Found some ESS AMT1 Towers in the trash

[earth1]

I am very familiar with the ESS AMT1 Tower speakers. I have a friend who introduced me to them when I was a teenager, and I waited 30 years to get a pair for myself. Finally found a pair and restored them.
It's frightening to think what would have happened to the pair that you found, if you hadn't happened along. What a rare treasure, yet thrown to the dogs and the elements. It hurts to think about, but then I'm glad that you happened along and found them and will restore/take care of them.
I wrote a review on the AMT1 Towers if you ever want to read it.
http://www.audioreview.com/product/speakers/floorstanding-speakers/ess/amt-1-tower.html?p=1

 

[jcidave]

earth1: Welcome to AK. Perhaps you noticed this is a somewhat older thread you tagged onto. I did read your review and several of the others posted. I stumbled on your post as I am always searching for comments on ESS speakers. I have never owned AMT1 Towers, but we did have them on the sales floor of the audio store I worked at in the 70's. I thought they had amazing bass performance for a single 10 inch woofer. My ESS collection has gone in a different direction, but I will always hold the Towers in high regard.

 

[GD70]

Nothing from the OP since 3/14/14. Wonder if he ever completed these gems.

 

[ultumax]

One man's trash is another man's treasure:yes:

My buddy was taking out his trash to the dumpster behind his apartment the other day and after throwing his trash bag in, saw some speaker cable hanging out. Upon investigation he discovered FOUR ESS AMT1 towers and a (crappy) Pioneer receiver. Apparently the church that is behind his apartment tossed them out. They are in surprisingly good condition, besides one of them missing the fabric cover.

The only issue with them is it seems that the original woofers all dry rotted (foam remains were found inside, to be expected) and were replaced at some point with Realistic 40-1331b's. Even with the sub-par woofers, they sound amazing, and quite bassy. I would like to upgrade the woofers (hopefully enhancing the bass), but with limited information on these, I'm not sure where to begin. Just for clarification, these are the T-line Towers with no passive radiator.

You know they probably threw them out for those gay Bose cube speakers , Congratulations on the find of the century.

 

[ultumax]

One man's trash is another man's treasure:yes:

My buddy was taking out his trash to the dumpster behind his apartment the other day and after throwing his trash bag in, saw some speaker cable hanging out. Upon investigation he discovered FOUR ESS AMT1 towers and a (crappy) Pioneer receiver. Apparently the church that is behind his apartment tossed them out. They are in surprisingly good condition, besides one of them missing the fabric cover.

The only issue with them is it seems that the original woofers all dry rotted (foam remains were found inside, to be expected) and were replaced at some point with Realistic 40-1331b's. Even with the sub-par woofers, they sound amazing, and quite bassy. I would like to upgrade the woofers (hopefully enhancing the bass), but with limited information on these, I'm not sure where to begin. Just for clarification, these are the T-line Towers with no passive radiator.

You know they probably threw them out for those gay Bose cube speakers , Congratulations on the find of the century.

 

[earth1]

earth1: Welcome to AK. Perhaps you noticed this is a somewhat older thread you tagged onto. I did read your review and several of the others posted. I stumbled on your post as I am always searching for comments on ESS speakers. I have never owned AMT1 Towers, but we did have them on the sales floor of the audio store I worked at in the 70's. I thought they had amazing bass performance for a single 10 inch woofer. My ESS collection has gone in a different direction, but I will always hold the Towers in high regard.

Hi jcidave.
Yes, I did notice that this is an older thread, but only after I sent my post.
Anyway, did you read my review of the AMT1 Towers on the link that I posted from audioreview.com?
You will probably find that thread to be more interesting. I tried to be very thorough.
By the way; on the AMT1 Towers that I own and that I restored, I did replace all three crossover capacitors.
Not only had the performance of the original capacitors degraded substantially, but the rated working voltage of the original capacitors was 75v for all three.
The new capacitors that I installed are rated for 250v, and each one is a high grade polypropylene cap.
Here is a photo of one of the crossovers. I had to glue the new caps to the crossover plate because two of them were too physically large to just solder into place of the old ones.
Anyway the improvement was very noticeable, especially in the bass response.

 

[jcidave]

earth1: Yes I did read your review. I thought it was well done. Did you do measurements of the speakers performance? Also, did you refoam the OEM woofer or did you replace/upgrade the woofers? Your recap job looks nice and clean. I know its good to do. Only one pair of my AMT 3's has been recapped. All others are original.

 

[earth1]

jcidave: The only measurements I have done have been with listening tests. I have not applied any actual testing equipment to these. Having said that, I am driving them with a pair of VTL Deluxe 120 807 amplifiers. This particular pair of VTLs was hand-built by David Manley for George Cardas to use at the 1989 CES trade show in Las Vegas, who then gave them to John Bicht who had them for 30 years. So with a set of amplifiers like these and a worthy signal source, one can be sure that conditions are right for valid listening tests.
Anyway, I bought these AMT1 Towers from a hi-fi outfit in Washington state. They had already re-surrounded the woofers with what they said were an upgrade, and those are pretty substantial rubber surrounds. That's one thing I still need to do is to look at the numbers on the frame or on the magnet and verify them with ESS and make sure that this is the right driver to begin with. They do sound really good and respond well with the cabinet, but I should be prepared to fork out a little money if ESS recommends a better pair for this cabinet over the ones that are currently in there.
Even so, these that are in there sound mighty fantastic.

 

[jcidave]

ESS factory is selling cast frame replacement woofers that are treated paper cone products. They have nothing that is a direct drop in for your cabinets without modification to your mounting hole. There is nobody there at ESS who was there in the 70's. So their knowledge of the thought process of the original designs is limited. Ricky is helpful and courteous and would, I'm sure, try to answer any questions you might have to the best of his ability. There are substantial discussions in several threads here about replacement woofers for this 70's series of speakers. The 10's from the AMT1, 1 Tower, 3 and 4 are pretty interchangeable. Another thread is recently started by another member titled AMT 3 replacement woofer candidates with a whole list of woofer choices. I think you will get more information about woofer choices from others on the forum who have actually made changes than from ESS.

 

[ultumax]

One man's trash is another man's treasure:yes:

My buddy was taking out his trash to the dumpster behind his apartment the other day and after throwing his trash bag in, saw some speaker cable hanging out. Upon investigation he discovered FOUR ESS AMT1 towers and a (crappy) Pioneer receiver. Apparently the church that is behind his apartment tossed them out. They are in surprisingly good condition, besides one of them missing the fabric cover.

The only issue with them is it seems that the original woofers all dry rotted (foam remains were found inside, to be expected) and were replaced at some point with Realistic 40-1331b's. Even with the sub-par woofers, they sound amazing, and quite bassy. I would like to upgrade the woofers (hopefully enhancing the bass), but with limited information on these, I'm not sure where to begin. Just for clarification, these are the T-line Towers with no passive radiator.

2013 we’re is the Op? Phantom thread ?

 

[toxcrusadr]

No, it's quite real, I can see it too. Unless it's a full-torso vaporous apparition type thread.