Ascendo and Behold

In the Laufer-Teknik room, I had the opportunity to audition the Ascendo C8 loudspeaker ($9800/pair) with stand. This three-way includes a rear-firing ribbon tweeter and upward-firing, internal woofer, and has a specified sensitivity of 88dB

Music was courtesy of the Behold Gentle ($15,000–$30,000, depending upon configuration). Never before shown at CES in final form, this baby is completely configurable according to the customer's needs. The $30,000 package played at THE Show included a small transport, amplification with analogue and digital capabilities, full room correction, a 500GB internal hard drive for computer playback, and 5.1 multi-channel capability. (I may not have that all right, but there was no literature, and time was short). Holding it all together was Transparent cabling.

The sound was very warm and lush, lovely in fact. Bass had its control issues, which was true of many of the small rooms on the 4th floor of the Flamingo Hotel. This is definitely a system to explore.

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