ESS Tempest Model 9 speakers... with a story

[Arkay]

This is the FOURTH (and final!) time I’m trying to post about this... don’t know if it is the new server or what, but I’m fed up with being told I need to sign in again, then that I have selected the wrong forum or some other garbage, and automatically and irretrievably losing the entire post I’ve just written. With over 1,600 posts I thought I knew how to post here… but it sure isn’t working now!

Anyway, I’m writing this in Word and pasting it in, to see if it works. If it doesn’t, at least I won’t have to re-type everything from the beginning:

PART ONE: THE SPEAKERS:
Today I got another pair of ESS speakers, this time the ESS Tempest Model 9. I’ll tell the (amusing) story of how I got them in a second post (if this one works).

These seem a little different from the other Tempest descriptions I find online. Serial numbers are consecutive, ending in 0099 and 0100, so I would assume they are the 99th and 100th ones produced in this series.

They have the smaller, surface-mounted Heil AMT with the single curved magnet over the front of the (black Teflon) diaphragm, not the "Great" dipole AMT that came in the 1Bs. A label beside the AMT describes how it functions, and mentions that the crossover point for it is 2400 Hz. The diaphragm is vertically pleated and smaller (shorter) than the one in the "Great" Heil. There is a little surface corrosion (rust) on the magnets :sigh: , so I'll have to clean them up, but the diaphragms appear to be in good shape.

There is a single ten-inch woofer in each speaker, but NO passive radiator or port: just a single acoustic-suspension woofer and the AMT tweeter. That seems unusual for these [ESS loved PRs!], as does the paper-cone woofer (not poly) with the smaller Heil. It was my understanding that the paper cones preceded the poly ones, but the smaller Teflon-diaphragm AMTs came later. This speaker, then, would have early woofers with later AMTs. :headscrat I’m a little confused. Need to do more rigorous research with dates, I guess.

The boxes are veneered with real walnut, and have nice connections in back, along with nicely-shaped knobs (plastic that reminds me of bakelite!) for the tweeter adjustments (pot or L-pad things). Better-looking (and probably earlier?) back connections than I've seen on most ESS speakers.

Cosmetically they are so-so: some veneer edges are worn in spots, and there is a chip in the veneer on one. :tears: The front edges (into which the grill should set) are beveled/angled. They remind me of the later-model AR 2ax cases I got recently, in that respect. The grills, unfortunately, were missing - along with their badges. :tears:

Does anyone know about these Tempest “Model 9” speakers (as opposed to other models and ESS in general, about which I find quite a bit of info online)?

I'm thinking about using them for rears, to complement the (soon to be modified) ESS AMT 1bs for front speakers... if they sound at least up to the level of other ESS speakers I've heard. Otherwise I'll probably sell them to help pay for something else I have my eye on... although I'm reluctant to sell Heils of any type, especially since there is a 95 percent chance that anyone I sell these two locally (Hong Kong) will pull out the AMTs and trash the rest, which I would hate to see/let happen.

 

[Arkay]

Hey, it worked this time! :thmbsp: I'll soon add to this post...

PART TWO: THE STORY:

PART TWO: THE STORY

Here’s the story behind these speakers. This morning I went to meet a friend, with no intention at all of looking for or getting audio gear. I wasn’t even in the same district that I “hunt” in. Finished seeing my friend, ate lunch, and headed for the subway to go home. Near the restaurant where I ate, I spotted a guy with a push-cart, one of the “audio scavengers” who go around collecting whatever gear they can get and take it to the wholesale places where I usually “hunt” gear. He had boxes on his cart!

Looking closer, I saw they were the ESS Tempest Model 9 speakers described above. Hhhmmm, I’d like them! How much? The guy tells me he found one pair of them six years ago, and they were “expensive”. He didn’t know how much they were worth today, so he called a dealer he sells to, who told him “about two hundred dollars” at wholesale. I’m not sure if the guy wasn’t quoting a price for earlier ESS models with the Great Heil (since that’s what I paid for my pair), but anyway…. I told him that was too much for me, and asked him his lowest price. He said a hundred. I said, “still too steep”, and began to leave, so he desperately keeps negotiating. When he got to fifty bucks, I got interested.

Problem was, I hadn’t planned to do anything more than eat lunch (which I already had) and go home, so I had very little money on me, and no trolley to haul them with. No bank cards on me, and it was Sunday so banks were closed, anyway. This guy’s sole office/warehouse is his push-cart on the street, so if I didn’t get them RIGHT THEN, he’d haul them straight to a dealer and sell them within an hour or so.

Then I thought of a good friend who had asked me couple of days ago what I wanted for my birthday (which is coming up in a few days). That friend works just five minutes’ walk from where I was standing, so I pulled out my mobile phone to see if they’d be there. I explained the situation and asked if the speaker was within my “birthday budget”. The reply came: “Sure thing! Come right over and get the money, I’ll meet you downstairs at the entrance to the building.” The push-cart guy agreed to wait, so I went over, got the money, and went back for the speakers. One obstacle solved.

Now… no trolley to haul them with. How am I going to get them home? “No Problem,” the push-cart guy tells me… they are lightweight. I’ll tie string around them for handles and you can just carry them! Remembering how heavy my ESS AMT 1Bs were, I said I didn’t believe it, but he told me to lift one. Sure enough, it wasn’t nearly so heavy. Must be the smaller magnets on the Heils and such…

With no better alternative, I agree to his plan, hand over the money, and he starts to tie up the speakers, using flimsy recycled nylon-ribbon type “string” he pulls from a plastic bag. He sparingly ties ONE length of it around each speaker lengthwise, and ONE length crosswise. I suggest that this is not enough and the strings will break. He is vehemently, adamantly insistent that they will NOT break, telling me about his years of experience… there is NO WAY they will break, he assures me repeatedly. Reluctantly, I let the issue drop. In hindsight, I should have offered him an extra buck for the rest of his string and tied them better, myself…

We part ways, I pick up the speakers and my bag, and soon find out that first of all, a single speaker lifted for a few seconds with both hands feels a LOT lighter than two speakers held by thin strings only, with the arms angled out halfway to an iron-cross position! Secondly, holding both the strings and the string handles to the bag I was carrying in one hand was a good way to get a long, narrow blood-blister. NOT a good start.

I also realize that I am trying to hold these swinging, awkward things out at my sides and walk along… directly into what is officially the most densely-populated district (Mong Kok, Hong Kong) on the entire face of Planet Earth …on a Sunday afternoon --major shopping time! NOT a good idea.

I go half a block and turn a corner, go another half a block when TWANG! One of the crosswise strings breaks. The speaker almost flips over on-axis as the remaining longitudinal string slips, but I manage to set it down before that occurs. What now? Fortunately there was some speaker wire [more lamp cord than Kimber] still attached to the back of one speaker, coiled up. I uncoil it and use it to replace the broken string. It is JUST long enough to tie off. Fingers crossed (well, would have been crossed if there had been room for it under that wire), I picked them up again and resumed walking.

At this point, under the direct tropical sun I started to remind myself of how good these speakers would sound at home, that a “farmer’s walk” was good exercise, and started practicing qigong visualizations to make carrying them easier. Meanwhile, the crowds got thicker, and more people started jostling against the speakers, whose remaining strings started stretching and threatening to break.

Sure enough, I hadn’t gone more than another block when TWANG! The other crosswise string broke. This time, I had no more wire, nothing… not even shoelaces to try improvising with. So now I gingerly try to keep the speaker balanced well enough over the single, longitudinal string that it won’t flip out…and keep my motions smooth, gradual so there is no “bouncing” that might assist the sharp speaker edges to cut through that single string. All the while still dodging the people all around and keeping everthing from hitting any posts or railings …or the ground. The speaker wobbles on its single-string axis, and I can feel the string stretching, stretching…

I realize there is no way it is ever going to make it all the way into the subway car, let alone out and all the way to my home on the other end of the trip. What to do?

…to be continued….

 

[Dan ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

AFAIK, we are still on the old server, which has become flakier than Aunt Bessie's pie crust.

 

[Arkay]

Ah, that explains things... pretty flaky, alright!

Anyway, the rest of the story will soon go HERE:

CONTINUATION:

I thought a minute, and thought of an audio shop whose owner I knew, within a couple blocks. MAYBE, JUST MAYBE I could make it there before the string broke… So I made a right-angle turn and entered the most crowded street imaginable. I could feel the string straining, and rather than let the speaker fall two feet to the asphalt when it broke, I had to squat down and sort of duck-walk to keep the speaker a safer few inches off the ground. Gee, that makes the legs work MUCH harder, which brings out MUCH more sweat under that tropical sun amidst all those people between all those high-rises…

Now there is this sweaty white guy carrying these two big old wooden boxes and a bag with his funny crouched-down waddle weaving his way through the crowds, trying to be s-m-o-o-t-h and very quick about it… must have been a hilarious sight! Why do I get myself into these things? This audio stuff is some weird kind of sickness…

I get about halfway to the shop when the inevitable happens….

SNAP! Yeah, of course, push-cart-guy with all the experience… the strings will hold! Good thing the guy wasn’t still around, or I might be in jail now… except that I can only blame myself, since I KNEW they wouldn’t hold!

I spent the next little while playing “leapfrog”: first picking up one speaker and carrying it ten feet, then going back for the other, carrying it ten feet past the first one, then going back for the rear one and carrying it ten feet past its twin, each time also carrying my bag… until FINALLY I get into the building and manage to get the speakers into the goods elevator and up to the floor where the shop I had in mind was.

To find out it was CLOSED on Sunday.

Aarrrggghh! I can’t leap-frog these things all the way home. Then I remember another audio shop I’ve bought stuff from in the same building. Go there, and the owner is IN. Can I stash the speakers outside his shop for a while and come back for them later? Sure, no problem… no one will steal them from here.

That was the end of the interesting part of the story. With virtually no money and no trolley, and a LOT of struggle and sweat equity, I managed to safely “secure” these speakers. They’ll be coming home tomorrow for a preliminary listening test, although a real listen will await re-foaming the woofers and probably a re-cap and cleaning of the crossovers. I’ll oil up the cases (stain the worn bits and patch the veneer chip – these probably aren’t worth a complete re-veneering) and make grills for them. [Anyone have spare Tempest badges? ]

Eventually I’ll probably sell these… but it depends on how they sound. I’m expecting the front-mounted AMTs to be markedly inferior to the Great Heils…but if they are not that bad, I might keep them. I’ll probably A/B them against the Victor SX-3 IIIs, the AR 2axs, and the Infinity Qbs, once they are all refurbished, and get rid of the weakest pair (maybe weakest two pairs). At least I’ll enjoy listening to them a little. Feel free to make bets on which of those three similar-sized speakers will sound best.

 

[tcdriver]

Good story, thanks for sharing it with us. I hope your new speakers turn out to be worth the trouble. Let us know how they sound once you have them up and running.

 

[gonzomeep]

I've experienced the same problem. I've found that if you "preview post" every so often, it refreshes the page and allows you to "submit reply" the very first time, when you're done. Try it. I would still copy any substanial amount of text into some other page/program, for safety's sake, or is that sanity's sake? :yes: .
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Great story! I should make a post about the JBL 4343's I drove 15 hours to pick up and then another 5 hours to pack & ship, as a favor, and because I said I'd do it.....:nono:
I really enjoy reading these types of stories, thank you.

 

[tarior]

:d :d :d

 

[wualta]

Arkay, as you probably know by now (great story, by the way-- I hope someone was catching the duckwalk on their cellphone camera and sending it to YouTube), the Tempest series dates 'way back to the beginning of the Heil era at ESS, so the earliest ones had simple ducted ports and even slots instead of passives, and of course some were sealed. The Tempest tweeters were usually the socalled Power Ring tweeter, which tossed out the backwave from the Heil by sticking the magnet directly behind the diaphragm. The tweeter should sound pretty good, although 2.4kHz sounds a bit high for a crossover point, especially for a 10" woofer. You might want to do some crossover tinkering with this baby.

In any case, eagerly looking forward to The Rest... Of The Story.