Verdict
For many people , the 681 is going to be overkill for their need but it ’s unvoiced to argue with how much it does and how well it does it .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
The Moon 681 is a internet streaming preamp and DAC that is – if you’re able to conceive it – the most affordable such machine in Moon ’s North Collection that top their range of audio ingredient .
The company has a different approach path to some rivals about web audio recording and digital in worldwide . It prefers to have its amplifier be amplifier and to make separate banner that can access stack away and on demand contentedness and also act as a DAC for your other digital sources . The 681 assume this a level further in that it is also a fully functioning preamp and add an HDMI ARC port to simplify connecting your TV .
Even allowing for this extended connectivity , you’re able to grease one’s palms products that match the notional specification of the banner for rather less than its request price . Nevertheless , this is how Moon feels that the function and responsibility of a organization should be divided up . Does the 681 do enough to warrant being appear at for other systems too ?
Availability
The 681 banner is costs £ 12,000 . As you might ask the monger that stock such an detail are specialist that have the expertise and facilities to demonstrate and support product of this nature . These are distributed reasonably equally across the UK so , while you might not have an wall plug for them on your local high street , neither should you have to make a holiday of it to get a listen .
Simaudio is a Canadian company and handles its own sales in North America which means that the 681 has a dollar to poke parity on its pricing because there is an extra layer of ( very professional ) distribution in the UK .
The company has distribution in Australia where the 681 can be buy for AUD$20,000 . Something that is deserving notice with Moon ’s plan of attack to building digital front end is that , if what the 681 does appeals to you , very few rival have taken the same approach .
Design
As part of the North Collection , the 681 takes some longstanding Moon design features and evolves them into something that – even judged at the respectable asking price – looks and feels rather peculiar .
Every part of the casework is finish to a standard that suggests it will last pretty much indefinitely and the care and attention that has gone into how the 681 is bolted together can make some rivals sense a bit parochial by comparability .
Like other members of theNorth Collection , the 681 is only available in a compounding of pitch blackness and ash grey . This might not appeal to everyone , but it seems to seat blithely with both all contraband and all silver constituent and look brilliant with other North Collection constituent .
At the front you ’ll find a large colour displays that show you what the 681 is up to . This evidence record album and artist info on the pennant as well as allowing for preferences to be adjusted . I prefer the bare pitch-black scope that makes record album and creative person data a little easier to read at a distance but equally I wish that Moon gives you a choice in such things .
As standard , the 681 comes with an example of the stunning BRM-1 distant control that impart feedback on what the whole is up to and offers a ascendancy experience that hit most rivals palpate chintzy . As someone who does n’t always desire to fire a earphone or tablet up to control a streamer , I call back it ’s a brilliant addition .
Features
As I ’ve have-to doe with on , the 681 direct a distinctive and technically impressive approach to being a composition of origin equipment . Essentially , it ’s a streamer with digital inputs but that rather undersells the functionality on offer here .
The 681 can handle PCM and DSD ( andMQAfor that matter ) and does so via a tailor-made DAC that Moon calls the MDE-1 . As well as being able-bodied to access subject matter salt away on a local library ( or indeed connected via USB ) , the 681 can get at Qobuz , Tidal , High - Res Audio , Deezerand Spotify alongsideAirPlayas well and it is also fully compatible with Roon .
The opportunity are you ’ll want to employ the 681 with the consecrate MIND2 app though because as well as accessing your streaming message it allows approach to the extra digital comment . The 681 had a USB audio frequency in , two optic , two coaxal and an AES remark and an HDMI ARC connection .
It has been a while since I used the MIND app and I think it ’s ameliorate a great deal since then . It ’s stable , well laid out and fairly logical in use . I ’m still a Roon fanboy which mean I do n’t love the queue - free-base arrangement of the dedicated app , but I could apply MIND all the fourth dimension and not become fed up with it .
Something that might also appeal to some exploiter is that the 681 is a very capable preamp in its own right . It uses a technology Moon scream MHV ( MOON Hybrid Volume ) that employs combination of digital attenuation and parallel amplification levels to allow for gamy - functioning mass command with no effect on the signaling no matter of yield , meaning the 681 can be bolt direct to a power A or active speakers if you only have digital sources ( and , if you go further up the North Collection nutrient chain , the expectant models combine parallel input too ) .
What is interesting is that ply in direct opposite to how many contender view their high - close gear , where any additional functionality is construe as somehow big . Moon feels that stand for your artistic production is n’t part of the process in 2024 and this product reflects that . It also means that the reasonably minimalist spec of thematching 641 integrated amplifiermakes more gumption if you consider these units as a duad .
Sound Quality
High end digital devices have their work cut out for them merely because modern low-cost digital can be enormously upright . If the expensive gadget sounds meaningfully dissimilar , it almost surely intend that something is being done other than and not necessarily better .
As a result , listening to the 681 is n’t about being immediately grab by what it does , partially because of that and partly because Moon have never really been about a shock and awe presentation .
alternatively , when I sat listening to Fields by Junip , which has featured in my reassessment listen ever since it exhaust , I become cognizant that some of the fuzziness of the hatchway track In Every focus is less overt . This is still a recording that is on purpose steep in lo - fi charm , but the Moon is gently but firm pulling more of the gorgeous music out of that softness .
It ’s never overt , allow alone forced but the Moon 681 makes it a mission to extract everything out of a recording . It then ensures that the effect is still cohesive and even give as if it ’s using a flood to illuminate a dark scene rather than a torch .
Of course , if you give the Moon a truly high-pitched - quality transcription , and they do n’t come much better than Sturgill Simpson ’s Cuttin Grass Vol I , available as a 24 - bit/96kHz stream onQobuz , the results are something that allows for a literal suspension of disbelief .
The relationship between the musician , the sense of their front with their tool and the distinctive tone of each performer are effortlessly stitched into something large than the substance of its part . There is a huge amount of decoding hardware at work in the 681 and the thing it cultivate hard to do is assure you never discover its stimulant only the results .
Often , when describing equipment this revealing , the next part is to say that play something less determinedly ‘ audiophile ’ on the Moon 681 is somewhere between less successful and actively unpleasant . The mellow praise I can shower on this streamer is that , even when I reached for Infra Red by Placebo ( nice call , horrendous recording ) , the public presentation is still entirely listenable and actively gratifying .
In much the same means as the characteristic set is intended to make inhabit with the Moons painless , so it is here . Nothing you ’ve accrue over the years needs to sit down on the ledge because it wo n’t play gracious on your ultimate Hawai’i - fi . Likewise , while it sounds excellent via Qobuz , if the residue of your menage only wants to habituate Spotify , the 681 is able to extract very surprising results from it .
Of course , it ’s only fair to point out that some equally clever decoding is available for less money than the 681 and this does need to be deal . My resident Chord Electronics Hugo TT2 and Mscaler are able to keep the Moon honest in out - and - out performance and the TT2 is also a very capable preamp in its own right just as the 681 is .
There ’s absolutely no argument that the 681 is nicer to practice and live with though and the Moon remote control sits in sharp direct contrast to the little formative reefer that Chord supplies with their devices .
The last political party composition that very little at the price can correspond is thatHDMI ARCconnection . look on the visceral third episode of Masters of the Air via the 681 is spellbinding . The vastness of the struggle space and the brutality of it is captured perfectly .
Impacts and explosions have immense weight to them and the thunder of machine guns as they hammer out at the attacking fighters is immersive in a dissimilar direction to follow this Atmos but immersive , nevertheless . Not too long ago , television consolidation on high remainder gear wheel plainly did n’t happen , as if being able to do this would cheapen the experience . The 681 is an immaculately construct retort to that notion that show it up for the fallacy it is .
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Should you buy it?
The 681 offers really amazing performance and immaculate build quality and does so while offering functionality and convenience that most high - end gear but does n’t bother with . It is a pleasure to live with twenty-four hour period - to - mean solar day while still delivering a prominent hearing experience when you have the time to spend with them .
While you could argue that the 681 is in reality quite substantial value in condition of what it does , there ’s no break away that £ 12,000 is , well … a lot . The law of diminish returns never take a day off and you may achieve a substantial chunk of this performance for less money if you are minded doing so and do n’t heed a less recherche exploiter experience .
Final Thoughts
The 681 stage what a gamy - end digital front last should be in 2024 . It ’s built like a army tank , sounds amazing and look brilliant . It does this while being perfectly painless to endure with . If this is the futurity , the direction we should be heading in is North .
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How we test
We test every connection musician we retrospect thoroughly over an extended time period of time . We utilize industry standard test to compare features properly . We ’ll always evidence you what we find . We never , ever , take money to review a mathematical product .
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FAQs
There is an HDMI ARC stimulant on the Moon 781 , so you could link up this web streamer to a television .
