Montreal Audio Fest 2022

The Moon by Simaudio Room

Robert Schryer  |  Mar 27, 2022

(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.

COMMENTS
tonykaz's picture
Submitted by tonykaz on March 27, 2022 - 9:28am

and using MQA on top of it all, Whats this world coming to ???

The $13,000 680D Streaming DAC with MQA replaces a $250.000 Record Player and $15,000 Phono Cartridge.

Nice reporting and estimation of sound quality that agrees with what I've been hearing since MSB introduced their Analog DAC some time ago.

Tony in Florida

ps. How much is Karen Sumner charging for that Transparent Interface system ?

Archimago's picture
Submitted by Archimago on March 27, 2022 - 12:14pm

I think it's okay to lead with essentially a dead modulation scheme for music distribution like DSD.

And so long as everyone knows the fact that lossy, poorly filtered MQA essentially means "marginal quality assured". Furthermore that you pay more for the hardware and more for Tidal "HiFi+" tier, then we're all good!

tonykaz's picture
Submitted by tonykaz on March 27, 2022 - 4:09pm

idea of what you are referring to. You probably should realise that by now ?

Try explaining your concepts to Disney or any other Content Creator.

Of course, you are just referring to opinion here.

Moon is demonstrating marketplace realities, aren't they ??? ( which are reported to have outstanding sound quality )

Tony in Florida

NuJazz's picture
Submitted by NuJazz on March 28, 2022 - 11:53am

I was there on Saturday and I've listened this set-up at least half hour. In my humble opinion, it performed the best sound of the show.

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