Until the early 1970's, virtually all speaker manufacturers in the world positioned their speakers on front baffles following a logic of design rather than acoustics. The arrangement was to put the tweeters at the top and midranges and woofers at the bottom… mainly a matter of size. Then someone decided it was better to arrange the speakers in phase, aligning the acoustic centers by making them equidistant from the listening position. After considerable acoustic field research, ESB reached some conclusions about sound reproduction and fidelity. These conclusions have since been adopted by many other speaker manufacturers. (You can read more in The Phase page) 

Thus was born what became known as UMA (Unit Medium High) or Midrange/Tweeter mounted adjacent to each other on a single flange.

UMA determined virtually all future design and production at ESB.

 

Along with UMA, ESB also introduced a new discourse about the problem of the placement of speakers in the environment and the optimum listening position. Discussion and experimentation over the next few years eventually led to the DSR project. DSR remains, over 30 years later, an innovative and unique concept whose implementation has helped ESB develop an unchallenged reputation as one of the finest loudspeaker designers of all time. Doug Sax of Sheffield Labs, renowned manufacturer of Direct to Disk live recordings, while attending the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in 1983, said of DSR (and in a letter to Absolute Sound magazine):

"After five hours of this madness we were pooping out, but we hear a vocal - Amanda’s, it so happened- coming from some unknown speaker. It is instantly obvious that this is the best I’ve ever heard her sound, save for standing next to her. We went in and sat down and really listened. Everything sounded glorious and musical... I can’t remember the last time that I listened through a complete work. The result was stunning..." (see full review here)

 

After DSR, ESB began to think how to further develop the design of the optimal location of the speakers and how to correct the response of the speakers to suit the acoustics, often unchangeable, of the environments in which they were placed.

To adapt the sound to any environment would require signal processing beyond the analog devices then available. It would require computing power to make adjustments in the digital realm. At that time, Digital Processing was only available in professional studio equipment, and even then, the computing power was not sufficient for our needs. By the time Digital Processing had developed to the consumer in the early 2000's, the cost of manufacturing in Italy had become too high to be practical, as it had in many places. Acoustic Research, JBL, KLH and others had closed their factories in the US, or been acquired by conglomerates.

Though ESB closed the high-end home loudspeaker factory, it continued production of car speakers (which had started in 1984) using the same technology and often even the same drivers as developed for the famous 7 Series home speakers.

 

Will there be new home speakers from ESB in the future? Well, it could be, but the founder of ESB, Vincenzo Biasella, will need to find equally innovative inspiration, like the number 7, to bring him back to the home audio market.

After discontinuing home audio speaker production, ESB continued to offer excellent products for the car. Now, after several years of research and planning, ESB is offering 2 new lines of car audio speakers, packed with new technologies, new concepts and the highest performance.

The CS Series applies all ESB’s technology to speakers designed as factory replacement speakers for BMW and Audi models.  

The ESB Car Audio line brings long overdue new technology to after-market universal fit speakers, from the high-end to the entry level Series, including the 8000, 5000, 3000, and the totally new 9000 Series introduced this year.