Behold Gentle G192 Media Player

I own it. It is an awesome piece that sounds superb with Behold speakers. I auditioned quite a few speakers costing up to $30K. I thought I would keep my separates, but felt that the G192 and Behold Tanara were very far ahead of anything I had previously owned or auditioned. Also, I don't think Behold outsources to China. It is a small operation. Call Behold and the company's president, Ralph Ballman, picks up the phone.

Audiolabyrinth, the G192 is an integrated amp with DAC. I believe it can be purchased with "modules", including room correction and a media server. I don't know much about the media server module. Brett Mesler, my dealer at Audio 202 in New Jersey may be able to answer your questions. The U.S. distributor, Sam Laufer at Laufer Teknik can also answer any questions. I found both to be very honest and accommodating. My sense is that the G192 would be overkill as a server alone, since you wouldn't be using its amp. And, although the G192 can be used with a wide array of speakers, my feeling is that it really shines when used with Behold speakers. I demo'd many speakers in my search, including Acoustic Zen, Wilson, Coincident, Vivid, Gamut, DeVore. None were as immediately transfixing and mind blowing as the G192 and Tanara (which are the lowest end in the Behold line.) The only speaker that I preferred to the Tanara were the Kaiser Kawero Classic, but they are too large for my space and a lot more money than Behold. Behold is a great option if you want a simple setup that sounds fantastic. I sold all my expensive separates, many expensive power cords, my standalone DAC. I guess my point is that the G192 is a stellar "Swiss army knife". Buying it as a media server only might not be worth the money. Aurender, Lumin, the Signature Rendu, etc. might be better and cheaper options if you just want a media server, although I have heard none of those units. The only server I have demo'd was the Laufer Teknik Memory Player, which sounded absolutely stellar in my system, easily the best I have ever heard as a digital source, but it is very large and very expensive. Bottom line is that Behold makes stellar audio equipment, but you should think of it as an entire system, not just as a digital server.

Audiolabyrinth,

So you want to keep your amp, but replace your CD transport, DAC, and preamp with a single digital server with balanced outputs? I believe a Lumin server would fit that bill. Nothing else comes to mind, since most digital servers output a digital signal that needs to be converted to analog by a separate DAC.

I briefly explored the idea of demoing a Lumin. I don't know if you are in the US or somewhere else, but Ciamara in New York is a Lumin dealer that allows 30-day trials within the US (or rather, the right to return the product for a full refund if you don't like it).

Mind you, I have never heard a Lumin player, so cannot recommend it based on personal experience. And Lumin is not cheap. But it might be worth investigating if you want to retire your CD player and move to a one box solution.

Wisnon, by your definition, a server has to have a large internal hard drive? I don't know of any audio piece that has that, as well as an internal DAC and balanced analog outs. To use Lumin, you need to set up a NAS, which is very easy to do and pretty inexpensive, and that then transfers files to the Lumin as you want to play them. A NAS also automatically backs up your music files, so if one hard drive in it fails, you just insert a replacement. I personally would not want a large hard drive, a digital "renderer", and a DAC in one box. First, if the single hard drive in it crashes, as they are prone to do, you are left with a very expensive doorstop until the manufacturer replaces the drive, assuming they are still in business. Second, an internal hard drive can be noisy (i.e., mechanical noise and EMI). A NAS that is across the room or in a closet will be a lot quieter.

Of course, one now should start to see the appealing simplicity and economics of a decent headless computer connected to a USB DAC or a USB-SPDIF converter. Many Luddites in this forum are appalled by the idea of this type of setup, but it can sound very good. The owner of Ciamara uses a MacBook Pro as his source and it sounded stellar when I heard it. The folks at Computer Audiophile also seem to set up their systems this way and don't seem to believe they are sacrificing any sound quality to TOTL CD players. That is the direction I am most likely headed, and I have reasonable optimism it will work. Right now, I get stellar sound using a Bel Canto CD3t, a $1500 transport, plugged into the Behold. The combination beats the pants off my prior setup of the Perfect Wave Memory Player, Perfect Wave DAC, Aesthetix Calypso, and Pass Labs 150.5, all of which I sold for more than the cost of the Bel Canto + Behold G192.

In any case, this thread has gone way off topic. It was originally about the Behold Gentle, which is a very nice piece.