Simaudio 700I manual Technical information

Simaudio Ltd. has been designing and manufacturing innovative, leading-edge audio and video products since 1980. MOON products have been globally recognized for their world-class performance, garnering numerous accolades for this outstanding achievement. Our products are engineered and built in Canada, utilizing advanced, efficient, “green” assembly techniques with strict quality control. Furthermore, our manufacturing processes are part of our philosophy, whereas the high quality and long-life of MOON products are the best way to preserve our environment, avoiding premature obsolesence. MOON products meet or exceed all international requirements for safety, performance and durability. At Simaudio, great music matters. However, great music for a lifetime matters most.

The transistors used in the MOON 700i’s output stage perform what can be best described as electrical gain of the music signal. Higher quality transistors will yield an amplified signal with greater integrity. In addition, since each chan- nel of an output stage uses numerous transistors, they must all be accurately matched to each other to maintain this integrity.

MOON amplifiers have always used bipolar transistors in their output stages for several significant reasons. When compared to other types of amplification transistors, bipolars offer:

•Wider bandwidth

•Lower distortion

•Excellent reliability and a longer life span

•High Efficiency

•High resistance to ESD (electrostatic discharge)

We have managed, at a great expense, to have bipolar transistors manufac- tured to our own exceedingly high standards and specific requirements. When compared to more readily available high quality bipolars for use in audio ampli- fiers, MOON Bipolars offer the following advantages:

•Unprecedented gain linearity

•A green component containing no lead

•Lower noise floor

•Even wider bandwidth

•Improved bass response

•Greater signal integrity

•Even greater reliability at higher output levels

•A more consistent hFE (the DC current gain of a transistor) which allows for more accurate and easier matching of multiple Bipolars.

The exceptional gain linearity of MOON Bipolars is very significant in the sense that it results in many of these aforementioned advantages. To illustrate the significant effect of this gain linearity when compared to a quality bipolar transistor found in a high-performance audio amplifier, refer to figure 1 below which shows the difference in DC current gain as a function of the transistor’s output current:

Technical information

The M-eVOL2volume circuit uses Multiplying Digital-to-Analog Converters (MDAC’s) to vary the amplitude of the music signal based on the chosen volume setting. Since it is used in a dual-mono circuit topology, there is one MDAC for each channel. As well, the audio signal ALWAYS remains in the analog domain and is never degraded at any volume setting.

Each MDAC (TI DAC8812) uses a pair of current steering R2-R ladder DACs that allows for operation in a fully balanced differential mode. Like the M-Ray volume circuit found in our MOON P-8 reference level preamplifier, it provides incremental adjustments in 0.1dB steps, yielding a total of 530 unique volume steps.

Introduced in the MOON 700i Integrated Amplifier, the benefits of the M-eVOL2volume circuit, when compared to the original M-eVOL, include:

•A blacker background

•An improvement in signal-to-noise-ratio of +10dB in magnitude

•Improved signal matching between the left and right channels

•Much more precise incremental volume adjustments (0.1 db vs. 0.5dB)

•Increased bandwidth

•Closely approaches the performance of the M-Rayvolume circuit

The M-eVOL2 proprietary volume control circuit yield

virtually perfect signal level matching between the left and right channels as well as staggeringly low crosstalk levels.

All volume control circuits suffer from imperfect level matching between the left and right channels, especially at low and high output levels. In simple terms this means that the actual volume level is not identical for both channels at various settings:

A very high quality volume circuit using a potentiometer will typically have a variance of as much as 1.5dB (red) between the left and right channels at the volume extremities as shown in figure 6. All three of our volume circuits, M-Ray, M-eVOLand M-eVOL2maintain an extremely low and consistent variance of less than 0.05dB (blue) across the entire volume range.

Optimal sonic performance is always achieved	Perfect level matching between channels that no other
regardless of the amplifier’s output level.	volume control can achieve ... Recorded music heard as
	it was intended to be: pure, natural and uncolored.