roberjerman, The direct-drive Beveridge speaker to which you refer in your first few sentences is the 2SW. About 5-6 years ago, I bought a pair, including the DD amplifiers that are built into the base of the speaker, on a lark and because I had always heard stories of their wonderfulness. I parked them in our finished basement as something to play around with; I have a "main system" in our living room. After a bit of parts upgrading, tweaking, and rebuilding to the amplifiers, which are very finicky until you get them right, I can say that the word of mouth is not exaggerated. These really are wonderful speakers. As you say, the imaging is at times uncanny, and the sense of depth is unparalelled.
The 2SW is so named because the panels themselves are not full range; they require woofer supplementation below about 80 to 100Hz. I've never even seen the original Bev woofers that were sold with the 2SW package. Instead, I use a pair of KEF B139 woofers built into a full size transmission line cabinet by me, many decades ago. The TL woofers are driven by a Threshold amplifier I purchased on Audiogon for a pittance, along with a Dahlquist DLQP1 crossover, used only for low pass filtering. For the active hi-pass filter, I use the electronic crossover built into the Bev electronics. Right now, I am driving the whole shebang from a Manley Steelhead. I started out with a vintage Quicksilver preamplifier, in keeping with the vintage theme of the system. The Q is superb (I keep it as back-up) but I wanted a phono/preamp that could take the input of more than one tonearm.
The first commercial product from Beveridge was the Model 2, which was full range but lacked dynamics and sound pressure. The 2SW was the solution to that problem. By limiting the bass extension, more sound pressure can be generated. As you say, subsequent speakers (Model 3 and up) operated more like conventional ESLs, where an external amplifier working through a transformer was required. I doubt that much more than 200 to 300 pairs of Model 2s and 2SWs were ever built. (Oddly, these days they have an avid following among European hobbyists.) For the early 1980s, maybe they were too big. Maybe they were too expensive for the times. And maybe reliability was an issue. I was already an audiophile at that time, yet I don't recall hearing or reading much about them. So maybe they were not adequately promoted. Also, they were essentially hand made by Harold Beveridge and a very few trusted employees, one panel at a time. My experience with the Bevs convinces me that all ESLs ought to be direct-driven, with no transformer at all between amplifier and speaker panel.
The 2SW is so named because the panels themselves are not full range; they require woofer supplementation below about 80 to 100Hz. I've never even seen the original Bev woofers that were sold with the 2SW package. Instead, I use a pair of KEF B139 woofers built into a full size transmission line cabinet by me, many decades ago. The TL woofers are driven by a Threshold amplifier I purchased on Audiogon for a pittance, along with a Dahlquist DLQP1 crossover, used only for low pass filtering. For the active hi-pass filter, I use the electronic crossover built into the Bev electronics. Right now, I am driving the whole shebang from a Manley Steelhead. I started out with a vintage Quicksilver preamplifier, in keeping with the vintage theme of the system. The Q is superb (I keep it as back-up) but I wanted a phono/preamp that could take the input of more than one tonearm.
The first commercial product from Beveridge was the Model 2, which was full range but lacked dynamics and sound pressure. The 2SW was the solution to that problem. By limiting the bass extension, more sound pressure can be generated. As you say, subsequent speakers (Model 3 and up) operated more like conventional ESLs, where an external amplifier working through a transformer was required. I doubt that much more than 200 to 300 pairs of Model 2s and 2SWs were ever built. (Oddly, these days they have an avid following among European hobbyists.) For the early 1980s, maybe they were too big. Maybe they were too expensive for the times. And maybe reliability was an issue. I was already an audiophile at that time, yet I don't recall hearing or reading much about them. So maybe they were not adequately promoted. Also, they were essentially hand made by Harold Beveridge and a very few trusted employees, one panel at a time. My experience with the Bevs convinces me that all ESLs ought to be direct-driven, with no transformer at all between amplifier and speaker panel.