a blast through the past, thanks for that oldhvymec. Thoroughly enjoyed remembering, finding, posting odd speaker pics! |
One can learn from the past to observe, refine, redesign, restyle and optimize. Many cool designs you see today with speakers are spawned and resurrected from great ideas of the past with new materials and updated engineering to some degree. However, even for musical speakers, technology has not changed all that much. Other areas of audio electronics have progressed much more than speakers past 50 years, actually. This is definitely not a thread about digital zeros and ones. DSP Bluetooth speaker threads can be found elsewhere, LOL. 🤣
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Interesting. I heard a pair of those floorstander Gallo 3s in a smaller room powered by a 100w EL34 stereo tube amplifier with some decent iron transformers behind it. The sound of that middle "CDT3 (Cylindrical Diaphragm Transducer)" component in that MTM type design was pretty neat. Like a circular flat ribbon of sorts. Smooth sound, quite surprising. My friend missed out on buying a used pair and kinda regrets it. A unique looking and sounding speaker in a small floorstander. I wonder if a pair of those new Strada 2 separate units with a REL sub would sound close.
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To [@oldhvymech], Interesting. Not sure where this photo came from, I went to a PAP listening session years back and heard these same units. It was an evaluator rep here in NorCal, he had the same hard floors and drapes to the side :) The speakers were overly sensitive for my ears paired with what I felt were the wrong amplifiers for the speakers. Some lower power mono tube amps with good tubes, would have been better for demos imo. It gave some ideas at least. I too wondered what happened with their production, frames, was sorta looking to test the AMT version, and did not get the chance. Was a clever idea with modular sections. You’ve probably seen these too, this is what I was looking over, great heil at center.
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------------------------------------------------------------ oldhvymech, ahhh, Sansui SP-5500 speakers. Fairly rare, more info here. https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/sansui/sp-5500.shtml 4-way, 8ohms, 98db, pretty unique. Full specs here: Specifications: Type: 4 way, 6 driver loudspeaker system Frequency Response: 40Hz to 20kHz Power Handling: 120W Crossover Frequency: 700, 1000, 6500Hz Impedance: 8Ω Sensitivity: 98dB Bass: 1 x 380mm cone Midbass: 2 x 125mm cones Midrange: 1 x horn Tweeter: 2 x horn Finish: open pore walnut Dimensions: 532 x 850 x 430mm Weight: 46.2kg
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re: AR MGC-1, old article specs show they weigh 150lbs each...heavy! re: Snell B, shows two active 10" woofers on the spec per speaker. One 10" on front and there is one more [rear-firing] woofer plus another alloy Vifa tweeter on the rear of the speaker too...,pic below of rear of Snell B. Fwiw, I’ve used those exact same Vifa small 5-6" woofers and same Vifa aluminum tweeter in a custom MTM configuration I did years ago. IMO, It still needed other woofers and/or sub to fill in the bottom end a bit more. Snell B, rear:
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One last photo of the AR-9 from audio-database, and just because its a cool photo. https://audio-database.com/AR/amp_speaker/ar-9-e.html
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