(All prices are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated.)
The Moon by Simaudio room was playing music streamed from the company's Roon-ready, DSD- and MQA-decoding Moon 680D streamer DAC ($13,000), connected to a 740P balanced preamp ($11,500), both connected to a two-output 820S optional external power supply ($10,000). Speakers were the tall, slender, Denmark-made, ribbon-tweeter–equipped Raidho TD 4.2's ($180,000/pair), each powered by a dual-mono, 225Wpc 860A v2 power amplifier ($25,000 each). Nordost Valhalla 2 cables connected everything together.
Not cheap, but neither was the sound, which was Champagne-level across-the-board and not bubbly Korbel. The sound transcended amplifier topologies: solid state, tube, class-A, class-D, all that. It was smooth, highly transparent, and delicately graphic. On a Spanish guitar rendition of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," those nylon strings sounded more nylon-string-like than I could ever recall hearing. Later, it was the same for George Harrison's sitar, which sounded oh so sitar-like. Paul McCartney's voice sounded so McCartney-like.
At the end of the Spanish-tinged "Stairway," I was tempted to stand up and break out in rapturous applause. Lucky for me and for Stereophile, my sense of decorum prevailed.
