Sim Audio Moon CD-1 CD player test

The player plays excellent music of any genre. I liked the bass power and clarity of the midrange and treble. The music evokes the most lively emotional response, which is not disturbed by anything extraneous, so clear and accurate.

Features

The digital-to-analog conversion of audio data is performed by the Burr-Brown PCM1793 DAC. Internal digital audio is upsampled to 352.8 kHz in an eight-fold oversampling process.

Analog and digital circuits are mounted on separate PCBs in order to shorten the signal path and thus reduce the influence of mutual interference. In addition, each circuit has its own ground bus. Gold plated copper wiring circuits are applied.

Control switching capabilities are very broad. First of all, there is RS-232 port, which provides two-way exchange of control signals with other components and possibility to re-flash player’s memory in the future. Secondly, it has IR port, which allows remote control of the player. And third, thanks to the proprietary SimLink system and a pair of RCA inputs and outputs this turntable can be integrated with other SimAudio components.

The front panel display has four levels of character illumination, including full fade-out mode, and three modes of playback timing: from the beginning of the track, from the beginning of the disc and to the end of the disc. Large bright red display symbols are clearly visible even in bright light, so it is impossible to mistake what information is displayed.

Implemented the track random play mode, the ability to re-program tracks, as well as “track repeat” and “disc repeat” modes. All coaxial audio jacks are gold-plated.

The sound

Pop, electronic music. The middle part is the most worked out dia-range in all respects, especially as far as details of sounding of string instruments are concerned. The top is almost as detailed as the middle. At first glance it seemed that there is a little too much “sand” in the sound of the middle hit. But the thing is that the device produces a very detailed sound, the richness of the music is already apparent in the first bars, thanks to this the first negative impression, caused by the dryness of the drums, quickly dissipated, and after a few minutes of listening we did not want to stress the slight differences in the playback. On the contrary, there was a natural concentration on the good parts of the sound.

Liked the detailed airiness of the top beat sound and the clean richness of the bass pulses. The rhythmic pattern of the song comes out clearly, without ambiguity, thanks to the uncompromising relief of the percussion pulses. When intense bass comes in, the range above the upper midrange becomes less pronounced, becoming brittle. In general, in the highlights of a song, the bass sounds more convincing than the top.

Jazz

. I liked the distinct playing of the double bass throughout its range, the sounds are very accurate and resilient. Accuracy and power pulses are inherent in every register, so the double bass is in great relief and the piano is accurate. The cymbal and midrange are nicely rendered, while the bass is excellent. The music sounds tight and harmonious, the sound does not jut out or plummet anywhere.

Vocals are conveyed openly, freely and clearly, in short, voices sound liberated. The choral performance pleases with a realistic arrangement of the choristers on stage, and, more importantly, with a palpable scale of the ensemble, thanks to the detail of the background voices. The chorus is realistic because it reproduces human voices in a very natural way.

The dynamics and depth of sound is impressive I especially liked the range of mid-range . The xylophone comes through clearly and openly, with full aftershows, and the strong piano chords come through in great relief.

The sound is polyphonic, multi-leveled, music is easy to analyze, the sound is easily divided into voices. The scene is excellent, the positioning of the sound sources and the distance between them are believable, so both large and small musical groups sound very natural in terms of proportions and transmission of musical space.

In general, I liked the jazz in the performance of Moon CD-1, this music has enough detail and balance of registers, so you do not get tired of listening to it.

Rock

. The first thing you immediately notice in rock music is the unusually transparent sound of the bottom. The bass is impressive with its combination of accuracy and richness, the player, as they say, “rocks” a great low-frequency wave. The bass guitar riffs sound extraordinarily reliefful. For rock, especially hard rock, this is a quality that is hard to overestimate.

Bass drums do not lose their fullness and relief at any speed, the drums carry a lot of information, not just indicate the rhythm. The player’s class is easily recognized by the comfort of listening to the toughest and sharpest rock music. On the one hand, audio information is not lost, but on the other hand, the player does not add anything superfluous to the music. Accuracy of sound is maintained even at very high volume, and you can increase it with great pleasure.

The top end is solid, though a little too dry. Here again I saw a peculiarity, noticed while listening to electronic music. When playing a powerful bass, the top loses support, becoming paler. Bass beats do not lose their naturalness for a second.

Classic

. Testing of this direction began with a promising prelude, the impression of which was later confirmed. Polyphonic character of sounding acquires since the first bars of the composition, and doesn’t lose it till the coda. It sounds everywhere without bottlenecks and loss of information, flowing out in a balanced, well-tuned and harmonious stream, which is listened literally in the same breath.

Impressive are the high dynamic characteristics of the stereo circuit, which provides relief sounding of the lowest notes and the high points of the composition. Moving from a mighty forte back to pianissimo, the sound flow doesn’t for a moment lose its rich variety, nor does the music as a whole lose its imagery, however fast such changes of sound intensity might occur…

The scene is drawn broadly and has a palpable depth thanks to the adequate arrangement of the instruments. You are impressed by the wide sweep of the strings, which gives a real solid backdrop to the soloing instruments. Rare moments of drum metal in classical pro compositions delight with long drawn tones, coming from the distance adequate to a real orchestra.

Price

The average price is about 67,000 Dollars.