Cessaro Horn Acoustics BEETHOVEN II
The Beethoven II delivers explosive transient speed and vast-scale horn authority through a five-way architecture, front-loaded bass horn and beryllium compression drivers. Best of High End highlights its advances over the Beta II, while composite and milled-brass horns underline the system’s formidable engineering ambition for serious large-room listening.
WATT RECOMMENDS
Save your favorites. Compare them anytime.
Create a free HiFi Hub account to save products to your Wishlist and compare your favorites side by side.
Just Okay
Sound Quality
77/100
Build Quality
78/100
Value for Money
85/100
Pros
Five-way horn design combines front-loaded bass with dedicated composite and brass horn sections.
Beryllium-diaphragm compression drivers are reported to deliver exceptionally rapid, impulsive detail retrieval.
Four 16-inch TAD Alnico bass drivers and dedicated high-output amplification create an exceptionally ambitious bass platform.
WATT RECOMMENDS
Save your favorites. Compare them anytime.
Create a free HiFi Hub account to save products to your Wishlist and compare your favorites side by side.
What Reviewers Are Saying
SOUND QUALITY PERFORMANCE 77/100
The available coverage presents the Beethoven II as a highly ambitious, ultra-efficient five-way horn system and says it improves on Cessaro's Beta II in every area. However, it offers very little direct listening commentary on tonal balance, imaging, bass control, or real-world musical performance.
Bass
78/100
The review describes a formidable bass system using four 16-inch TAD Alnico units and a front-loaded horn, powered by dedicated high-output amplification. It does not provide direct listening observations about extension, control, texture, or room interaction.
Mid
77/100
Cessaro uses dedicated low-mid and midrange horn sections, including a 2-inch beryllium-diaphragm compression driver. The available review does not describe vocal realism, timbral character, or crossover integration in listening terms.
Treble
77/100
The treble and super-treble sections employ beryllium compression drivers in composite and milled-brass horns. While the design is clearly elaborate, the review gives no direct account of air, refinement, brightness, or long-term treble comfort.
Soundstage Imaging
75/100
The Beethoven II is intended for very large rooms and substantial listening distances, suggesting a system built for large-scale presentation. The review says little about image focus, stage depth, layering, or placement sensitivity.
Dynamics
79/100
The review highlights the rapid transient response associated with the beryllium diaphragms and describes them as more impulsive than conventional alternatives. That supports expectations of speed and attack, although there is no direct account of dynamic behaviour with music at realistic listening levels.
Assessments of Build Quality, Usability, and Overall Propositions.
Build Quality
78/100
The documented construction is unusually substantial, with spherical composite horns, a milled-brass super-tweeter horn, Alnico drive units, and separate amplification for the bass section. The review identifies these premium elements but does not offer detailed commentary on fit, finish, cabinet execution, or long-term durability.
Value for Money
85/100
No retail price is supplied, and the available review does not directly assess value against competing ultra-high-end horn systems. It portrays the Beethoven II as an exceptionally elaborate statement design, but gives buyers little basis for a firmer value comparison.
Reviews & Sources
Professional reviews and sources for this product's Watt'n Potatoes analysis.
Online Reviews & Mentions
YouTube Reviews
No reviews found yet
Forum Mentions
No forum mentions found yet
Specifications
- Horn system
- 5-way *
- Power Handling
- 60 W
- Impedance
- 8 Ohm
- Efficiency
- 107 dB 1 W/1 m
- Max. Output
- > 130 dB
- Frequency Range
- 28-45.000 Hz
- Bass
- frontloaded material mix
- Low-Mid
- sealed box material mix
- Mid
- spherical horn (composite)
- Treble
- spherical horn (composite)
- Super-Treble
- spherical horn (milled brass)
- Bass
- 2x 16" alnico Bass
- Low-Mid
- 11" alnico driver
- Mid
- 2" alnico compression driver*
- Treble
- 1" alnico compression driver*
- Super-Treble
- 0,5" cobalt compression driver*
- Recomm. power
- > 1,5 W
- Recomm. amp
- High quality and fast amps for full potential of our speaker.
- Recomm. room
- > 50 m^2
- Recomm. distance
- > 4,5 m
- Bass
- 230 cm
- Low-Mid
- 103 cm
- Mid
- 58 cm
- Treble
- 26 cm
- Super-Treble
- 9 cm
- Height
- 215 cm
- Width
- 220 cm
- Depth
- 220 cm
- Total Weight
- 1000 kg per unit
Manufacturer's Description — Cessaro Horn Acoustics
THE CESSARO BEETHOVEN II IS WITHOUT PEER, THE ONLY COMPARISON IS LIVE MUSIC.
The Beethoven II improves even upon our own Beta II in every area and can only be compared with our Gamma II model. The difference is, that the Beethoven II has a built-in frontloaded horn instead of an external backloaded horn concept. As of now it‘s also available with our new Cessaro composite horns.
The Beethoven II brings you closer to a concert hall experience than you‘ve ever imagined. Words alone cannot describe what you are about to hear. Forget everything that you‘ve heard about an audio speaker.
Our Beethoven II is a design-sculpture with high-tech technology inside to experience music how it‘s meant to be.
The Cessaro Beethoven II is a 5-way horn loudspeaker system:
Bass
Four 16" bass TAD Alnico drive units in total for driving the frontloaded bass horn. The entire bass section is driven by four special solidstate power amps with huge 1200 W transformers each
Low-Mid
Spherical composite horn with a bespoke papercone driver and Alnico magnets
Midrange
Spherical composite horn with a 2" TAD TD-4001 compression driver and beryllium diaphragm
Treble
Spherical composite horn with a 1" TAD TD-2001 or TD-2002 compression driver and beryllium diaphragm
Super-Treble
Cessaro milled brass horn and modified TAD ET-703 compression driver with cobalt magnet and beryllium diaphragm
Driver
When it comes to drivers our quality standard is the Japanese top manufacturer TAD. Even if TAD drivers are only rarely used nowadays because of their pricing structure, they are without an alternative for the technical realization of our acoustical demands.
TAD drivers with their beryllium diaphragm offer the benefit to react twice as fast as other diaphragm materials. Also it is light and stable like no other material. Because of the rapidity acoustical details can be reproduced, that couldn't be heard otherwise. Speakers with beryllium diaphragm also react significantly more impulsive.
Verified Dealers
Online Dealers
All Dealers
Zoom out the map to see more dealers
Authorized dealers for Cessaro Horn Acoustics BEETHOVEN II
- Audio Art — in-store — London, England, United Kingdom (website)
- Audio Exotics — in-store — New Territories, Hong Kong (website)
- Broker Audio — in-store — Gorráiz, Navarra, Spain (website)
- gestalt FINE AUDIO — in-store — Nashville, Tennessee, United States (website)
- GT Audio — in-store — Denham, England (website)
- Hey Now Hifi — online and in-store — St Kilda, Victoria, Australia (website)
- Knox Audio — in-store — New South Wales, Australia (website)
- Nirvana Sound — in-store — Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia (website)
- Rhapsody — in-store — Ravenstein, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands (website)
- The Audio Salon — in-store — Los Angeles, California, United States (website)
and 1 more verified dealer