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Moon 340i and Speakers

I recently replaced my Arcam FMJ A32 integrated amp with a Moon 340i in my home office.  This is driving a pair of B&W 685 bookshelf speakers and a REL T3 sub.   It's hard to articulate the difference between the Moon and the Arcam, but lets just say its obviously a different beast .... I'm lovin' it.  Anyway, the only issue is that it does easily "overpower" the B&W's which is not too big of deal except with some recordings  I have to turn the juice down a bit to keep the high end from breaking up.  I am working on some room correction issues but I wondered if anyone had any experience with that amp in terms of speaker compatibility.  I live a long way from any brick and mortar retailers plus I have very little discretionary time  so it is difficult to audition equipment.   My limited research leads me to believe that Harbeth, Sonus, or Dynaudio might have products to consider.  My budget is around 2K, and they would need to be bookshelf or stand mounts due to limitations of the working space.    Thanks!

dafazz57
jimmy2615
435 posts
 

Generally an amplifier shouldn’t “overdrive” a pair of speakers. Perhaps you like to listen very loud (?) or your tweeters might be blown, though you’d probably hear that at any volume. Or there’s something wrong with your Moon - assuming you listen to the system as loudly as you did with the Arcam. Both are similarly rated in power. Assuming you just like to listen loud, check out KEFs or some older B and W from something like the nautilus series, which can handle a lot of power. I’ve never owned them but I believe you may also be on the right track with Dynaudio.

dafazz57 OP
7 posts
 

You may be right.   I don’t consider it loud but I’m not certain my family agrees!   The thing is with most recordings it sounds fine. Perhaps overly shrill might be a better descriptor than breaking up.   Thanks. 

soix
9,456 posts
 

Yeah those older metal B&W tweeters are doing you no favors fer sure.  At your price point I’d put the Totem Bison and MoFi SourcePoint 8 on your list, and if you can stretch a bit the Fritz Carbon 7 SE or Revival Atalante would be outstanding choices, and I think Fritz might offer a trial period but not sure on that.  If you wanna save $1000 these Usher Be-718 monitors are far superior to your 685s…

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186624117329

Hope this helps, and best of luck. 

zlone
647 posts
 

Unless you are playing at insane levels, the problem is unlikely to be the amp in this case. What are you using as a source and are you using the DAC in the integrated?

dafazz57 OP
7 posts
 

Yep.  I have a Pro-ject Xperience 2 tt with Bluepoint 2 cartridge.  The amp has a phono stage.  My digital source is a Rotel CD player through the amps DAC as well.  No streaming.   I get the same thing from both sources otherwise I might consider making some adjustments to the phono stage settings.

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