Moon Evolution P-8 preamp, W-8 amp, & Andromeda CD player

Full-out assaults on the state of the art, and priced accordingly

Cruising the halls of Consumer Electronics Shows, I’ve often paused to admire the products of Simaudio, a Canadian firm with over twenty-five years’ experience manufacturing high-quality electronics. It has always had a reputation for high performance, while its uniquely styled amps and preamps impressed me as both eye-catching yet functional. So it was with keen enthusiasm that I accepted the assignment to review three of Simaudio’s flagship components from its Moon Evolution line: the P-8 preamplifier and W 8 amplifier, both dual-mono designs, and the Andromeda CD player. Intended as full-out assaults on the state of the art, and priced accordingly—a formidable $33k for the stack— these two-channel-only beauties attest to the tenacity of old-fashioned stereophonic reproduction in an increasingly multichannel world. “Old-fashioned?” Perhaps “new style classicism” is more accurate.

Given how distinctively styled the Evolution components are, I evaluated them almost exclusively as a stack, as that is how most purchasers will more than likely use them. Let’s begin with tonal balance. In my opinion, once you set aside electronics that are deliberately voiced to sound a certain way (e.g., some of Bob Carver’s amplifiers with their “Gundry dip”) or the occasional impedance mismatches from weird cables and/or unusual speaker loads, the vast majority of solid-state components have no sonic signature in the strictly tonal sense. This is certainly true of the Evolution gear. Gourmet in, gourmet out, garbage in, garbage out is pretty much the story here.

But does this mean everything sounds the same? Not quite. Recently I auditioned an expensive integrated amplifier with superb performance. But the Evolutions soon exposed a slight touch of dryness in that otherwise impressive unit, unearthing very fine details of ambience that had eluded it, and suggesting improved resolution—very subtle but noticeable—when it came to separating lines and textures. For example, on my trusty Glenn Gould recording of Beethoven’s First Piano Sonata [Sony], though the recording is dry, high resolution electronics unveil a slight cushion of air between the instrument and the microphones. Both amplifiers made this evident—the Evolutions fractionally more so. As for Gould’s notorious vocalisms, same story: a bit more clearly separated from the sound of the piano, thus more distinctly localized.

But I get ahead of myself. As soon as I fired up the Evolutions, even without the obligatory break-in, I noticed an unmistakable increase in transparency, a “see-through” immediacy that put me in mind of the Boulder electronics I reviewed a couple of years ago or the McIntosh C46/MC402 combination that is a current reference. Coupled with this was a sense of total ease and relaxation in the listening experience. A few days later I was joined by a close friend, an audiophile of long experience who is also one of the most widely employed studio violinists in Los Angeles. Within in a few minutes his first observation was, “Man, these things are really easy to listen to.” It’s worth noting that this man’s reference at home is one of the Edge amplifiers so admired by some of my TAS colleagues.

Yet the Evolutions are not just about, to use Charles Ives’ wonderful phrase, letting the ears lie back in an easy chair. They also exhibit extraordinary grip, control, and authority. One afternoon found me comparing performances of the Mahler Third Symphony, beginning with Esa Pekka Salonen’s recording of my hometown orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic [Sony]. The soundstage is Cinerama size, the dynamic range formidable, but what is truly breathtaking about this recording is its vast spaciousness. There seems to be no limit to the air above and beyond the orchestra, yet quiet passages retain their immediacy without seeming to be spotlit. For example, when the tympani are tapped quietly, you can “hear,” as it were, the texture of the skin; when the tambourines are shaken, articulation is such that you can almost count the spaces between the rings. Next up was Benjamin Zander’s recent Telarc recording. The sound of the hall in this recording is gorgeous, but while the space is and feels smaller than that of LA’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the sense of sheer orchestral mass, abetted by Telarc’s justly famous bass response, is even more powerful. (Perhaps owing to the W 8’s stratospheric damping factor, bass response seemed to extend to the center of the earth.) Last up was Bernstein’s DG recording with the New York Philharmonic. Clearly multimiked, taken from concerts at Avery Fisher Hall, this is the least impressive sonically of the three: noticeably dry and lacking in atmosphere, the orchestra cohesive, yet also spotlit with exaggerated perspectives. Yet the close miking does reveal one thing with blinding clarity. Instruments actually do appear to occupy a specific space and stay there. In both the Sony and Telarc recordings, beautiful as they are, there is a subtle vagary to the imaging that gives the impression that nothing quite occupies its own place. The effect is rather like a focus that is constantly searching for ultimate sharpness.