ESS Amt Monitors restoration

[The Grand Wazoo]

Philip,
I've left a message on your profile page - please read and act on it, if you don't mind.
Thanks a lot.

[edna]

P.S. you need to get rid of the original wire if you are still using it...its BAD...something like QED 72 would be fine and a big improvement without costing the earth. I used vdHul skyline which is not expensive.

[Marco]

Hi Philip,

Welcome to AoS

Could you please do me a favour and before going any further, go to the Welcome area and intoduce yourself to our community, telling us what system you use and what music you like, as this procedure is required of all new members - cheers!

Marco.

[Juha]

ESS woofers are back from speaker repair shop. They are 11.5 inch, not 12 inch.
This made it more difficult to find new surrounds. Surrounds are now rubber. Originals were foam.
The repair tech said foam always fails in the long run.
I was lucky to find this place. Even in Tallinn they repair woofers on a daily basis.

New surrounds improved sound a lot. Bass was a little too boomy.
There was no damping material behind the passive radiator. I filled the bottom of the speaker with 30 mm polyester damping. This cured it.

Now ESS Amt magic is back.
Next step will be making the cabinets more beautiful.

Repair cost so far 8 Mundorf caps + new woofer surrounds totals 195 eur.

[Juha]

ESS Amt Monitor restoration is now ready.
The sound is sweet.

Cabinet veneer was lightly sanded and finished with two coats of Liberon Finishing Oil. Speaker fabric was removed and washed with mild detergent.
The chip boards holding the fabric needed some touch up with black paint.
I fastened the fabric with 3M Spray Mount glue.

Lessons learned:

1. I was too quick to dismiss these speakers. They needed restoration to sound good.

2. Mundorf caps really made a difference.

Here is a picture of my current setup. Quad 303 / Quad 522 are fantastic.
The Harman Kardon HK 3470 amp looked promising with a large transformer and discrete transistor amp. But is it no match to the Quads.

Speakers are Magnepan MG 2.5/RT, Amphion Helium plus, ESS Amt.

[DSJR]

Quick suggestion. If the Quad 33 is stock, it'll be a sonic bottleneck these days, much as I love the old thing. Loads of things you can do to it, both in upgrading the standard boards and especially the power supply, and in replacement boards from the likes of Net-Audio, which all but change it into a different preamp in Quad clothes...

[Juha]

My Quad 33 has been upgraded with the Dada Electronics kit. The kit and volume pot rebuild made it usable.

I have tried other pre-amps after the upgrade, but always end up with this one.

It sounds so good with electrostatic Magnepans. I often wonder if Quad did some tricks on Quad 33 to make their electrostatic panels sound better.
Quad 33 is not neutral. It does something.

[DSJR]

Mine was dada updated and I also changed C400 on the output boards from .068uF to 1uF film caps which opened out the line stage no end in terms of 3-D and bass quality in general. Using the tape monitor input and adjusting the preamp gain there, the Croft, AVI and old updated Crown to my ears do give closer matching of input to output than via the 33 in updated form. The power amp you have has been "discovered" recently and this series aren't as anonymous as they once were, sadly...