Sound & Vision (2019-04)

Excellent sound quality

Strong feature set

Good ergonomics and

control app

Pricey

Price: $5,300

simaudio.com

At a Glance

when adjusting volume, which
is done in 0.5-dB steps from
30 to 80 (but only in 1-dB steps
from 0-30). Front panel control
buons on the preamp let you
toggle inputs, dim the display,
mute volume, and make selec-
tions (in combination with the
front panel's rotary dial) during
setup. There are also three
memory preset buons that can
be configured to select internet
radio stations without having
to launch the preamp’s iOS/
Android control app.
The Moon 390’s hard-
wired network connections
are accompanied by Wi-Fi
and wireless aptX Bluetooth
streaming options. Its range of
digital inputs include coaxial,
optical, and AES-EBU, along
with four HDMI 2.0 inputs and
one HDMI-ARC port. While
the Moon 390 doesn’t support
playback of Dolby Digital or DTS
soundtrack bitsreams (you’ll
need to set a connected device

a standard RIAA and an IEC EQ

curve.

SETUP AND USE

To get up and running with

the Moon 390 in my system, I

first connected it to my home

network using a powerline

adapter. The next step was to

enable the preamp as a Roon

endpoint in the Audio seings

panel of the Roon soware

running on my Macbook Pro.

While you don’t need to use

Roon to stream music to the

390—the company’s MiND

control app can readily handle

that task —I’m a regular user

and also wanted to investigate

the Qobuz support that had

just been added to Roon. Other

equipment I used for my test

its built-in phono preamp

accommodates both moving

magnet and moving coil phono

cartridges. Furthermore, the

options in the Moon 390's setup

menu let you manually select

gain, impedance, and capaci-

tance options for the phono

input, as well as switch between

for stereo PCM output), it can

decode native-DSD data from

any SACD discs spun on an

HDMI-connected universal disc

player.

Analog sources are also

well-supported by the 390.

Both stereo RCA and balanced

XLR inputs are provided, and

The MiND control app

displays album art along

with format and sampling

rate info, and can be used to

control multiple devicees.

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