Unit is built very well, inside & out no NOcheap parts in this baby. It's canadian made and has a 10 yrs warranty not spoken about in stereophile. The heart of all integrated amps is the power supply well a Toroidal Transformer is used 0.6KVA lots of power.Power out put is 100 rms @8ohms 160@4ohms and 200watts rms@2ohms. This amp can drive some difficult speakers out there. It come with a well built remote control ther are no volume pots on these units, less to wear out. Good Binding post on back Heavy made wire or WBT well work. Has with all units today they come with thick front face plate.The Chassis which is Aluminium forms the unique shape of this great Electronic box. Design inside is simple use of 4 Bipolars output pure channel is neat a clean,and it sounds very good for that design, price. There is a Small power switch on back of moom i-3 with this you can keep circuit in amp on at the ready to go, or do cold starts. A cold start is when the amp has been left off for days and is cold and you wish to play it now. It takes time to warm up before it sounds good I think & so do others. My equiment is never off only if pwer goes out or lightning storms in area.

ASKING the wife can I get a new piece of Stereo.

Their is NO place to put review of simaudios MOON i-3 integrated which has just been in stereophile. October 2003 Vol 26 No 10. This amp is very good for the price, the pre amp is pure class A circuity which feeds back end. Sound was good when you consider price & other unit it's put up against. The moon Sounded open on my test B&W 601s with good bass on HDCD Classical material. Note let this unit burn in at least some time.

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At this price in Canada why look,good listen

speed, revealing of recording ambiance, transparancey, no colouration, the violins.

upper midband, overall bloom, depth of stage.

If your looking for a lush, relaxed euphonic sounding amplifier, look elsewere. This amp gives a no nonsense - phantom harmonics, raw yet delicate sound. Fast and transpsrant, snappy uncoloured forward presentation that might give some listeners the feeling that something is missing. The fact is that the short sound path, no feedback circuit involved, produces an almost, yet hi-fi studio monitor sound. Bass is full yet fast, in the wrong system it might lose its definition. highs are a bit "dry" but articulate. The midband is the big issue here: vocals are well defined, so does the oboe, clarinet and sax, BUT! there's a noticable emphasis on them making them sound shouty, "in a tube" kind of. Saying so, what a surprise were the violins, though in the same spectrum, they sound the closest to the real thing an all aspects. Playng around with speakers and cables made some improvement with the midband, but the general sound remained the same: tranparant, fast and forward, with great attack and room ambiance revealing, match with care! spks: Alon, MeadowLark, b&w. source:Moon eclipse, Mellos. cables:Tara labs, Nordost.

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you name it.

Fast Dynamic, good soundstage, good bass control. Solid and powerful

A little lean sounding and needs careful matching of components. .

Well, I have had this I-5080 for a year now. When I was first looking at integrated amps I listened to alot of different amps at alot of dealers. I eventually took home an arcam alpha 8 and an Audio Analogue Puccini se, for a direct comparison with the I-5080. The Sim just blew the other two away. Much more control of the bass and better soundstage. It did sound leaner thatn those but it definetly had alot more guts and sounded better at both low or higher volumes. I really wanted to like the Musical Fidelity A3 amp , but I found it just plain boring compared to the sim which is much more musical. Matching the Sim to a MSB linkdac with different interconnects produces vastly different sounds. With cables like the Cardas quadlink 5C the amp sounded very smooth but strangled. It just did not let it rock anymore. VDH dm103''s are very good, but I like the DHLABS even better as they have a nicer overall balanced tonal character. They also let alot of detail through, much more than these other two cables. The amp took along time to break in, with the biggest changes occuring at 85hrs and then again at 225 hrs. I recently got the chance to compare it side by side with a YBA Integra and a Creek 5350 and I was quite impressed with it as it is cheaper than both of those amps. The YBA was very lean but smoother and not anywhere near as nice in the bass department. Tthe Creek had nicer highs and a lusher midrange, but the bass was much slower. and nowhere near as tight and fast as the sim. It was however very musical. For the money, a list price about $1395 US, I think it is a very good buy.. You do need to match the cables to the amp for the sound that you like. There seems to be much more awareness of the Sim I-5 which is also a very nice amp, but I dont think it is worth almost twice the price. In Toronto, if you want to visit a very good HIFI store with a great Owner who is both passionate and helpfull, see Steve at HIFIFOFUM.

Similar Products Used:

Arcam Alpha 8r, Arcam A75, MF A3, Audio Analogue Puccini se, creek 4330, creek 5350.

Open, dynamic, detailed.

Perhaps it is a little too honest

Integrated amplifiers seem to be the black sheep of the HiFi world. As integrateds, they're already dubbed as budget components by most people.

People spend thousands of dollars on a second pair of interconnects, beefy AC cords, and extra transformers, inputs, casing, and power supplies for their separates. Of course all of these expenses associated with separates improve the sound, quite drastically in some cases, I have to question if they are worth the extra coin. Might not that money be better spent in other areas of the system?

Having said that, I begin my review of the I-5080. This unit is outwardly decieving. I have the black faceplate with the new Sim "Moon" logo (celeste is no longer, it is now called the Sim Audio Reference Series). Very sharp looking with 4 small buttons on the front (vol+/-, input, standby/on). A minor quibble is the inability to dim/kill the volume LED, but it is relatively unobtrusive. The rear panel is well organized with the AC out of the way of the RCAs (no balanced in's, sorry). All single ended in's are gold plated, and slightly recessed within the unit (may pose a problem for locking interconnects, although my HT Truth Links work fine. The newer (post black moon) I-5080s have more robust binding posts, but they are still not solid WBT type. Solid build, but nothing special for the price.

Oh yeah, and the remote is terribly cheap (to me this is better than paying an extra $180 for the glorified bricks that come with the Puccini and I-5).

Soundwise, this thing rocks the house, with STYLE. Quick as hell, puts percussion in the air better than any amp in this price range, and does it cleanly. Listen to the drum solo at the beginning of Dave Matthews Band's "Say Goodbye" for a nice taste. Acoustic guitars and pizzicato sound especially sharp on this unit as well.
I listen to a good chunk of rock both old and new. As everyone knows, rock tends to sound compressed and noisy unless it is produced by some engineering guru. Well this amp has done a great job of opening up my rock collection. This amp faithfully relays the dynamics and transients in any recording, no matter how raw.
The last thing I noticed about this amp, after about 150 hrs of break in, is that I did not notice it. This is the most transparent integrated I have heard. Other than expensive separates, The only product to rival this was the Linn Majik, a great amp and more powerful than you might think, but it isn't fun enough.
The honesty and dynamics may pose a problem for some recordings, but these are not limitations of the equipment.

This is not a forgiving amplifier . . . sweet!

Similar Products Used:

AA Puccini SE, Moon I-5, Krell KAV 300i, Linn LK85/Kolektor combo, Linn Majik, a wealth of separates

Musical, Looking at the star rating of this product at this price deserves a five star rating among what I heard at the same price or even higher in price that most amps out there couldn't match the intergraded i5080.

NONE at this price

I just wanted to say I had a chance to hear the I5080 again on my new dynauio speakers 1.8 and it was just great, although this was heard in a small room 11'feet wide and 14'deep you may want to consider more power if intended for more space. Thats if you enjoy your music loud. Very enjoyable. At this price this unit gets a five star, But if I were to compare it to the moon series the moon series cost more and sounds better although you get the quality of a hi end product (i5080) at a midfi price.

On the outside and within, this unit is a looker. The I-5080 possesses excellent transparency and detail. In fact, at this price point, the low level detail and airiness are astonishing. I have yet to hear anything that comes close. If detail is your cup of tea - look no further. Dynamics are very good as well.

As mentioned in other reviews, the build quality is a bit suspect. The remote is an absolute piece of @#$#. I unpacked my unit only to discover the standby switch on the front-panel was malfunctioning and lodged against the cover panel. So much for surviving UPS. I find the sound of the I-5080 to be too fast for love. It may (emphasis on may) be neutral in the color it throws, but I find greater enjoyment with its direct competition. As a matter of opinion, I find the I-5080 to be ideal for the opposite musical styles highlighted in the previous review. On agressive rock - it can sound a bit ragged compared the similar offerings from YBA and Bryston. I find the I-5080 MUCH more enjoyable on gentler musical styles - were any slight tendencies towards forwardness are easily offset by its wonderful air and soundstage.

A good integrated amp that requires careful system matching to realize its potential. Steer clear if you prefer a more euphonic sound from your electronics.

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Musical Fidelity A2, Bryston B60, AR Complete.

Fast, clean, warm, and true reporduction

Remote, buttons

When I was looking for a system, I wanted it to be built around acousticals and female vocals.

I've put about 900 of the 1000 hours of the Sim Audio recomended burn in time. It sounds killer! I audition this aginst the I-5 originally and found only minor differences between this unit and the I-5. THe I-5 sounds a little better, better transparency, passes lows mids and high a little more clearly, and overall gives you a little better sound. But for the $1000+ price difference, those of us on a budget can afford to give up a little bit of sound.

Playing some tracks from the Cowboy Bebop, Blue album (Yoko Kanno), the upbeat Jazz/Blues style music sounded clear and fast, yet controlled.

Female vocals are definitive, and sharp yet not overly bright and annoying. On Faye Wong's HK Sentic Tour '98-'99 CD, her voice was warm and realistic, and every facet of that live concert that came out of the CD player was transparently passedd to the speakers by this amp.

Orchestral music sounded full. Every section, and every instrument in that section could be accounted for when listening to Vanessa Mae's Butterfly lover's concerto, and her 1997 Reunification Overture. No distortion of fading of sounds was heard through this amp. The violin sounded warm and clean without the annoying while you get from some systems.

Overall, great value, can't say anything bad about it, except the remote sometimes has a bit of a problem working. Oh,k and make sure you get the new model with the black faceplate and the Moon logo. The solid steel remote that comes with that one is much better than the dinky POS that comes with the old one.

Components:
Sim Audio i-5080 integrated amp
Adcom GCD-750 CD player
Dynaudio Audience 52 loudspeakers
PSB Alpha Subsonic 5 subwoofer
Kimber Kable Hero interconnect
Kimber Kable 4TC loudspeaker cable

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Arcam, NAD, Marantz

Excellent sound for the money

There aren't any except for the faulty remote control unit

The music put out by this unit has very wonderful body. Harmonics are true and accurate. Metallic instruments come across sounding very metallic. Percussion comes across with lots of authority. After a month or so of breakin, frequency response became flat and linear. Music from Clapton to Pachelbel sounded live and dynamic. The music has that nice liquidity that is usually associated with tubes. It has warmness and details at the same time, probably sounds too good to be true, you say. Check it out is what I would say.

The Celeste Integrated is a milestone accomplishment as far as budget hi fi. Even at full retail ($1300US) this unit is a best buy in my book.

Performance is 5 stars
Value is 5 stars + +

Dave

Soundstage, clarity, and handles a large room very well.

None, I do not use the remote.

I auditioned amps especially for my home before it was built. The room where the system would be placed offered problems due to size, (26’x24) and several acoustic problems including lots of glass and brick. A typical week of music includes Classical, Rock, Jazz, Blues, and Country. So selection of a flexible amp was essential.

My audiophile friend helped me in building a system. After giving him a price range, he went to work in building suggestions, including the Puccini SE. The Moon I-50-80 was not included. Primus Audio in Kansas City treated a rather ignorant customer with glorious service. They made sure the system I purchased would be pleasing regarding the odd sized room it would be set up in. Hearing fine audio for the first time, my mind was set after hearing the Puccini, but my friend insisted on my listening to other amps, and speaker combinations. I thought this to be rather silly, for the Puccini and Hale Revelations were stunning.

Primus hooked up the I-50-80 with Soliloquy 5.3s, and bada bing music seemed clearer, and the soundstage increased. We played Nat King Cole’s Unforgettable, and well, it was unforgettable. The sounds were detailed, even hearing guitar strings being touched on a Patricia Barber recording.

Due to the fact the entire system was new, I can’t give an accurate time for break-in. The Sol 5.3s take 500 hours, but as the system broke, and a few tweaks and speaker placement, the I 50-80 has been a constant source of musical pleasure. Much of my time is spend away from the listening "sweet spot." The audio performance at low volumes still sounds great. Recently I listened to a $10,000 system, which lacked the soundstage and clarity of my system.

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Puccini SE, and have listened to many others since purchasing.

Great bang for the buck. Very well engineered.

None that I can detect.

I just purchased this unit used last week and I am amazed at how good it is for an integrated amp that retails for $1,500. I have been using a Rowland Concentra for a couple of years now and I enjoy the little I-5080 almost as well. The Sims does lack some of the ultimate refinement of the Rowland but when you look at the price difference the Sims is a great value. The Sims also sounds more powerful then an 80 watt/channel amplifier and seems to handle difficult loads very well.

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Audio Research, Classe, Krell, Rowland integrated amps.