According to reviews and Moon, the preamp in the 891 is the best that Moon has offered at any price and hard to beat relative to other options under $35,000.
Not true. The 891 is by far and away the finest "streaming preamplifier" (i.e. a preamplifier with a DAC and network player built-in) we have ever developed and one of the absolute finest in existence. It's analog preamplifier section is pretty much State-of-the-Art, thanks in part to some key technologies developed for this product.
However as far as analog preamplifiers go, our reference continues to be our flagship dual-chassis 850P. It is considerably more expensive than the 891, and has no DAC and no network player built-in. To be realistic, the question of which is better sounding comes down to how they are compared, as it depends heavily on the quality of the source component used on the 850P. In some cases, the 850P wins, in others, the 891 will be the better choice. What this does demonstrate is just how good the 891 is, and how incredibly close it does come to the 850P.
Costa Koulisakis
Simaudio Ltd.