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Pulled the trigger on a Moon 861! Hope it pairs well on my Focals

Well, I pulled the trigger and ordered a Moon 861 amp! I am very excited! It will be coming next week. I have a pair of focal Sopra n1 speakers that I'll be using on it. I've never heard them paired before. I heard a moon audio 761 on dynaudio towers and so that's what turned me on to The Moon North collection.

 

I'm feeling a little bit nervous. Hopefully it pairs really good with good synergy with the focals. Has anyone ever heard the moon north gear on Focals before?

dman777
dman777 OP
191 posts
 

The ever solo z8 has a Bluetooth connection to my phone. So I play music on my phone and it goes through the eversolo DAC. Normally I would have the ever solo connected to the Macintosh C12000 preamp. Is that what you mean by use as a source to feed the dac?

ghdprentice's avatar
ghdprentice
9,489 posts
 

Yes, you are using the Eversolo as a preamp...that it why your system is not sounding good. All should be good when you put your Mac back in. 

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
8,034 posts
 

@dman777 yes. Bluetooth is a noisy and low resolution method of sending music to your DAC. You’ve invested significantly in your components. Get a proper streamer and connect it to the DAC using a good USB cable. Don’t use Bluetooth man. It sucks. 

dman777 OP
191 posts
 

Question, please:

I have the McIntosh c12000 preamp hooked back up to it along with the eversolo going to the preamp. 

On old recordings where volume is lower (like Ministry Everydays Halloween) I have my McIntosh preamp at 75%.

The eversolo is at 85% and my cell phone volume is at 90%. I am scared to increase the eversolo and cell phone volume to 100% because I am scared it would introduce to much gain and mess up the speakers. 

If I had a wifi streamer .... would I lose that extra volume the cell phone gives and have even less volume? 

It is a little disappointing to me to have to go that high to 75% on the moon on older recordings. Makes me wonder if I should of gotten to McIntosh 611 monoblocks instead so I never run out of power. 

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
8,034 posts
 

Looking at your setup, you have at least two problem areas. 
In order of criticality 

1. You are using your cell phone to stream to your dac via Bluetooth. This type of interface is completely out of place in your system. 
2. Your dac is not on the level with the rest of your gear

Solution:

Option one - you need to get a streamer. Even something basic like a Lumin U2 Mini, Aurender N150 or something else in this category should do fine to start with. Connect the streamer to dac using USB cable. Ditch the Bluetooth dude. Forget about Bluetooth. 
 

Option two - get a better dac witj a built in streamer card. Use Roon or Tidal connect or Qobuz connect. Do not use airplay or Bluetooth. 
 

You literally wasted your money on 861 and the rest of your system if you carry on with Bluetooth streaming. Come on man. Let us know your budget and we can make a recommendation 

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