Behold/Ascendo

Another year, another Standout Demo for Ascendo and Behold. We can't remember how many times we've honored these companies, but it's been a few -- more than any others at High End. But the reason is simple -- they deserve it. Every year, without question, they produce some of the best sound at the show. And we think the reason for that involves three simple things: They have the right equipment, they have the correct tools, and they take the time to get things right.

This year, Behold and Ascendo were showing two systems in the same room -- and both were outstanding.

In the first system, a Behold CDP CD player fed both systems with its digital output. This larger system (around 130,000 €) featured six channels of amplification courtesy of three Behold BPA 768 stereo amplifiers (each speaker was triamped). These were fed digital signals from the Behold APU 768 digital preamplifier (which actively crosses over the drivers in the System M speakers and provides the Ascendo room correction). The speakers in this larger system were the Ascendo System M.

The second system (approximately 18,000 € not including the CDP) coupled the Behold Gentle G 192 integrated amplifier with the smaller Ascendo C8 loudspeakers. As for the digital front-end, there was the same transport that was used in the big system, but the DAC and room correction were in the Gentle.

What the systems had in common (besides the digital front-end) was digital room correction that's a collaborative effort between Ascendo and Behold. Ascendo designed it and in years past had a standalone product, but now the company has integrated it with Behold's electronics.

Both systems exhibited great clarity and detail, but what was most impressive was that the bass in both systems was strong, tight, tuneful, and extended, and it displayed virtually none of the room artifacts that we heard in plenty of other displays (bass was more extended with the System M, of course). It sounded in many ways like it was coming from a well-set-up system in a home, which is not the way it usually is with show displays.

Was the sound we heard due to the room correction, the inherent quality of the components, or the setup prowess of Ralf Ballmann of Behold and Jürgen Scheuring of Ascendo? We don’t know. More than likely the answer is a combination of all three. In any case, another year, another Standout Demo for Behold and Ascendo.