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I am the original owner of this pair of wonderful ESS speakers from the 1970s!They have the highly acclaimed HEIL Air Motion Transformer, and sound as good as new!If you're looking for a great pair of vintage speakers, here they are!Complete with original boxes!!Check out the photos, and when you're ready to come see them in person, please reach out to me!Thanks!keywords:JBL, Polk, Sony, Samsung, Infinity, Altec, ESS, Meyer, Genelec, Yamaha, AMT
At US$250, this sits a bit above the US$215 median but well below the US$697 75th percentile, so it reads as a fair, slightly buyer-friendly ask rather than a bargain or an ambitious number. It is not cheap enough to be an automatic steal, but it is comfortably in range for a clean pair from this market snapshot.
That makes it worth a close look if the speakers are complete and cosmetically solid, because this line has a good reputation among vintage ESS fans for a lively, open presentation and strong dynamics when healthy. The like_new condition is the real upside here: if the cabinets, drivers, and any original grilles or badges are intact, you’re paying for a tidy example instead of a project, which is where the value tends to be strongest.
Independent perspective — not a price guarantee. Always verify condition, accessories and provenance before purchase.
ESS is best known as ESS Technology, a U.S. semiconductor company founded by Forrest Mozer in 1983 as Electronic Speech Systems. It began in California and grew from speech and multimedia chips into a specialist in audio conversion silicon, with its later identity strongly tied to digital audio technology rather than finished consumer hi-fi products.
The company’s core focus is audio DACs and ADCs—especially the SABRE family—used by manufacturers in audio, mobile, automotive, and professional equipment. In hi-fi terms, ESS is not primarily a maker of amplifiers, speakers, turntables, or headphones; instead, it supplies the conversion chips that sit inside many third-party components.
In the market, ESS has a technical, high-performance, component-supplier reputation rather than a consumer brand identity. Among informed audiophiles it is often associated with high-end and upper-mid-tier digital playback, while also being somewhat niche because its name usually appears inside other brands’ products rather than on the front panel. It is a respected engineering brand, but not a vintage collector name in the usual sense.
See all ESS listings on RADAR.
