Extract from the Press Report about the High End 2004 written by Robert Jorgensen:

The products that pressed most buttons for me, and I think I can safely include Clement Perry and Don Dixon here as well, came from a new contender in the HiFi market, although quite obviously not newcomers to electronics. We had never heard of “behold” before but must truly admit that their products were indeed something to “behold” and even more to listen to. From the brains and experience of Ralf Ballmann (left) and his cohorts comes a series of components that demand true respect and admiration [publisher's note: Both I and Don Dixon were smitten over the accuracy as well as musicality of the behold room using my very own reference loudspeaker in the Isophon Europa. So much in fact, I couldn't help but going back day after day to further confirm my initial thoughts.]

The products that are most visible are a pre-amp control unit and a power amplifier. They look quite stunning and when you take a look inside you are even more impressed. Wow does it look professional and this is meant in the very most positive sense of the word. The “behold” products just ooze professionalism and that is no wonder, since Ballmann and his colleagues come from a background in producing tools for network analysis and both their design choices and the way these have been implemented in practice demand respect.

Even before the control unit you found something quite unique sitting on top of the cartridge. Yes it was also a Vinyl playing system. What caught our attention was a small circuit board, which turned out to be a sophisticated analogue to digital converter. Having converted the signal to digital so close to the source the signal is then treated in the control unit where it is RIAA corrected in the digital domain (attempts at doing has not been to successful in the past), something that is made possible by the application of considerable computing power within the control unit. Now this actually goes a lot further that one might immediately expect. You see, the signal is not converted to 16bit/44.1kHz, but to 24bit/768kHz. “behold” have also chosen (and rightly so) to use a more professional 50 Ohm connection using connectors with an much higher quality of connection than can ever be achieved by RCA plugs or even using BNC plugs. After treatment in the control unit the signal is sent onto the amp(s) while still in its digital form. This (together with the much less sensitive signal format) makes use of a very thin wire, which can be very long and very unobtrusive.

The power amp's actually analogue (right), but they contain a D/A converter of quite heroic proportions. It consists of 8 cascaded D/A chips which enable it to handle the 768kHz input. Furthermore they do not use a conventional power supply, but computer controlled switching supply which enables an extremely stable power delivery into quite bizarre loads of low impedance of high reactance. This (in simple terms) means that they can drive the most difficult of loudspeaker loads. This was proved in practice since they were playing with Isophon speakers which although known for great neutrality also have a reputation for bring many amps to their proverbial knees. I have in the past heard powerful amps sounding a bit wobbly on Isophon speakers, but that was definitely not the case here.

Link to the Original Press Report

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