50
|
Australian Hi-Fi
equipmenT
review
Power Output: Single channel driven into
8-ohm, 4-ohm and 2-ohm non-inductive
loads at 20Hz, 1kHz and 20kHz. [Mi-1]
Newport Test Labs
Moon i-1
Stereo Integrated Amplifier
No doubt you’ve already heard that
Canadian outfi t Simaudio, which manufac-
tures Moon equipment, released the Moon i-5
integrated amplifi er earlier this year and if you
look at the photograph above, you could be
forgiven for thinking it is of the new Moon
i-5 because, to all intents and purposes, the
two integrated amplifi ers are externally iden-
tical. Indeed so far as I can see—and I stand
to be corrected—the only difference between
the two (other than price, with the i.5 being
the less expensive of the two, and thus the
company’s new ‘entry-level’ amplifi er) is that
the i-1 is rated at 50-watts per channel into
8Ω and the i-5 is rated at 40-watts per channel
into 8Ω.
The Equipment
For a company that manufactures some spec-
tacular-looking and completely individual
products (the CD5.3 CD player and i5.3 dual-
mono integrated come immediately to mind)
Moon seems to have been playing it safe of
late: obviously by intention, hence the ‘Classic
Series’ moniker that attaches to the Moon i-1.
Which is not to say that the i-1 doesn’t look
the part, because it’s superbly fi nished, ooz-
ing class from every pore of its incredibly solid
chassis. (Moon says it specifi cally addressed
the issue of chassis rigidity with the i-1, so as
to minimise the effects of external vibrations.)
Despite the relatively modest size of the i-1
chassis (430×75 ×325mm WHD), the amplifi er
dissipates heat so effectively that it runs cooler
than most other similarly-powered amplifi ers,
which Simaudio claims will result in ‘a longer
than normal life expectancy’. Indeed it runs so
cool that it’s designed to be powered-up con-
tinually, so it’s able to deliver optimum perfor-
mance the instant you want to start listening.
One reason Simaudio’s been able to shoehorn
all this into such a small package is that it’s
done away with the usual internal (and ex-
ternal) heatsinks. Instead, the two pairs of
perforated emitter bipolar output devices
(MJL21193/21194) are directly attached to the
chassis itself. As you can see, there’s plenty of
ventilation supplied, but despite this, Simau-
dio is playing it safe (beginning to notice a
trend here?) by specifi cally stating that you
should never place another component direct-
ly on top of it. Also, because there are venti-
lation slots on the bottom, it should always
be placed on a hard surface. As you’ve prob-
ably already guessed from the low profi le of
the amplifi er (75mm), Simaudio is using a fl at
(and very large) toroidal mains power trans-
former, whose 26-volt rails are rectifi ed by a
discrete diode bridge before being smoothed
by a pair of small 63V/10,000µF capacitors.
The Moon i-1’s front panel is notable for
having, in addition to the usual source se-
lectors (CD, DVD, Tuner, Video and Aux), a
special ‘MP’ selector, which selects the 3mm
‘MP in’ socket located at the far right of the
front panel, alongside the 6.5mm headphone
socket. I had to resort to opening the instruc-
tion manual to discover that ‘MP’ stood for
‘Media Player’, even though I’d guessed its in-
tended application right at the outset. I’d like
to hope that Simaudio is at least a tad embar-
rassed about encouraging Moon owners to use
a portable audio player as a music source, but
I won’t hold my breath. (And yes, I do know
that modern ‘Media Players’ can store high-
resolution digital audio fi les, but the plain
truth is that most people still store low bit-rate
MP3 fi les on their portables, and I think help-
ing facilitate the use of such low-res audio fi les
on high-end hi-fi components is a travesty…
but perhaps that’s just me.)
If you have been paying attention and com-
paring the number of buttons I have so far men-
tioned with the number visible on the front
panel, I should tell you that the two I haven’t
mentioned are for ‘Mute’ and ‘Speaker On/Off.’
(And that what looks like a button at the far
left of the row is actually a cunningly disguised
infra-red receiver, for picking up IR commands
50-56Mooni1 HFSep09.indd 50 3/09/2009 9:08:02 AM
(1 pages)
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