BEARD P-35 STEREO POWER AMPLIFIER (review) [Aug. 1987]

Beard P35 power amplifier; Stereo class-A vacuum-tube power amplifier.

Power rating: 35W/channel (into 8 ohms).

Price: $1900.

Approximate number of dealers: 12.

Manufacturer: Beard Audio Systems Ltd., Unit B1, Askew Crescent Workshops, London W12 9DP, England.

US Distributor: Beard America, PO Box 7894, Columbia, SC 29202.

Tel: (803) 798-5726.

Those of you who skim through every fresh issue of Stereophile in search of DO's contributions should be well aware by now of my passion for vacuum-tube technology.

These glowing "anachronistic" space heaters unlock for me a magical aural window to the land of make believe, and help make a believer out of me. I suppose this track record has made it quite easy for JA to finger me for all of these little tube-amp reviews. I don't really mind, John. Thanks! Beard is a British tube-amp manufacturer that has been in existence for several years now. They had just signed an agreement in 1986 for their amplifiers to be distributed in the USA by Wharfedale America when the latter company folded; distribution is now by a new South Carolina company. The P-35 was introduced in early 1986 and is a chunky little amp, well-built and nicely finished. Good quality parts are much in evidence within the chrome-plated chassis. Although the P-35 is ostensibly a stereo model, with a single mains transformer supplying both channels, there are traces of dual-mono construction, with each channel possessing independent rectification and reservoir caps. In addition, each output tube is individually regulated.

Peering through the tube cage, one gets the distinct impression that there is a lot of glass.

Indeed, there are a total of 14 tubes under the metal cage, which serves to camouflage the simplicity of the circuit topology.

The driver stage consists of a single ECC81 dual-triode per channel, with one half hand ling the voltage amplifier chore and the other acting as a phase splitter. The output stage consists of three pairs of EL84s (high-gain pentodes) per side, operated in parallel. The EL84's plate-power dissipation capability is pretty low, therefore a bunch of them are needed to achieve decent output power.

However, one of their virtues is low cost, and because of the automatic biasing feature of the circuit, tube matching is unnecessary, all of which compensates for ultimately having to replace so many of them. The driver-stage ECC81s were stamped as "made in China," which surprised me. I'm not sure which China is at work here, but since the inscription is in red, I assume that the mainland Chinese are responsible. Maybe Bill Beard can en lighten us as to the substance of this Chinese connection! The front panel is outfitted with two switches, one of which is labeled "Full Power," the 1 The Chinese, as opposed to the Taiwanese, recently bought tube manufacturing equipment from the British M-0 Valve Company, who were responsible for the KT-series beam tetrode tubes. -JA other "Half Power." Which of these do you suppose is the on/off switch? If you guessed "Half Power," your logic is similar to mine- but we'd both be wrong. The "Half Power" feature, though, is useful at low listening levels and allows for reduced tube wear.

The following sonic assessments of the Beard are based on two rather extensive listening sessions. In the first, I used purely digital source material: master tapes and the inevitable CDs played through the Sony PCM- Fl and the Moffat Deluxe CD player, respectively. The Moffat tubed line-stage preamp was used in both cases. The second session was all analog. The front end was as usual: the Sao Win 'table and MC cartridge, the Well-Tempered Arm, the Nestorovic MC Network, and the Moffat Theta Deluxe preamp. The speakers for both sessions were original Quad ESLs with the John Koval modification (see elsewhere in this issue for details). To give you a flavor of how the review progressed, I'd like to describe my impressions in chronological order.

The First Session It was quickly obvious that the midrange was the P-35's real glory. The mids were very transparent and possessed excellent spatial focus, almost rivaling, in fact, the Jadis JA-30 in this respect. Resolution of low-level detail and spatial information was also very, very good in the range from about 200Hz to 2kHz.

Within this range, the Beard was nothing short of wonderful, with very natural reproduction of vocals and musical textures that were liquid, smooth, edgeless, and relaxed in a manner reminiscent of the classic Marantz 8B. After a warm-up period of about an hour, the mids even turned a shade seductive and sweet, but without the thick syrupy textures that afflicted many of the tube designs of yore. All of this was accomplished with an airy quality and a nice sense of dynamic ebb and flow. The music swelled and bloomed from soft to loud in a manner befitting a much more powerful amp. The Beard was wonderful on either solo or massed voices-I could listen to choral music all day (if I wanted to). The P-35 also very capably reproduces soundstage dimensions and does a nice job of unfolding the depth perspective. Topnotch performance indeed.

Yet, as did Luke Skywalker, the Beard had to struggle to avoid the dark side of the "Force." The flip side of being overly liquid and smooth is to acquire a boring politeness that robs the music of incisiveness and excitement. This impression started .n the mida and was helped along by relaxed upper mida, a presence region without much bite, and sluggish treble transients. There wasn't enough snap and crunch: it was like biting into an apple or a hard piece of toast and getting a mouthful of Jello. However, I should hasten to add that the Beard P-35's somewhat "toothless" presentation was not without charm, and should mate very well with an analytical, transistorish sort of front end.

More serious were problems at the frequency extremes. The treble did not have the focus, sweetness, or transparency of the mida, being slightly rough, grainy, and opaque. I did not measure the Beard, but this certainly sounds characteristic of an excess of high-frequency, nonlinear distortion products. Neither was the bass very inspired. I found it difficult to dis cern bass detail, and the overall bass quality was underdamped, lacking sufficient tightness.

For example, double-bass notes were loose and ill-defined.

The overall presentation was of neutral perspective-neither recessed nor forward.

The perceived tonal balance was also quite neutral, with no trace either of brightness or of excessive lower-mid warmth. My final impressions at the end of this first session were bittersweet. Think of saccharine: the sweet liquidity and transparency of the raids was somewhat tempered by the bitter after-taste of the upper octaves.

Session Two Starting with Laudate! (Proprius 7800), the Beard again evidenced nice resolution of individual voices in the chorus and realistically portrayed hall reverb information. Image size within the soundstage, however, was a little broader (less focused) than with the Jadis monoblocks. The highs were a little grainy and not as transparent as the mida. Bass lines were not particularly well defined. The gut tural flavor of Pedro Aledo's voice (Pierre Verany 12793: Cantos Antiguos y Cantos Nuevos) was captured just about to perfection, but the guitar sound missed some brilliance on top. The "'fits Hermanicas" cut came to life with convincing depth and startling transparency. The deep bass was not sufficiently detailed.

Cleo Laines deep-hued vocal colors (Live at Carnegie Hall, RCA LPL1-5015) came through with excellent clarity. In general, spatial resolution and resolution of low-level detail were very good. The picture on the album cover shows Cleo clutching what looks like a Beyer dynamic vocal mic, which I assume she used during the performance.

These mics have a rising treble response typical of vocal mics. With solid-state amps or even the Jadis JA-30s, this treble emphasis is quite audible-not so through the Beard.

That clean midrange window was very much in evidence on Amanda McBroom's West of Oz (Sheffield Lab 15). But again it was hard to resolve bass lines.

Brass, including Harry James's trumpet (Sheffield Lab 3: The King James Version), sounded lackluster, overly liquid, and without sufficient penetrating bite. It was readily apparent at this stage of the listening that the Beard's treble was not in the class of the mida.

Itzhak Perlman's violin timbre (EMI ASD 2926: Bruch's Violin Concerto 1) was generally very well reproduced-except for a reduction of purity in the high notes. A similar finding was made with the Wilson Audio recording of the Beethoven Sonata for piano and violin (David Abel, violinist), where the violin tone was missing some sweetness in the upper registers.

Comparison with the Michaelson & Austin TVA-10

The TVA-10, being a favorite both of JA and myself, seemed a likely candidate for com parison. And I was curious to see how it would fare against its much more expensive British cousin. The TVA-10 originally cost me $400 on the used market, but I've pumped in probably $100 worth of new caps-including power supply reservoir caps. I quickly established to my own satisfaction that the TVA-10's treble and upper mida were better, being quicker and more transparent than those of the Beard. The mida of the TVA-10, however, were not as transparent, there being a little more veiling of musical textures.

Resolution of low-level detail was also not as good, the TVA-10's presentation being broad - brush rather than analytical in nature. Even though it is not as revealing through the mids, I found the sound of the TVA-10 better integrated top-to-bottom and ultimately more satisfying. One of the clinchers for me was the violin tone on the Dave Wilson recording of the Beethoven Sonata. The sweetness of the Guarnerius really came through on the TVA 10, and you could recognize that, indeed, it was a Guarnerius, something that was not obvious with the Beard.

The Final Judgment I like the Beard P-35 and can recommend it in the context of Class C of Stereophile's "Recommended Components" --but with the caveat that it be carefully auditioned in the prospective purchaser's own system. The character of the upper octaves is such that the Beard will not readily lock into a particular system, preferring, for example, an analytical front end to compensate for its treble soft ness. I think that the Beard will compete very well, for example, with the Quicksilver monoblocks. True, its treble is not as good, but through the mids it is a couple of notches higher in quality. The Beard's midrange window is quite remarkable for its purity and resolution capabilities, and should appeal strongly to midrange aficionados.

As with any small tube amp, the speaker load must be carefully selected. The Beard should do very well with voltage-limited electrostatics. However, an 8-ohm nominal impedance, reasonably sensitive, dynamic loudspeaker will also do well. Do not expect the Beard to be able to go much above loud in a large room with a typical load, but it is very dynamic-sounding in the range from soft to loud. If you're in the market for a small tube amp, be sure to audition the Beard. In the area of midrange reproduction it has few peers at the asking price.

- Dick Olsher

[based on a Aug-1987 Stereophile review article]

Also see:

IN SEARCH OF A REFERENCE CARTRIDGE -- a post-CD survey

Letters