After the WAVE Audio & Visual Experience at Eastin Hotel ended on Oct 12, Business Development Manager of Audio Visual Intelligence Sdn Bhd Alan Tan KS WhatsApped me and told me that he could loan me the MOON 371 network player/amp for a week before it is returned to the company’s Singapore showroom.
And so Hafiz from AV Intelligence delivered the unit to my house and after I powered it up, I had a video call with Hafiz to get the MOON 371 connected to my house’s wi-fi. After fiddling around with the remote control and volume control, we managed to set the system up, updated the firmware and soon after I managed to get TIDAL Connect to stream some music on the MOON 371. Hafiz said I should download the MOON MiND Controller app to my Samsung smartphone to control the unit. After doing that it was quite easy to get TIDAL to stream music files to MOON 371.
It was a simple matter to plug in the Kimber 12TC speaker cables to the MOON 371 and to the pair of DALI KUPID speakers which I was also reviewing at that time. I noted that the sound was smooth, better controlled and more refined than when I used the Cayin valve amp.
But when I switched to the resident ATC SCM50 floorstanders, the sound quality improved tremendously — the soundstage increased in depth and width, the imaging became more precise and there was more transparency. It just goes to show that the MOON 371 Network Player/Amp deserves to be matched with higher-end speakers than the entry-level DALI KUPID. With the ATC, the music sounded good, but I noted that the bass went low but was a bit loose and bloated.
So I switched to Canare 4S11 speaker cables and the bass tightened up while the smooth and refined qualities of the music overall remained unchanged. Thus you will need to experiment with your collection of speaker cables to extract the best performance from the MOON 371.
The MOON 371, which is the first component from Simaudio’s Compass Range, has some proprietary technologies.
From its website: “MDCA stands for MOON Distortion- Cancelling Amplifier. As the name implies, MDCA is a proprietary amplification circuit that amplifies the signal without the distortions and colourations brought on by past methods of signal correction. In other words, those drawbacks have been eliminated in the MDCA design.
“MDCA’s error correction works outside the audio signal path — a major advantage in reducing distortion — and in doing so, it also reduces output impedance and improves the damping factor. The MDCA amplifier compares input and output signals to determine minute signal corrections in real time, and injects the “correction signal” directly into the output stage. The result is previously unattainably-low levels of distortion that were not possible with any previous non-global negative feedback amplifier.”
It also has Moon Hybrid Power (MHP) which is a proprietary power supply technology from MOON by Simaudio that merges the efficiency of switch-mode power supplies with the clean output of linear power supplies, creating a hybrid design for high-fidelity audio components, offering stable, noise-free power for superior sound by using smooth switching (LLC resonant circuits) and linear regulation for ultra-clean DC.
It is rated at 100 watts per channel into 8 Ohms and 200 watts into 4 Ohms and Damping Factor of 425. It could drive the 85-dB sensitivity ATC SCM50s to very loud levels while maintaining precision and poise.
As for features, it has a headphone jack, a preamp out, a phono in (MC and MM) and HDMI ARC amongst a long list of connections. The DAC handles PCM up to 32-bit/384 kHz and DSD256, and through MiND 2, supports MQA playback, but the brand of the chip used is not revealed in the company’s literature.
I connected a HDMI 2.1 cable from my Sharp 65-inch UHD 4K TV to the HDMI ARC input and watched several episodes of K-drama with my wife. It worked very well with dialogue rendered with high clarity. But I would prefer auto switching to the HDMI ARC connection when switching from listening to music to watching TV. I have a WiiM Ultra and have become spoilt by its auto switching function.
Priced at RM29,999 the MOON 371 is quite affordable for a component that is not out of place when paired with more expensive and higher-end speakers.
Contact AV Intelligence at 011-2881 5319 for more information.
