Simaudio Moon CD-1

[Darrenmc]

Has anyone heard this cd player or had any experience with it? I know it's relatively new but I am just looking for some opinions on it? It has 8 stages of DC voltage regulation · Internal upsampling which uses 24-bit/352.8kHz processing · Proprietary CD drive system with in-house developed hardware & software · BurrBrown PCM1793 high-resolution 24-bit/192-kHz Digital-to-Analog Converter and 8X oversampling digital filter. It seems like a quality player. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[Joe Schmoe]

I have yet to hear any CD player over $200 that strikes me as being worth the money, and even $200 is only if you get a changer. The issue is not that fancy players aren't good, but that entry-level players sound so excellent that they don't leave much room for improvement.
Of course, if you are buying it for looks and build, it appears excellent in both of those respects.

 

[Seth=L]

I have yet to hear any CD player over $200 that strikes me as being worth the money, and even $200 is only if you get a changer. The issue is not that fancy players aren't good, but that entry-level players sound so excellent that they don't leave much room for improvement.
Of course, if you are buying it for looks and build, it appears excellent in both of those respects.

I agree completely. If you are after looks, warranty, or bragging rights, expensive CD players are great for that. As far as real world performance advancement, not so much. I wouldn't put down $500 on a CD player unless I had some $10,000+ stereo speakers.

 

[asahikasei]

Looks like a $200 CD player to me.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Looks like a $200 CD player to me.

But all that nice custom blue gets expensive, I bet

 

[Seth=L]

Looks like a $200 CD player to me.

I bet I can't tell the difference between that and my Magnavox CDB 650, and it's 20 years old!! LOL

 

[Darrenmc]

The post wasn't whether the CD player sounds better or the same as a $200 CD player, to each is own. It was asking for opinions if you've owned, auditioned, or heard the player. What kills me is people who bash other people for buying something they can afford and want. I don't think people are dumb or wasting money just because they drive a Porsche when they could be driving a Toyota, they both accomplish the same thing to get from point a to point b but the person driving the Porsche obviously wanted one and could afford it. You'll get many people on the other side of the fence who say they can hear a difference from a $200 CD player and a $2000 CD player. Build quality would be one big reason for owning the more expensive player, if there aren't huge sound differences.

 

[Seth=L]

The post wasn't whether the CD player sounds better or the same as a $200 CD player, to each is own. It was asking for opinions if you've owned, auditioned, or heard the player. What kills me is people who bash other people for buying something they can afford and want. I don't think people are dumb or wasting money just because they drive a Porsche when they could be driving a Toyota, they both accomplish the same thing to get from point a to point b but the person driving the Porsche obviously wanted one and could afford it. You'll get many people on the other side of the fence who say they can hear a difference from a $200 CD player and a $2000 CD player. Build quality would be one big reason for owning the more expensive player, if there aren't huge sound differences.

Well allow me to retort.

It's not likely anyone here has experience with it yet. If there are people here that do, they are few in number and are more likely to see this thread if it gets some attention. If no one posts on it, it just sinks into the abyss of lost single post threads.

Is it possible for you to purchase the CD player from a dealer and test it out? Will the dealer allow you to return it in exchange for a different model or get your money back if you don't hear an improvement? If you can do that, what's the point in asking someone else what they think of it? If the CD player does sound different (not likely in any case) one might like it, another might not.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I bet I can't tell the difference between that and my Magnavox CDB 650, and it's 20 years old!! LOL

Oh, please, yours will be full of dust most likely.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Is it possible for you to purchase the CD player from a dealer and test it out? Will the dealer allow you to return it in exchange for a different model or get your money back if you don't hear an improvement? If you can do that, what's the point in asking someone else what they think of it? If the CD player does sound different (not likely in any case) one might like it, another might not.

Yep, pretty good point here
What does it matter if my thinking differs from his on this if he like his thinking better?

 

[B3Nut]

The thing that gets me about a lot of these current high-end CD players is that the transports are the same plastic assemblies used in the cheaper ones. Where's the benefit to that? Back in '92 when I bought a Denon DCD-1560 on closeout for around $500 it had a ceramic-chassis-based Sony Linear Motor transport, while the lower-end models had plastic transports. Spending the bigger sum at the time proved to be a good move, here it is 2008 and I'm still using that player regularly. It used to be when you bought a high-end CDP, you were getting robust internals including a really beefy transport. Now it seems you're getting the guts of a $40 DVD player in a really pretty box with a 1/4" thick aluminum front panel and not much else. Phooey.

 

[Joe Schmoe]

The thing that gets me about a lot of these current high-end CD players is that the transports are the same plastic assemblies used in the cheaper ones. Where's the benefit to that? Back in '92 when I bought a Denon DCD-1560 on closeout for around $500 it had a ceramic-chassis-based Sony Linear Motor transport, while the lower-end models had plastic transports. Spending the bigger sum at the time proved to be a good move, here it is 2008 and I'm still using that player regularly. It used to be when you bought a high-end CDP, you were getting robust internals including a really beefy transport. Now it seems you're getting the guts of a $40 DVD player in a really pretty box with a 1/4" thick aluminum front panel and not much else. Phooey.

There was a high-end CD player round up in this month's HiFi news. One that cost $13000 only scored 75%, and the highest score in the test was 80%. For that kind of money, they should d**n well all score at least 98%!

 

[Seth=L]

Oh, please, yours will be full of dust most likely.

LOL, no I should have taken pictures when I cleaned it a couple of weeks ago, I got pretty much every spec of dust out of that thing.

 

[Seth=L]

There was a high-end CD player round up in this month's HiFi news. One that cost $13000 only scored 75%, and the highest score in the test was 80%. For that kind of money, they should d**n well all score at least 98%!

I don't believe the word "damn" is edited on this site. You could have said darn if you where worried about it.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Now it seems you're getting the guts of a $40 DVD player in a really pretty box with a 1/4" thick aluminum front panel and not much else. Phooey.

Because we are at the stage of the CD player becoming a commodity, cheap and disposable, no need to fix it as the investment is very small.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I don't believe the word "damn" is edited on this site. You could have said darn if you where worried about it.

Or, he would have certainly noticed all the xxxx as it posted and made changes as I discovered about a b word.

 

[mtrycrafts]

LOL, no I should have taken pictures when I cleaned it a couple of weeks ago, I got pretty much every spec of dust out of that thing.

But, that is cheating a picture after dust removal?

 

[Seth=L]

But, that is cheating a picture after dust removal?

There wasn't much in there to begin with, and my camera sucks.

 

[daft_togger]

Mmmm. I have this CD player along with the i-1 amp.....if people claim they cannot hear the difference between a cheap player at a few hundred and a player costing 5 or 10 times as much is in my view 1. Partially Deaf....fair one. 2. Unable to afford the more expensive one and become bitter and view is warped by this envy..... or 3. Just plain stupid.

This CD player offers a lot for the money.....and trust me I compared many combinations of set ups and for my taste this one offered the right balance between cost and quality.

Matched with good speakers, it sound truly stunning.....

 

[Joe Schmoe]

Experience may force me to change my opinions to at least some extent. I bought my new Cambridge CDP and integrated largely based on looks, feel, reliability, and build. It turns out, however, that the sound quality is also quite noticeably better. (What percentage of the improvement each piece is responsible for remains to be determined, however.)
Don't read too much into this. It is only a case of a really well made $350 single-drawer player sounding better than a $160 mass-produced changer. Whether or not a more expensive CDP (such as one farther up in the Azur line) would offer further improvement cannot be determined from this experience.