ESB - Over Half A Century Of Electroacoustic Brilliance
Electroacoustic maestro ESB was officially founded in 1972. Fast forward over fifty years and it's still regarded as a world leader in loudspeaker design. During it's tenure this audacious Italian company has mastered the art of high-end speaker design, acquiring a wealth of experience and knowledge difficult to find elsewhere. Some of the most important milestones in the history of high fidelity audio have been marked by ESB. Whether it be ideologies, insights, applications of electroacoustic principles or just plain passion for high fidelity audio; achieving these milestones have become the very foundations of the company's history. You can read the genuinely fascinating history of ESB's fifty year reign by clicking here.

5000 Series - Elegance And Technology, All Italian
The philosophy behind the 5000 series is to create a loudspeaker system with an extremely high and dynamic transient response, to obtain a music reproduction with ultra realistic impact and involvement. To achieve this the primary goal was to reduce the moving masses in order to make the mobile part of the loudspeaker light and fast in its movements, thus keeping up with sudden variations of movement transmitted by the amplifier. In plain English the quicker and more accurately the speaker motor is able to move the better it'll sound. Welcome to the 5000 series.

Design Ideologies
The primary goal behind the 5000 series was to design a range of components that not only possessed robust motors but lightweight ones too. Motors that could move with brilliant rapidity. for lightning quick movement is conducive to superbly clean sound quality and tonal accuracy. The fact the 5000 series are arguably the worlds best looking drivers is a by-product of ESB’s pursuit for excellence.

Design Features
From conception through to completion the 5000 series components are absolutely packed with impressive design ideologies, advanced technologies and some of the best materials known for loudspeaker design.

The 5000 Series Woofers
Great attention was paid to the axial and radial ventilation systems within the moving coil. This allows for superior power handling, reduced distortion and increased durability. The extended back plate allows for extremely lone transients.

The Brawn – The Motor
All metallic parts are from highly refined material and are machined in specific shapes via the use of CNC machines to allow for astounding tolerance accuracy, maximum magnetic flux linearity and minimum magnetic loss. This reduces distortion at high power levels. A pure copper ring was inserted into the magnetic field to reduce harmonic distortion. Deep within resides a 25 mm copper clad aluminium wire double layer voice coil wound on an aluminium former. This gives exceptional power handling and compression-free reproduction to handle the most demanding musical passages.

The Finesse Of The Fight – The Cone
The carbon fiber reinforced, polymer matrix composite, exponential cone ensures an extraordinary rigidity combined with a very low weight.

The Right Mouthful – The Basket
The 5000 series woofers enjoy an aerodynamically transparent, anti-resonant, self-extinguishing, carbon fiber reinforced ABS frame. Yes it’s a mouthful alright, but it ensures a drastic reduction of the cone’s back reflections and provides the chassis with high structural and torsional rigidity. This is the goal for perfect parts alignment and very tight construction tolerances.

Fluid Movement – The Suspension
The exclusive ESB design featuring a twin symmetrical wave rubber suspension allows for high excursion with perfect progression and linearity. This feature ensures natural low-frequency reproduction at low as well as at high volume. A large Conex spider allows for a smooth and gentle run at low excursions, and gently holds the cone central at high excursions thus increasing the useful frequency range.

The 5000 Series Tweeters And Midranges
With the woofer cockamamie out of the way let us now turn our attention to the smaller drivers. For the midrange and tweeter are not only works of art, they also output delectably smooth, clear and refined sound. If you’ve had a rough day at the office though believe you me; they can rip your head off too if you’d rather that for the drive home.

Agitating Air With Accuracy – The Dome
The carbon fibre reinforced polymer matrix composite dome ensures extraordinary rigidity combined with a very low weight.

High Speed Driving – The Motor
The 28 mm (tweeter) and 50 mm (midrange) aluminium voice coil allow for the use of very high power to drive these components, and head room equates to accuracy. The domes use a very large, vented neodymium motor magnet optimized with computer simulations (FEA) to obtain a greater efficiency and improve linearity along all the voice coils’ excursion. The neodymium used is of a high-grade type, to reduce magnetic loss at elevated temperature and concentrate more energy in a small space. All motor parts are made by CNC machining process. This gives tighter tolerances and improved performance. Great attention was paid to the axial and radial ventilation of the moving coil, this to ensure high power handling whilst reducing distortion and increasing durability. The axial ventilation holes reduce the compression of the air at the back of the dome with greatly reduced distortion and extended response into lower frequencies. A special acoustic resistance helps to control the Qts. Residual resonances are killed by the under-dome dB Cloth® damping material. This extends the frequency response to the lower limits and reduces harmonic distortion.

The 5000 Series UMA Plates
This special and exclusive component driver is a concept born way back in 70’s, its aim is to concentrate medium and tweeter emissions in a single virtual point. This minimizes phase delays and irregularities at the crossover point. You can read more in the phase page.

Both components use a very large neodymium motor magnet optimized with computer simulations (FEA) to obtain a great efficiency and improve linearity along all voice coil excursion. Neodymium magnet is an high grade type for eliminate magnetic losses at elevate temperature and concentrate more force in less space. Great attention was given to the ventilation of the two components, through multiple axial ventilation holes. Residual resonance are killed by the under dome damping material named dB Cloth®. This extends the frequency response to the lower limits and reduces harmonic distortion.

The high modul carbon fiber domes with integrated soft cloth (tweeter) and synthetic foam (midrange) suspension offers superb heat resistance, low weight and excellent damping. This with a natural and linear response and very low frequency extension. The carbon fiber guarantees an extremely natural and linear reproduction with an excellent extension at the ends of the band.

Combined the two components can reproduce sound with perfect linearity from 500Hz to 25KHz. Small permanent magnets fix the tweeter and midrange grill in correct position, these are easy to remove for customisation.

The 5000 Series Passive Crossovers
Passive crossovers must be able to handle extreme variations in dynamics, the full range of audio frequencies and the variable impedance of a loudspeaker load. ESB passive crossovers are carefully engineered to perfectly match the characteristics of the speakers they are designed for, so that they maintain a uniform acoustic response across the entire audio spectrum. Such sophisticated engineering requires very tight manufacturing tolerances. Ordinary crossovers for example often use electrolytic capacitors with tolerances of +/- 20% and metal core on the inductors. The response is often incorrect, and the characteristics may change from unit to unit. All ESB crossovers on the other hand, use only non-inductive polypropylene or mylar dielectric capacitors (not electrolytic ones) that’re individually tested to meet ESB tolerances. The special inductors used have extremely low loss so that the driving power of the speaker system is not lost in the network. A switch on the output side allows you to adjust the tweeter and midrange level according to the distance from the listener. Both the input and output connections are made using strong two-way screws locking audio connectors. They accept cables up to 6 AWG cables. The PCB uses thick copper tracks to limit signal loss.

Electrical Specifications
– Nominal configuration: three-way 6.5″ & 2″ & 1″ passive component set
– Continuous power handling: 160 Watts
– Maximum power handling: 320 Watts
– Voice coil diameter: 25.4 mm
– Frequency response: 50 Hz – 25000 Hz
– Sensitivity: 92 dB
– DC resistance (Re): 2.5 Ohms
– Resonant frequency (Fs): 71.3 Hz
– Xmax: +/- 13.5 mm
– Compliance (Vas): 9.47 l
– Total Q (Qts): 0.45
– Mechanical Q (Qms): 4
– Electrical Q (Qes): 0.5

Physical Specifications
– Mounting diameter: 144 mm
– Mounting depth: 68 mm
– Weight: 3.6 kg

Documentation
– 1″ Specifications sheet
– 2″ Specifications sheet
– 6.5″ Specifications sheet
– Crossover Specifications sheet

Important Disclaimers
Given the dynamic nature of electronics industries these days; below are listed some very important specifics you need to be aware of.

Brand Authorization And Stock Sourcing
We are a fully authorised Australian dealer of this brand and all stock is sourced through legitimate channels. It therefore enjoys full Australian warranty, backing and support.

Pricing Structure
Whilst we endeavor to offer the best price possible, we ask that if you do find a better price elsewhere from an authorised dealer; please contact us. Also be aware that we regularly conduct group buys and sales, therefore pricing can sometimes be subject to change without notice.

Stock Structure
Being a dynamic store is conducive to our inventory constantly changing. We list only a small portion of our stable online, usually products most popular. Aside from these we also stock numerous other variants and configurations of these products, hence if you don’t see what you’re after please contact us.

Shipping
All our products are shipped with registered and insured postage. Upon ordering you’ll be issued with a receipt, a consignment note via which you can track your order, and we’ll also SMS you photos of the package for identification purposes.

Technical support
This last one we cannot emphasise enough! Please contact us if you require any further information or assistance with the setup and use of this product, especially pertaining to aspects more technical. As we want you to get the very best from this product.