Simaudio Moon Neo 230HAD

摘要

You know a trend is becoming established when the more mass-market brands start getting in on the game, and that's just what's happening with the upmarket DAC/headphone amplifier. The concept is nothing new, and has been driven by high-end companies and headphone specialists in the past, but of late we've seen the likes of Denon, Marantz and Pioneer joining in, with the latter recently offering its £699 U-05[HFN Aug' 15]. Canadian company Simaudio already has a headphone amplifier in its Moon range, the 430HA [HFN Mar '15], but that model is able to accept a DAC module as an option, taking the price from £2700 (for the analogue-only version) to £3300. The new 230HAD takes things into a whole new game: at £1100, complete with onboard DAC as standard (as the 'D' in the model suffix indicates), this is much closer to bringing the fight to the likes of the £ 1200 Oppo HA-1 [HFN Sep '14], if not quite the Marantz HD-DAC1 [HFN Apr '15], which undercuts both comfortably by selling for £600 or so.