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SimAudio Moon North Collection

Anyone thinking about buying an amp from the North Collection?

I heard the 860A v1 and enjoyed it. With the new lineup there will be a some 860A v2’s coming up for sale. I am considering the older models and the North Collection. The 860A v1 was surprising good even with the sort of hot Paradigm Persona I demoed it with.

I was thinking at one time of buying 2 Benchmark AHB2 monos to drive the not so difficult to drive and slightly warm Yamaha NS5000’s. A neutral amp like the AHB2 would be great (I owned the AHB2 before) however, I think the 12-inch woofers will unfortunately not be best served by AHB2.

I am using my CODA #16 with the NS5000 right now and I can see where lots of power makes those woofers shine. So I am looking for another amp that is a bit more neutral to use with the NS5000. I can then move the CODA #16 to my Magnepan LRS+. I put these together temporarily in my office to keep the amp safe from my guests (kids). Unfortunately, I love this combo too much now to break it apart.

I am looking for some powerful and neutral sounding amps for the NS5000. I read up on the Classe Delta but that fan is a bit of a deterrent. I am testing out a Class D Peachtree GAN400 with it but it does not have that great bass like the CODA #16. Class D so far has not impressed me on the bottom end as Class A and AB amps I have owned.

So as of now, the SimAudio gear seems like to the top of the heap, and the price is already a bit over what I want to spend. I will just have to work a little longer.

Any other amps with a neutral signature that I should consider?

My preamps are Benchmark LA4 and Holo Serene. The LA4 will stay with the NS5000 system. Both do not seem to add to the signal. 

yyzsantabarbara

Showing 2 responses by panerai557

panerai557's avatar
panerai557
65 posts
 

I heard moon north 791/761 combo in two different occasions, once at the Toronto audio show last Oct and recently at a local shop. At the show, the moon set was paired with B&W 802 and Joseph Audio perspective2s at the shop. I found them very appealing visually. Real highend look, but soundwise, one could do better with that much of money, imo

panerai557's avatar
panerai557
65 posts
 

In the show setting, I am familiar with sound of B&W. I think they sound best with Classe electronics. There’s more fleshed out mids with aliveness. With the moon combo, they sounded more flat and less vivid. I got a similar experience when listening to perspectives with the moon setup. I listened to Perspective2s with full McIntosh tubes electronics and EAR V12/Chord Dave in different settings at the same store. I liked V12/Dave the most then followed by McIntosh then Moon. The reason for this is that, again the Moon setup took away these magical tones n timber that I normally hear from Perspective2s. The store owner loved sound of new Moon with the perspectives. When he was saying all the good things about them, I was thinking well with that money I would buy something else. I just read a professional review on this moon combo and too me, the review sounded like defecto high praises for expensive new hifi products and then off they go to the next reviewers. This is just me, but I think Moon has pretty noticeable house sound that if you happen to like it then you’d love these new offerings from Simaudio. I don’t so maybe that’s why.

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