Pulled the trigger on a Moon 861! Hope it pairs well on my Focals


Well, I pulled the trigger and ordered a Moon 861 amp! I am very excited! It will be coming next week. I have a pair of focal Sopra n1 speakers that I'll be using on it. I've never heard them paired before. I heard a moon audio 761 on dynaudio towers and so that's what turned me on to The Moon North collection.

 

I'm feeling a little bit nervous. Hopefully it pairs really good with good synergy with the focals. Has anyone ever heard the moon north gear on Focals before?

dman777

Looking at your setup, you have at least two problem areas. 
In order of criticality 

1. You are using your cell phone to stream to your dac via Bluetooth. This type of interface is completely out of place in your system. 
2. Your dac is not on the level with the rest of your gear

Solution:

Option one - you need to get a streamer. Even something basic like a Lumin U2 Mini, Aurender N150 or something else in this category should do fine to start with. Connect the streamer to dac using USB cable. Ditch the Bluetooth dude. Forget about Bluetooth. 
 

Option two - get a better dac witj a built in streamer card. Use Roon or Tidal connect or Qobuz connect. Do not use airplay or Bluetooth. 
 

You literally wasted your money on 861 and the rest of your system if you carry on with Bluetooth streaming. Come on man. Let us know your budget and we can make a recommendation 

@audphile1 

+1

Exactly. I have to say the same stuff... hopefully differently. 1) is the big problem. The second is reducing the fidelity. 

1) There are two ways to do streaming with your Streamer / DAC. One is to "catch" the streaming service on your phone and then to send it to your DAC by some terrible sounding method like bluetooth. This is the wrong and vastly inferior way to do it. You want to be using the Eversolo app to control your Z8. In the Eversolo app (for your phone), you log on to Qobuz or Tidal... Hmm, I missed it, what service are you using? You should use Qobuz or Tidal.

 The give away is that there is a hookup problem is that you should not have a volume control on your phone in the loop.

2) Your Streamer / DAC budget consumer and you have high end Preamp, amp and speakers. This is a gross mismatch. You must choose wisely but and appropriate investment is that Streamer (individulal box)cost = DAC (cost) = Preamp = Amp. If this ratio is way out of whack then the sound quality you are getting is going to be very inferior.  If you want you can get a  Stream / DAC combo, but then it should be in the ballpark investment level of combined preamp and amp. 

G….his DAC has no network card. You can’t control it with the eversolo app. 
If on a budget the new WiiM Ultra is very decent. 
 

Let’s get the OP to respond with his budget on new digital front end. 
Also what is the current network situation? Do you have a network cable nearby that you can connect to the streamer? If not, is your wifi strong enough there? What does the speed test say when you run it near your system?

dman77 - You have the top of the line Simaudio Amyp.  For a simple two box solution, you might consider pairing it with one of their North Pre/DAC/Streamers, either the 791 ($16k) or the 891 ($25k) and sell/trade the other gear.  Their Sim Mind software provides a really easy way to stream from bluethooth to Qobuz (I'm testing Tidal out now).  I have the lower level Sims (330A/390) running to Magico A3s.  The Magicos have Be tweeters and its no problem.  Good luck!

Just wanted to mention that I upgraded to a Eversolo A8... it helped a lot. I'm learning every component matters when doing separates.