I’ve heard them with Pass equipment. I kept staring at them. I expected Dr. Who to pop up.. They sure disappeared in a room. Jean-Luc Ponty was on the menu. I remember that I brought it.. The guy had isobaric subs made from 1" thick clear plastic. Quit a sight and sound. The drivers had the biggest motors I had ever seen, they must have weigh 50 pounds each. I’ll see If I can fin a pic. Side Note: HAY Crazy SUBS pics are cool. I like all the DIY stuff. I’d give my eye teeth, If I had eye teeth for the ESS Transar ATD, that were all custom. MAN they look good, I know they sound good.. Regards |
=1 x5owner1 on the Gallo 3 series. Could sound very good indeed, and at very reasonable price point, esp. by the standards of today's hobby.
I briefly had a pair of 3.5s or 3.6s, but could not get them to sing with the 30wpc amp I was running. I expect they wanted a bit of juice. Weird that the company persists, but discontinued the special speaker in their line (the Strada is good, but not in the same league)
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I new a guy named Mugs he had a pair of these. They sounded better than the QLS1. Theses were powered by infinity amps and used an Infinity preamp too. No Idea who actually made them.. They were in one of the first large treated rooms, I had ever heard and the guy had 2 (TWO) VMPS passive subs. He worked at the largest record retailer in the Bay Area for 10 years.. 10,000 records at least.. You wanted to hear it, he had it.. :-) Mugs went to heaven. :-) Regards
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AR 3A wonderful speakers.. I never had to work on many AR speakers because they seldom screwed up. I sure like. I seen a few on stands too, that was the ticket. I used QSO 808 with a ring mid driver. I'm actually listening to them right now. Very close in sound. Look at the bass drivers and the cabinets. I don't think these were a matched pair.. ???? |
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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Speakers come and go. For most there is a reason they are no longer made. I do not long for any speakers in the past. There is only looking forward to improved performance. You have to know what you are listening for. Many are just shooting in the dark. I liked my father's B302 Bozaks. They were very efficient warm loudspeakers that worked great with low power tube electronics. They were better than anything I could afford at the time. I have no desire to resurrect the past. The present is so much better. |
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! |
I'll tell you where I lived as a kid, the biggest brand in the Bay Area was Infinity and Klipsch. Martin Logan was for the rich and famous and B&W was around lets say. VMPS was very popular, almost cult like and JBL was everywhere. A lot of music makers used JBL in their homes and there were a LOT of music makers in the Bay Area.. Every rancher I knew had JBL, Mac or Marantz valve gear.. Regards |
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So many great posts! Really happy to see Acoustat X and Beveridge both mentioned. Electrostatics with direct-drive tube amps made a lasting impression, to the point I have trouble being satisfied with less. And ADS 2030s - I swear those things were bigger than the crates they came in ;-) |
These are my RMx Elixirs after sound coat was added a few years back we were seeing if it made any difference with a HDF cabinet.. There is a rear fire section now and one of the neo 8 is in the rear position and a AC 8" ribbon is put in its place in the front. Dual Mono Pole. There is a 1.5 BB Isolation plate with pods and a Stainless wrap along with a 30lb polished stainless cap. Almost 500lbs just for the monitors. I don't use the bass section. I'm thinking of pulling the drivers, blanking the openings and adding 50lbs of activated charcoal per cabinet. They are one of a kind now for sure. There were only 16 pairs ever made and under 6 in the US. 9 total left.. 2 sets of 3 are part of the 9 sets. James B. Trunural processor with Ampzilla amps.. FUN speakers. I'm not kidding 10-500 watts.. 92 sensitivity. I know they have seen 1000 watts. Never an issue. Mine are 13 years old.. They will last another 50 years. |
Nelson Pass, I’ve heard these speakers and 2 or 3 slightly different versions. Single concentric drivers every time. I love horns. Now if mozartfan would pay just a little attention he might see something interesting for a dual purpose single chassis driver and a well designed horn. 7 watts with a 101 sensitivity is incredibly loud.. If you looked up through the throat they weren't matched very well at the flange connections. We matching the ports on ours. That top "U" had highland sheep wool. The best sounding was rough coat the last 18" or so of the outlet. I ran mine with MC240 Macs. Just about 30 watts to much. I wish I would have had a MC225 at the time. That would have been the ticket.. :-) Not according to Mr Pass though. :-) He was designing Threshold at the time I think.. It was a while back.. Sure supported his products through the years. See him just popup in a Pass talk group.. Regards |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- @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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Back in the early 80s fell in love with the Quad ESL63s and bought a pair that I had and served me well for over 20 years. Another of my very favorites was the Apogee Duetta Signiture. Now that I'm back in a larger living space with a large dedicated audio room, It's been my quest to get a good, rebuilt pr. of the Duetta Sigs. Unfortunately, the few available pairs I've found are 2K to 3K miles away with pick up only. Other of my favorites of the 70s, 80s and 90s (for different reasons), were the Dahlquist DQ-10s and 20s, Marten Logans, Maggies, Ohm Walsh, Klpsch Corner Horns and the big Altec Lansings.....Jim |
Martin Logan Monoliths
Apogee Scintillas (I own one of the few power amps capable of driving those 1 ohm amp killers, but have never been able to find a pair for sale) Vandersteen 4A (I also own a pair of those - only a few hundred made in between his other higher production speakers. Pic is my pair, triwired and biamped. (the amps are Classe DR3 VHC run in mono mode -they made only 133 of them - I own 3 of them - so not exactly thick on the ground). Bass is run by PSE V monos) If you ever find a pair of these speakers, buy them!.
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@decooney Thanks for all the pics of the ESS speakers. I never realized they made so many models. I used to own the AMT-1B's which I believe was basically an AMT-1A but added a rear facing 12" passive radiator. A friend of mine also owned a pair and had the ESS 500 watt amp. Talk about a revolutionary sound in the late '70's.
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