Tex
04-17-2009, 08:31 PM
Recently at Goodwill I ran across a pair of vintage ESS AMT-1 Tower speakers. I had not heard of them before but I recognized that they were high quality speakers. The wood and the wrap around grills are in excellent condition. The grills were nailed on so I could not check the condition of the woofers but the wild looking tweeter and heavy construction (about 80lbs each) intrigued me so I put out $100 to see what these were all about. Needless to say when I got the grills off the surrounds on the woofers were bad. Worse than that was that the woofers did not match each other. After some searching I found some vintage 10 inch RTR woofers that looked like a good match so I ordered them off of Ebay for $40 with shipping.
I have them hooked up now to a Bada DC-222 integrated hybrid amp that I bought from a guy on Craigslist. After moving these around I found that near the corner of the room slightly angled in was the best placement. This gives them a huge sweetspot. I would not say that they are quite as good as the SRS 2's or the 2.3's that I had, but they are close. Very nice soundstage, excellent bass, and with the tweeter controls set in the normal position they are just right. The three positions of the tweeter control are soft, normal, and bright (understatement).
I also tried these on my Adcom amp, and my Yamaha receiver. Pretty good results but the Bada seems to be the best match for them. I do plan on looking for a pair of the original woofers to put in them so if anyone runs across a pair let me know. Goodwill has been good to me over the years. One time I bought a pair of Magnepan MG 1's in excellent working condition for $65.
I don't post much but I do read a lot. Since I had not seen anything about these speakers I thought I would post this and see if anyone else is familiar with them.
I have them hooked up now to a Bada DC-222 integrated hybrid amp that I bought from a guy on Craigslist. After moving these around I found that near the corner of the room slightly angled in was the best placement. This gives them a huge sweetspot. I would not say that they are quite as good as the SRS 2's or the 2.3's that I had, but they are close. Very nice soundstage, excellent bass, and with the tweeter controls set in the normal position they are just right. The three positions of the tweeter control are soft, normal, and bright (understatement).
I also tried these on my Adcom amp, and my Yamaha receiver. Pretty good results but the Bada seems to be the best match for them. I do plan on looking for a pair of the original woofers to put in them so if anyone runs across a pair let me know. Goodwill has been good to me over the years. One time I bought a pair of Magnepan MG 1's in excellent working condition for $65.
I don't post much but I do read a lot. Since I had not seen anything about these speakers I thought I would post this and see if anyone else is familiar with them.