testimonial - arthur vered

My affair with the Beveridge speakers started more than 20 years ago. I was buying and selling loudspeakers, but was never satisfied with the sound produced. They were mostly electromagnetic type (cones) and I couldn't stand the sound. For a while, I built several speakers of my own, including elaborated transmission lines which some friends and a few recording studios happily bought - but no matter, the Quads of the time still sounded better in the mid and top range.

One day, a friend told me of a guy who had just brought a new pair of speakers with him from the US. My friend enticed me to come along and listen, with promises that I'd never heard such sound before - and that the speakers were electrostatic! Electrostatic?! Okay, I went. Then I went for more. Almost twenty years later, when I got in touch with Rick Beveridge, I wrote him:

Hello,

I was fortunate enough to listen, some 18 years ago, to a System 3 in Israel (I now live in London). I knew then it was not the top of the range - a friend of mine in California owned a System 2-SW1 (much to my envy), which I never heard. Of System 2 I could only dream.

I've been "in and out" of the hi-fi jungle for many years. I have listened to countless ESLs since (it's the only type of speaker I'm interested in; I gave up "cones" many years ago). All ESL manufacturers make various claims about sound quality. Very few are actually decent.

Still, I have never ever heard anything before, nor since, that came close to that System 3. It was for me such an aural and musical experience that I cherish it to this day. In fact, I was so positively shocked and overwhelmed that I still recall the piece of music being played on an ARC pre-power and a Linn LP12 - Bizet's Carmen Fantasy. It was just ravishing.

I often listen nowadays to ESLs with that System3 "memory" sound in my mind as a reference. I recall the presence, the detail, the lack of distortion, the clean, eminently musical sound - and that dynamic range! - that nothing I later compared had managed to equal. I don't know if it was mainly due to the ingenious "lens" system it employed, which dispersed sound in a unique way, or whether the drivers themselves were particularly successful, but I do know that it was the only "boxed" system I would happily listen to.

Unfortunately, nowadays when I am in the position to fulfill that dream of mine and own a Beveridge, they are no longer available. All I can say is that it's a great loss to the music world (and to me).

If you happen to know of anyone with a System3 in good shape who wants to sell, I'll be happy to hear about it. Meanwhile my best regards and heartfelt thanks for what I, and others who really have ears, consider the best, most musical and truthful loudspeakers ever made.

Sincerely, Arthur Vered

When I became a member of the Beveridge Club, I wrote to the forum to introduce myself, along similar lines:

Hello everybody,

I never owned a pair of Beveridge LS, but listened to one some years ago (18). It was a long audition and I went back for more. At the time, the price of that pair - a System 3 - was prohibitively beyond my financial resources ($9000).

I dreamed of owning a pair for a long time. I still do. That System 3 was the best pair of loudspeakers I have ever heard. And I heard/owned/built many.

I've been in the hi-fi arena for about 30 years. The first ELS I heard, some 35 years ago, was a pair of Quad 57. I subsequently heard them many times on various occasions and for many many hours. The first time I listened to them, they were playing Beethoven's 5th. The Quads were fed by 33/303 amps. That's how it is with me - when a sound system impresses me, I remember the occasion, the environment, and the piece of music being played, all very vividly. I can't help it, I'm an "ear" person.

The first time I heard the System 3, it was Bizet's Carmen Fantasy being played through excellent ARC pre-power amplification, fed by a Linn LP12/SME player. That aural experience was breathtaking. I thought I could see and touch the orchestra in the (largish) room.

I was, at the time, still experimenting with "cones", building transmission lines and the like. (I recall stacking a pair of Janzsen ELS tweeters in place of the Peerless domes on one such TL system - it didn't work). I was never satisfied with "dynamic drivers", it seemed it didn't matter how good/expensive they were, aural fatigue always set in at some stage. That first audition of the System 3 put a definite end to my longish flirt with dynamic loudspeakers. I never looked back nor owned one afterwards.

After listening to the System 3, no other LS would do. When the Quad 63 came out, I rushed to listen to it. I was disappointed. They were clean and pure, but they seemed to lack the dynamics of even the 57's. They also had limited bass. Later, I listened to Acoustats, Martin Logans, Magneplanars. I bought a pair of the latter. They are not that good, but much better than cones.

The most striking feature of all Beveridge systems must be, without doubt, the unique lens-loaded ES driver. Horn-loaded cones were made famous by Klipsch, in their various incarnations. I don't know if the lenses act like horns*, into how many sections they divide the driver and whether they act as "guides" for the acoustic waves to disperse**. The fact that all Beveridge systems are fully enclosed solves a doggy problem of all ESL designs, namely: rear cancellation waves. The lens system and the tall, vertical sound aperture also solves, to a large degree, one of the most uncontrollable variable in LS design - that of the room in which they play.

I look forward to hearing from you. I've been, and remained, an exclusive Beveridge fan. Don't let Rick off the hook. Make him build more of them!

Best wishes - Arthur.

*) I do now. They don't ! (if they were, I wouldn't touch them). In some models (e.g., the 2 and 2sw), the lens and the enclosure act as a Helmholtz resonator; in the others, they act as wave guides that form the unique wavefront dispersion.

**) All puzzles solved now :)