MOON by Simaudio 371

The origins of Canadian audio manufacturer MOON, from the company called Simaudio, stretch back to 1980, when audio engineer Victor Sima created his first designs.

- SASHA MATSON

Sima's company became Simaudio Ltd. in 1990. Simaudio launched the MOON brand in 1997. Simaudio's factory is located in Boucherville, Quebec, across the St. Lawrence River from Old Montreal. Currently helmed by principals Costa Koulisakis and Thierry Dufour, Simaudio has been at the forefront of Canadian audio design and manufacture for 45 years. With only the tiniest exceptions, everything Simaudio does is done at their Boucherville factory.

I'm not sure how consumers got so lucky. Today, even with the chaos tariffs created, customers interested in audio can now choose from a surfeit of products that are better designed and manufactured, do more, and cost less than was the case just a few years ago. This is particularly striking for multifunction integrated units including streaming preamplifiers and integrated amplifiers. In a marketing presentation, Simaudio described the compact, integrated approach as a way of “targeting newcomers to HiFi and bringing people back to HiFi.”

This trend toward packing as many audio capabilities as possible into one box has accelerated and spread downward and upward in quality and price. Some manufacturers that in the past were mainly associated with state-of-the-art separates have gotten onboard, offering high-quality integrated designs, Simaudio included. Even MOON's higher-end North series integrates functions, including the 791 and 891 network player/preamplifiers.

Fly me to the MOON

In one respect, magazine writing staffs are like football teams. Jim Austin attended the MOON 371 launch event last year, and he intended to review it himself. When he became too busy, he handed it off to me so that we could keep the ball moving down the field.

The 371 streaming integrated amplifier is the first product in a new MOON collection called COMPASS. The idea is that (since Simaudio is Canadian) COMPASS points NORTH, which is to say, toward the company's higher-end NORTH collection.