After a very intense – and utterly enjoyable – week of listening, it’s time for a feedback about the Simaudio Moon 600i (V1) on this thread, i.e. the very place where I heard of how good is the 600i / AB-1266 pairing.
I am on the quest for my ‘endgame’ (yeah, I know ...) amp for the Abyss since several months now, after selling my XI Audio stack. The main reason for me to sell the Formula S / Powerman – indeed a very good match for the AB-1266 – was to get a single amp capable of driving headphones (primary use) and loudspeakers (secondary use).
Long story short, the 600i is a very capable integrated, and ticks most of my boxes, but not enough to convince me to keep it as my ultimate companion for the Abyss.
On the positives, compared to driving the Abyss directly from the DAVE, there are three main bonuses in my opinion: (a) macrodynamics, (b) soundstage size and layering (the latter especially with large scale and/or very complex music played at louder levels) and (c) bass tightness and control.
The remarkable thing is that the 600i achieves these results to a significantly larger extent than most other amps I tried, by retaining ‘almost’ all the transparency, microdetail and overall finesse of the DAVE.
The 600i is a very smooth amp, its treble never gets harsh and its overall presentation is polite, in a good way.
The midrange is, while slightly, a bit more recessed than DAVE direct, and vocals may appear a tiny bit thinner.
Tonally, the character of the source (DAVE + M Scaler in my case) was rendered in an extremely accurate fashion, confirming the neutral and transparent character of the 600i.
Overall, the 600i gave me a superior listening experience than DAVE direct, or DAVE + Formula S, as an all-rounder, and excelled with live music, orchestral, electronica.
The reason why I am not keeping it is very simple: I have liked more other amps I auditioned during my quest, while unfortunately at a much higher price.
In terms of sound quality, the Riviera AIC-10 is my favorite so far, as it combines an emotionally involving midrange, harmonics richness with soundstage size / airiness, transparency and bass authority better than the other amplifiers I tried in my system.
I am going to audition a Viva Solistino (same design as Egoista 845, with speaker taps instead of headphones out), in the next days.
I’d like to add that over the last months I had to reconsider how good the DAVE (with M Scaler plus lots of other tweaks) headphone output is. It is much harder to improve on than what most people would think of, myself included.
