Behold Gentle G192 Media Player


Hello again!

We at TARA Labs have been having a lot of fun auditioning new components for our listening room. One recent subject is our Behold Gentle G192 Media Player. It functions as a music server, amplifier and preamplifier, DAC, and DSP corrector. Musically the sounds are very detailed and well-defined, but without the analytical nuance quality that some digital components produce. Rather the sound seems well extended, airy and open overall. Has anyone else tried this media player? Are there any similar products that you have had good experiences with?
codytara
Isnt this a $50K piece of kit??

That needs to be said upfront. Its audio jewelry with a fantastic screen/display.


Correction, this is the runt of the litter at $16K. The $50k sibling is newer.

No DSD.
Hi Mcondon, what a great post, thankyou, I would like to find a streamer of excellent sound with a quality volume control to run direct to my amp and get out of cd-player's, dac's-transport's all together, I am not that interested in computer audio, that's silly to me, computer's do not have quality power supplies, tube's, quality capacitor's, etc..., plus usb cable's are a silly way to attempt to get state of the art sound, some usb implementation's inside of some of the best Dac's out there may sound good, however, the usb cable is a bust!, a media streamer that has balanced cable out-put with a quality volume control to run direct to amplification is what I would like to audition, is their such a unit on the market yet?
"01-26-15: Audiolabyrinth
Hi Mcondon, what a great post, thankyou, I would like to find a streamer of excellent sound with a quality volume control to run direct to my amp and get out of cd-player's, dac's-transport's all together, I am not that interested in computer audio, that's silly to me, computer's do not have quality power supplies, tube's, quality capacitor's, etc..., plus usb cable's are a silly way to attempt to get state of the art sound, some usb implementation's inside of some of the best Dac's out there may sound good, however, the usb cable is a bust!, a media streamer that has balanced cable out-put with a quality volume control to run direct to amplification is what I would like to audition, is their such a unit on the market yet?"

I think you just set the record for the longest sentence on Audiogon. That aside, I'm not sure what you are asking for. For computer audio, you use the PC as a transport only. But unless I'm mistaken, a streaming device is essentially a computer as well. The way you interact with a streamer is a little different, but you still have to rip all your CD's and they get played back essentially the same way. I could be wrong, of course, but I thought that's how it works.
ZD, you are not wrong.

Streamer is just a quiet transport that is designed optimized for music, accepts ethernet/wifi, etc and outputs in Dac friendly formats like USB, HDMI, RCA, BNC eutc.