Any ideas what these are?

gmjungbluth

Saw these online for an estate sale notice - any idea what they are?

They look kind of like Bose 501s but I think they aren't - proportions aren't right.

Thanks!

pitdogg2

Ohm or might be JBL
just a guess

ZLTFUL

pitdogg2 wrote: »

Ohm or might be JBL
just a guess

I was gonna guess Ohm as well. Has that Ohm style.

gmjungbluth

I did a google image search on Ohm speakers and these don't quite match. Well, looks as if I'll have to truck out to this sale and see what these are in person!

ZLTFUL wrote: »

I was gonna guess Ohm as well. Has that Ohm style.

Mystery

Look like ESS AMT 1.
Amazing tweeter they have.

xjghost

Neat looking what ever they are.

dkr919

looks like these
http://savannah.craigslist.org/ele/3817124680.html

mhardy6647

I am also thinking ESS speakers - AMT is quite likely.
"AMT" as in (Heil) Air Motion Tranformer... these were/are good speakers.

ZLTFUL

ESS AMT1.

gmjungbluth

OK. I'll try and get out to check them out on Sat. If they come home with me I'll be sure to update.

Thanks all!

gmjungbluth

So I stopped by the estate sale yesterday and they were indeed ESS AMT-1s. They looked to be in terrific shape. The surrounds were re-foamed by a local speaker shop in 2002 and the veneers and grilles were in good shape. Overall well taken care of. The price was very high however. I left and offer and went home. They didn't sell so I stopped by today and picked them up for my original offer. Awesome!

I have the grilles sitting on my porch airing out and I brought the speakers downstairs and did a quick demo on my neighbor's Pioneer SX-1080 and my HT VSX-820-k. On both systems the highs sound great. The bass however is lacking, at least from straight ahead. When you get close or behind the speakers there seems to be a lot more bass lurking in there. Low midbass is lacking too. It's as if the woofer is really mismatched for the tweeter.

These are in great shape and looked to have been taken care of (the rest of the setup consisted of Marant Imperial-7s (rotted mids, didn't bite), a yamaha M-65 which i missed out on, and a Yamaha P-50 turntable which I did take home. Now I have to figure out how to use it.

These AMTs are too interesting to get rid of, even despite my first lackluster impressions. I'm going to keep fiddling a bit.
For some reason I can't get pics to upload from my computer, so I added them to my blog - take a look at the pics there: http://silverfacestereo.wordpress.com/

PolkieMan

Pictures won't upload if they are too large keep them to about 250K.
The reason for lack of bass may be a poor job on the redo of the woofer so as it is too stiff.
The x-over is long overdue a recap?
Check it out but you need some real juice for those dudes.1080 is (120 wpc) borderline
If you got them for $200 your doing good.

gmjungbluth

Thanks for the tip on the pics upload- that was likely the problem.

I was wondering about what kind of wattage these would need. Online specs put them at 90db/m efficient and the 1080 was never pushing huge watts to get them up to satisfactory levels. that said the 1080 is just as due for a recap as these speakers are. Any idea how complicated the crossover is? Maybe I will peer inside and take a look at how difficult a recap would be.

I'm getting my SX-1250 back this week (full recap - hurray!) and will try it out. It will be interesting to see whether some big watts and a midrange boost will even the response out in these speakers.

I never thought about whether the refoam was affecting the bass response. Since I was getting a lot of bass from behind the speaker my first thought was that these are really placement sensitive- my next experiment may be to elevate them to let some of the bass from the bottom port radiate forward - it's not shunted out the back of the stand.

PolkieMan wrote: »

Pictures won't upload if they are too large keep them to about 250K.
The reason for lack of bass may be a poor job on the redo of the woofer so as it is too stiff.
The x-over is long overdue a recap?
Check it out but you need some real juice for those dudes.1080 is (120 wpc) borderline
If you got them for $200 your doing good.

gmjungbluth

Now with photos

PolkieMan

Yea that 1250 should do it!
Of all the pictures I have seen of these your redone woofers look different was just a re foam?
I heard/saw them years ago in a showroom and the sales man blew the Marantz he was playing them with.
It was Peter Frampton Comes Alive sounded great till the receiver blew he was so embarrassed I tried not to giggle :cheesygrin:

gmjungbluth

It's just a refoam I think. There was a receipt from a local speaker place with the speakers that said 'replace surrounds' dated 2002. They may have replaced the dust caps on the woofers too, but I'm not sure.

PolkieMan wrote: »

Yea that 1250 should do it!
Of all the pictures I have seen of these your redone woofers look different was just a re foam?
I heard/saw them years ago in a showroom and the sales man blew the Marantz he was playing them with.
It was Peter Frampton Comes Alive sounded great till the receiver blew he was so embarrassed I tried not to giggle :cheesygrin:

Leftplumma

gmjungbluth wrote: »

It's just a refoam I think. There was a receipt from a local speaker place with the speakers that said 'replace surrounds' dated 2002. They may have replaced the dust caps on the woofers too, but I'm not sure.

I had a pair of those speakers long ago and they were absolutely fantastic!!
The Heil air motion transformers were very sweet and clean.
Those do not look like the original woofers to me, unless maybe they were from a different year.
The woofers in mine were shiny almost poly looking, and I never had any issues with bass.
Damn I miss those things!!

Leftplumma

Here is what I remember mine looking like.

Leftplumma

I think the original drivers were much more robust with a much bigger voice coil.
I ran mine at first with an Optonica reciever that I think was around 125 watts, and they cranked.
I then upgraded to a pair of Hafler DH 500's in mono and it was some of the best sound I've ever had.

Leftplumma

Here's some more info....

gmjungbluth

Hmm...

Now I'm intrigued - I'll have to pull one of the woofers out to see what I have!

Leftplumma wrote: »

I had a pair of those speakers long ago and they were absolutely fantastic!!
The Heil air motion transformers were very sweet and clean.
Those do not look like the original woofers to me, unless maybe they were from a different year.
The woofers in mine were shiny almost poly looking, and I never had any issues with bass.
Damn I miss those things!!