Moon i3.3 or Cyrus 8 XP D

[admin_exported]

Hello from Canada!

I'm presently in the market for a good HiFi integrated to match with my pair of Acoustic Zen Adagios (which What Hi-Fi has yet to review I believe)

http://www.acousticzen.com/adagio.html

In any case, the reason why I'm interested in both the amps is primarily becuase of their built in DAC; I plan to use my PC, as well as a Cambridge Audio 540C as a transport (and my Cable Box + Xbox 360).

I do plan on buying a proper CD player one day, just not today 🙂 the moon offering is nearly 3500 CAD, don't know about the Cyrus.

Do you have any comments? I really want to stick within max 4000CAD for the amp, and it must have built in DAC

Presently have Quad CDP and Quad 909 power amp, good stuff, but not at the level of my speakers

 

[Anonymous]

what about the peachtree audio nova which has a built in dac plus a tube preamp stage

gets good reviews in the us including product of the year from a well known magazine and is within your price range i think

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I'd go for the Moon - was very good when I heard it in a shop (Cyrus never impressed me that much, also not in build quality). And I am not even Canadian. Why would you buy another cd player if you can use the Moon Dac?

 

[Anonymous]

I'd go for the Moon, or the I-1 and the new stand alone dac they are releasing. Might save you a few $ if the performance is close.

 

[Anonymous]

The Peachtree suggestion might be a little low end given what I'm going for. As for the "why I'd buy a CD player"... well you have a good point.

The DAC in the moon is supposed to be good, but I don't think it would rival a Bryston DAC1 or a PS Audio DAC... or a Benchmark DAC1.

I guess I'd use the Dac for the moon right now (it would be convinient), and later on when I have some money to spare I'd go for a better DAC.

I'll probably have to try both out, but I know my speakers tend to be a little bright, and that the Moon would probably help that aspect of them nicely.