Simaudio Moon Titan Multichannel Amplifier
 In the early days of home
theater, the difference between the truly great products and the average offering was
profound -- you had a few exceptional performers and then there was everything else. As
the HT scene has matured, it has achieved a form of equilibrium, and the variation between
the best stuff out there and the bulk of the pack has grown smaller. The once-lowly A/V
receiver, for example, has come into its own, and many of them routinely offer a level of
performance today that only the finest separates could achieve less than a decade ago.
Despite that overall shrinkage in variation, it is
still possible to take HT performance to an elevated level -- but you really have to want
it. As the overall quality of A/V components has risen, so have the stakes for venturing
to performance extremes. It ain't cheap and it requires a lot of real estate, but
it can be done -- and, certain A/V enthusiasts and manufacturers would argue vociferously,
the rewards for seeking that level of excellence are more than worth the effort.
I know that -- on a kind of rarified intellectual
level, I reckon -- but I still wasn't prepared in any way, shape, or form for Simaudio's
Moon Titan multichannel amplifier when it arrived.
It wasn't entirely unexpected. After all, Simaudio's Lionel
Goodfield had arranged the review with SoundStage!'s Doug Schneider and Jeff Fritz
and I'd seen pictures. But in the flesh, it was just so big.
And heavy.
At a brick-like 19" x 12" x 19" and weighing
104 pounds, it still let me off easy -- I had received the five-channel version, not the
(19" x 12" x 27") 150-pound seven-channel behemoth.
On the other hand, nothing exceeds like excess, and once
the struggles to maneuver the Titan into place and connect it (remember, it requires five
interconnects) were only memories, there were rewards.
Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never
large enough to cover
Simaudio (née SIMA Electronics) was founded in 1980
and originally designed and produced professional audio equipment. However, in 1982 the
company shifted gears and began manufacturing amplifiers, preamplifiers, and integrated
amplifiers for the consumer audio market. The company changed its name in 1988 and began
producing its celebrated Celeste line in 1992.
Simaudio conducts extensive R&D in the realm of
amplification design and employs a "no overall feedback" design, which utilizes
a tightly toleranced balanced circuit, which only relies upon a single smidge of local
feedback. Reducing local feedback keeps intermodulation distortion (a form of distortion
that occurs when two signals at different frequencies are produced at the same time,
creating new signals at different frequencies) to a bare minimum. This produces extremely
fast response without any feedback-related phase errors -- which only stands to reason,
since less feedback means fewer artifacts caused by feedback. Simaudio employs
proprietary toroidal transformers, which have been chosen for their low magnetic,
electrical, and thermal loss. Consequently, the amplifier achieves thermal equilibrium at
a surprisingly low operating temperature, which translates to longer life expectancy and
lower operating costs.
The Titan can be configured
with three, five, or seven channels ($5995 USD, five-channel version; seven-channel
version, $7495 USD). There are actually two basic versions -- one can accommodate up to
five channels, while the seven-channel version is assembled in a different, even larger,
chassis. The power amplifier is designed for use with a high-resolution surround
processor, although it can obviously be employed for complex biwired (biamped) speaker
systems or as needed for a variety of other non-HT systems. The Titan is a high-current
amplifier with a maximum continuous power rating of 200Wpc into 8 ohms and 400Wpc into 4
ohms.
The Titan's extremely rigid chassis is designed to minimize
the effects of external vibrations. Its oversized power supply allows it to operate in
class A up to about 5W. Simaudio uses bipolar output devices, believing they offer
operational and sonic advantages over the more commonly used MOSFETs. These transistors
are precision matched. The Titan is designed so that no matter how many modules are
employed, it acts as a single thermal entity so all channels act identically (and sound
the same). Its circuitry is fully balanced up to the output stage and it accommodates
single-ended and balanced interconnects. Its signal paths are kept extremely short in
order to ensure fast transient response. For integration into remote-controlled (and/or
automated) systems, it includes a 12V DC trigger.
Disco dancing is just the steady thump of a giant moron
knocking in an endless nail
Several weeks before I received the Titan for review, I had
a convivial and relaxing dinner with Lionel Goodfield and Dynaudio's Mike Manousselis
while the Montreal Festival du Son & Image wound down. Mike and I were discussing the
need for my return of the Evidence Temptation demos to the home office. Interest piqued,
Lionel asked when we expected to pack 'em up and, upon hearing the answer, said,
"Then I've simply got to get you the Titan while you still have those speakers."
He was as good as his word, so upon receiving it I
immediately pressed the Titan into service in my two-channel rig, since the Temptations'
days were numbered. I'm glad I did, because the amp and speakers were made for each other.
(A note here on connecting speakers to the Titan -- since all of the versions having more
than three channels employ two independent transformers in the power supply, you need to
be careful in connecting loudspeakers to the unit. When using the five-channel version for
stereo, you should make sure that the right and left speakers aren't sharing a transformer
by connecting the left speaker to channel one and the right speaker to channel two, or, if
biamping, the left speaker to channels one and three and the right speaker to channels two
and five.)
The Temptations aren't technically all that hard to drive,
but they don't really have a lot of bottom-end grunt unless the amp driving them can show
'em who's boss. The quality and quantity of their bass when driven by the Titan was equal
to the best I'd ever heard them produce.
It has become an almost meaningless cliché to trot out a
reggae album to illustrate bottom-end finesse, but like most clichés, there are reasons
for its ubiquity. Great reggae performances frequently feature the bass as the lead
instrument, requiring a mixture of danceable lightness and a deep, physical authority that
is very rare. At its best -- say, almost anything with drums and bass by Sly Dunbar and
Robbie Shakespeare -- the two elements are in perfect synchronization and the songs are
nimble and earthy in their splendor. However, not many hi-fis are capable of reproducing
that balancing act and, all too frequently, the bass line comes across as a muddy, heavy,
almost syrupy thud thud thud.
On "Chill Out" from Black Uhuru's Liberation:
The Island Anthology [Mango 314-518-282-2], the two achieve a kind of massive rhythmic
wallop that makes most music sound feeble. Laying down a groove that seems to reach as
deep down as the Marianas Trench, the two musicians anchor a song filled with Wally
Badarou's swirling synths and busy piano flourishes and enough hooks and New York-style
shoutouts to pack any dance floor with moving, frantic bodies. Actually, it's easy to
dissect the song after the fact, but heard through the Evidence Temptations as propelled
by the Titan, dispassionate analysis has to surrender to the compulsion to dance,
dance, dance.
And that wasn't necessarily restricted to the animate
objects in the room -- my wife and I are quite fond of a replica of a footed bowl from one
of the ancient Egyptian dynasties, and every time I played the Black Uhuru track I'd swear
it ended up at least a few feet further down the shelf than where it had started.
Nor was the two-channel performance of the Titan notable
solely for its bass authority -- from top to bottom of the frequency range, the sound was
balanced, extended, and engaging. When recordings featured holographic soundstaging, the
Simaudio amp reproduced it as solidly unwavering and convincing. On the other hand, where
the information wasn't resident on the recording, the Titan never added any of its own.
O! it is excellent to have a giant’s strength, but
it is tyrannous to use it like a giant
Connecting the Titan to an HT system isn't all that
difficult, other than needing lots of real estate and ventilation -- and those five
interconnects, of course. As with stereo operation, however, you will get the best
performance out of the amplifier if you are careful how you assign amplification channels
to speakers. Again, you want the front left and right speakers powered by separate
transformers, so you should probably consider connecting the left front speaker to channel
one, the center speaker to channel four, the right front speaker to channel two, the left
surround to channel three, and the right surround to channel five. Other than that,
connection couldn't be more straightforward.
But be warned: If you've never heard a home theater that
employs separate high-current amplifiers on all five channels -- if your point of
reference is primarily cheap'n'cheerful receivers -- listening to any of your favorite
surround-sound spectaculars can be an unnerving experience. Keep all your medication --
whether for a weak heart or motion sickness -- close at hand. And don't sneer at a seat
belt, either.
The Normandy landing sequence in Saving Private Ryan,
for instance, was delivered with slam and an overall sense of immersion that seemed
altogether closer to the real thing than most people would actually enjoy.
Convincing? Yes. Visceral? Absolutely. Fun? Not by my lights!
Shakespeare in Love, on the other hand, was a hoot.
The rock-like stability of the Titan let me hear every whisper, sigh, and muttered aside
-- and the environmental sounds of wind, creaking cart wheels, horses hooves on dirt
roads, and the cries of the crowds thronging the street were delivered with impact and
accuracy. The only way I could have felt more immersed in Elizabethan London would
have been to have added smell-o-rama, and from the look of some of those streets,
that might be closer to the real thing than I want to be.
As good as most high-quality A/V receivers have become,
their ability to deliver stable, high-current, unwavering power to all five channels over
long periods just can't match that of an overbuilt monster like the Titan. And that's okay
-- most people will never test their limits. But occasionally a film like Private Ryan
or, an even more relentless example, Black Hawk Down demands a lot of transient
power and overall heft from the start to the finish, and that's where an amplifier like
the Titan comes into its own. I was transported into the midst of that Mogadishu firefight
for over two hours -- again, an experience that was almost certainly too intense to call
entertaining, but one that left me in no doubt that it was what Ridley Scott
intended.
It doesn't take a man of giant mould to make a giant
shadow on the wall
There's no getting around the fact that the Simaudio Moon
Titan multichannel amplifier is huge and costly -- simply glancing at either the amp or
the price tag will make that obvious. But what a cursory glance won't tell you is how well
the unit performs -- and once you've heard what a monster it is in action, you'll be more
inclined to think of both size and price as a matter of scale.
And, as high-end amplifiers of similar ambition go, $5995
doesn't seem all that profligate. In terms of build quality, component parts, and sheer avoirdupois,
you get a lot amplifier for your money. But nobody has ever been able to convince me that
you can measure amplifier quality with a simple dollars-per-watt or watts-per-pound ratio.
To paraphrase Forrest Gump, amplifier quality is as amplifier quality does -- and
the Simaudio Moon Titan does just fine, thank you.
I could be a very happy home-theater owner with one of
these babies in my permanent system. Chances are, you could too.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhometheater.com
Simaudio Moon Titan Multichannel Amplifier
Price: $5995 USD (five-channel configuration)
Warranty: Five years parts and labor
Simaudio Ltd.
95 Chemin du Tremblay, Unit 3
Boucherville (Québec) J4B 7K4
Phone: (877) 980-2400 or (450) 449-2212
Fax: (450) 449-9947
E-mail: info@simaudio.com
Website: www.simaudio.com
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