Hm would you recommend the Moon Neo 430HA or the rag for the abyss? I hear mixed things for both..although the moon is twice the price..
Depends what you want. Lots of chat from this page onwards:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/719100/moon-n-o-430ha-reference-headphone-amplifier/300
I've heard both, although not with the same dac. The Rag + Hugo left me feeling
very disappointed (after all the hype), it felt cold and sterile; I had no emotional engagement to the music. The 430 (dac version) on the other hand has me in audio heaven. It's musical, coherent, utterly engaging and the dac section, for £600 extra, is a mind boggling bargain. The warmth is the perfect partner to the technical nature of the Abyss. I'm hearing a combination of details, texture and realism in music that I've never heard before, but even more importantly, I get lost in the music. Totally lost. Technicalities become moot, and enjoyment becomes both natural and perpetual.
The 430/Abyss also has incredible dynamic range at low listening volumes. A joy!
The 430 mids are really something to behold. I'm a big fan of the Audeze 2.2 and 3F sound, but my goodness, this combo is even better. I always find myself using the word
delicious to describe them.
A diversion for those wondering about the 430, Abyss and a suitable DAC...
Don't be fooled by the (relatively) exceedingly cheap cost of the dac. Moon have a dedicated Neo dac for over £4K, and while its entire internals will not be ported directly into the 430, the heart of the engine/hardware will have been. Those internals, when not being constructed and sold in a separate unit, is much cheaper for Moon to port over to another piece of hardware (the 430). The costs associated with the chassis, full production and distribution of a standalone (dac) unit are circumvented, and that's a
considerable saving.
There are obvious synergistic benefits to a natively hardwired dac. They're built/specced for one another and wired directly, offering the shortest signal path while avoiding the dance of interconnects and additional power supplies (longer signal with increased potential for degradation). In other words, it's incredibly efficient.
I had originally grabbed the 430 as a loaner in which to pair with the Lampizator Big 7 dac (starts at $10,500), with no intention of using the 430 dac section (at £600 it's going to be average, right?). I did pair the 430 and Big 7 for an evenings Abyss audition, and as you'd expect, it was truly excellent. Engaging, detailed, textured and dynamic.
Then, with no expectation at all, I tried the dac section of the 430. My head nearly fell off into my lap. Similar sonic superlatives that popped into my mind when listening to the world class Big 7 again saturated my eardrums. While I did not A/B the two dacs extensively, I was left wanting absolutely nothing from the 430 dac, I wasn't pining for the Big 7 when I got home, something I was expecting to happen. I was prepared to part with £6.5K (asking price for it). $1000 vs $10500 (minimum). That's a tenth of the price. And I would say, which may annoy some people, for 90% of the performance.
Caveat 1: The Big 7 comparison is based
only on the Abyss, and
only with my musical preferences (both sonic signatures and genres). I am by no means an experienced 'golden ear' audiophile. I have no experience with TOTL speaker setups. The vast majority of big spenders (dac wise) do so with speaker setups, not headphones. Differences and sonic nuances (especially sound stage and imaging) are much more pronounced when filling a room rather than two ear canals.
Caveat 2: I'm not an audiophile, I'm a passionate lover of music, and I want to hear music in a way that stirs, and feeds, my soul. I want emotional engagement rather than technical perfection. I want to love an amp/dac because it connects me to the energy of the music, gives me uncontrollable emotional goosebumps, not because it has the power to reveal all detail. Music is about feeling, not thinking. Of course, technical perfection can stir the soul of others, and musicality/warmth/euphoria can detract from it.
Each to their own.
TL;DR: I will still audition the Yggdrasil when it's released, but for now, the 430HA D is a single box of magic that when paired with the Abyss, delivers everything I'm looking for, and then some.
As always,
YMMV.
