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ESS Heil Tweeters on Sale

Coming along with these original amt-1 s.
One of the new Heils was not drilled at the top for mounting bolts, but not a big deal.
I tried one cabinet with a 10” woofer from an amt-3 just to hear it….
amt-3 woofers 680-0010 are 8 ohm while amt-1 680-0007 are 4 ohm.
It sounded pretty good.
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Bkphoto said:
they got it right with the rock monitors….always on the lookout for a set of those

I always thought that the AMT 1 was 2/3 of the way to being a game ending speaker…
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Check Sacramento Craigslist searching “ESS amt”. Steven has a warehouse of several models including rock monitors.
 
Bkphoto said:
How come 80% of the speakers are in California…?

never down the street…
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There is a guy in CA on ebay who sells alot of ESS parts and he can have complete systems in stock. He will and has shipped complete systems cross country. I have gotten from him a pair of AMT ll's, AMT 3's and AMT l Towers all successfully shipped to me in VA along with other misc. ESS parts. For the AMT1 Towers, the most challenging ship, the wood top caps and both Heils were removed and shipped in a separate box. That made the cabinet boxes a little smaller and lighter so they could come FEDX ground which worked well. They couldn't come to the house, but went to the local fedx store where I drove and picked them up. I looked at the Sacramento guy mentioned above and he won't ship. I'm done buying now. The budget is empty and the room is full. Send me a PM if you want to know more.
 
I had a dream about how I will hook up the Heils to the Pioneer CS-99A (after they arrive).
I will unhook the two little dome tweeters as well as the sectioned horn tweeter. The woofer and two paper mids will remain connected.
This will leave the Pioneers cut off above 5,000 Hz.
I will then figure out the capacitor value needed to connect the 4 Ohm Heil for that frequency.
That and an 8 Ohm L-pad and Viola!
Might actually sound decent and still maintain a flat response, which has been the magic of these Pioneers.
And I am wondering what valuable surprise free prize ESS threw into the box of Cracker Jacks.
 
NoTransistors said:
I had a dream about how I will hook up the Heils to the Pioneer CS-99A (after they arrive).
I will unhook the two little dome tweeters as well as the sectioned horn tweeter. The woofer and two paper mids will remain connected.
This will leave the Pioneers cut off above 5,000 Hz.
I will then figure out the capacitor value needed to connect the 4 Ohm Heil for that frequency.
That and an 8 Ohm L-pad and Viola!
Might actually sound decent and still maintain a flat response, which has been the magic of these Pioneers.
And I am wondering what valuable surprise free prize ESS threw into the box of Cracker Jacks.
Click to expand...

The Heil has plenty of volume. Why not just put a 25 watt, 4 ohm resistor in series and treat it as an 8 ohm, load? Then you can use an 8-ohm L-pad. That's essentially what I do. Actually I add 4.42 ohms as my Heil reads a bit over 3 ohms dc and for the Heil, the dcr and impedience are reported to be fairly similar. And, I run it with a JBL 18" and 10" and it still has more than enough volume, and I may even pad it down on bright cuts.

Go on ebay and look for 25 watt Dale resistors, and if you shop they are just a couple bucks each. These resistors are non-inductive and you can get 1% tolerance at these prices. In fact, I just got five 30 watt, 261 ohm, 1% Dales for $7.00 and $3.50 shipping. All five read exactly 261 ohms on the meter.
 
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So you too noticed the lack of four Ohm L-pads.
My big non-expert question is the following: If I change the load to eightish Ohms, does this mean I need to calculate crossover capacitor value based on an eight Ohm driver, rather than the four Ohms of the Heil voice coil?
Where do I place the capacitor in this simple circuit?
 
NoTransistors said:
So you too noticed the lack of four Ohm L-pads.
My big non-expert question is the following: If I change the load to eightish Ohms, does this mean I need to calculate crossover capacitor value based on an eight Ohm driver, rather than the four Ohms of the Heil voice coil?
Where do I place the capacitor in this simple circuit?
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Actually, someone did come out with a 4-ohm L-pad, so it is out there. But it did come out after I made my crossovers. Also, an 8-ohm load is easier for many amps to deal with, and the Heil still has plenty of volume.

If the original crossover was set up for 8 ohms, the Heil/series resistor should be a direct replacement and nothing else changes.
 
I tested the factory cellular tweeter and it is indeed EIGHT Ohms.
But because there is a dome tweeter (two in series, actually)running higher than that, the cellular tweeter, which is already crossed over at the desired 5,000 Hz, has at the very least, a ferrite core choke that would need to be bridged. This is fun.
 
If you need a 4ohm l-pad, just use a stereo 8 ohm l-pad and parallel them together. I however have used a 4 ohm resistor with my Heils and it's worked just fine.
 
Or short out the cellular horn tweeter's choke on crossover board and do the series resistor thing to Heil voice coil.
Easiest to get two caps and two 8 Ohm stereo pads.
Less likely to screw up.
Will order on Monday.
Might lead to creating a damn good stereo.!!!
I see that Simply Speakers lists both the Great Heil and a SPECIAL EDITION Great Heil. Both on back order. Wonder what that is all about.
Is ESS selling off everything and leaving or are they going to fill these orders and start making new stuff?
 
Got email that the Heils [plus free mystery gift] are on the way.
Took the advice of the experts here and ordered two crossover caps of medium-high quality.
Mundorf Supreme EVO OIL in 8.2 Mfd, which assumes that the Heils are the resistance published.
The crossover point will be 5,000 Hz and the existing tweeters will be unhooked. I chose 5,000 Hz because the present tweeters use that crossover frequency.
If I need level controls, will order later.
This is kind of exciting.
 
NoTransistors said:
I see that Simply Speakers lists both the Great Heil and a SPECIAL EDITION Great Heil. Both on back order. Wonder what that is all about.
Is ESS selling off everything and leaving or are they going to fill these orders and start making new stuff?
Click to expand...
Remember, Simply Speakers is only a distributor for ESS products. Everything they sell as ESS comes from ESS factory. If ESS runs out of stock, Simply Speakers will also soon. There is only one diaphragm being made by ESS for the large Heil. Both of their different large Heil core designs use the same diaphragm. Spare diaphragm parts are the same diaphragm. If those 2 different core designs sound different, its because the lense structure is different. Not because of the diaphragm.
Seems like ESS is only a parts supplier now and hopefully they can survive. When they let Ricky go a year and a half ago, they said they would come out with new products, but that hasn't happened.
All my ESS speakers in the collection crossover at either 700 or 1000hz. I consider the large Heil a midrange-tweeter and a superior transducer. I want it to handle the widest range of frequencies it can. I have no desire to increase the crossover frequencies.
 
Interesting.
And it would be sad if ESS fails to put out products.
Did you know that new replacement diaphrams are actually a slightly different d.c. resistance from new-stock assembled units?
And, the ONLY reason I chose 5000 Hz is because of all the complaints that the factory chose a too-low crossover frequency and I figured that I should simply retain the two paper mid-range drivers, the higher one cutting off at 5,000.
I can easily change this by eliminating the higher of the two mid drivers, but these damn boutique capacitors are $100/pair
 
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jcidave said:
Remember, Simply Speakers is only a distributor for ESS products. Everything they sell as ESS comes from ESS factory. If ESS runs out of stock, Simply Speakers will also soon. There is only one diaphragm being made by ESS for the large Heil. Both of their different large Heil core designs use the same diaphragm. Spare diaphragm parts are the same diaphragm. If those 2 different core designs sound different, its because the lense structure is different. Not because of the diaphragm.
Seems like ESS is only a parts supplier now and hopefully they can survive. When they let Ricky go a year and a half ago, they said they would come out with new products, but that hasn't happened.
All my ESS speakers in the collection crossover at either 700 or 1000hz. I consider the large Heil a midrange-tweeter and a superior transducer. I want it to handle the widest range of frequencies it can. I have no desire to increase the crossover frequencies.
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I agree. I think the lower the crossover point the better.
 
SleeperSupra said:
I agree. I think the lower the crossover point the better.
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Only if the midrange can't get it up. I cross them over at 3kHz and let the fundamentals stay in the midrange for coherence, soundstage, and imaging.
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