Behold Gentle G192 Media Player

Thankyou Mcondon, you hit the nail on the head, that is exactly what i'm looking for, however, I will still use the cd-player on a second system, not sure if the Lumin product is my answer, worth looking into, just tired of cd's rearing out, we all know what i'm saying, scratche's, breaking, skipping, etc..., want to join the new era of music play back, but I will not and refuse to use a usb cable or interface, that is silly!, I enjoy state of the art analog balanced cable's now, I cannot imagine getting rid of my $15,000 1-meter balanced I/C for a usb cable, really, ha,ha,ha, now you know why I desire a quality analog volume control on a streamer that signal's by way of balanced out's, cheers.

Hi Zd542, Do you remeber the Krell kps 25sc?, when this unit was made, it was an all in one box solution that was incredible in it's day, I would like to audition a streamer that is like this, instead of cd play back all in one box, the krell unit had a real class A analog preamp inside the unit, eliminated the use for some cable's, only need one analog cable direct to amplification, the krell was state of the art in the entire decade it was made, I may be hopeing for to much here, you would think with all the technology these day's, one would be able to find such a streamer?

K.

You can also go down the Devialet path...

Lumin is a Streamer/Dac, not a server.

$7K full retail for the basic one and about $11K for the topline one that does DSD2x.

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.