Moon Nova or Eclipse?

I have very limited experience w/ the Sim Audio Nova - my friend just bought a brand new unit 3 weeks ago. He's burning it in for 1000 hrs (he got this # from speaking to other Nova owners. Sim Audio told him 500 hrs, BTW). I have listened to the Nova in his system (Audio Research SP-6A pre, BelCanto SET40 & ExcelArray speakers) & from whatever I heard, the Nova sounds very nice indeed! His system is SET-based which imparts a certain midrange quality so it very hard for an outsider like me to quantify the Nova. After the 1000 hrs burn-in, he is supposed to bring the Nova to my house & we'll listen to it in my system. I'll be better able to quantify it then as I know my system better.

However, even with this limited experience, I can say that the Nova IS NOT a waste of time!
From whatever I have *READ*, the Moon Equinox is a waste of time!

Sonicbeauty (& Mthieme):
I think the degraded sound you were hearing from the I5 is more a result of the preamp section. SimAudio's amps have always been pretty good, but not their preamps. You had an integrated, so you couldn't separate the two to figure that out.
I've heard that their digital sources were or are EAD based, which would account for some of the edginess in the presentation.

I have had several Sim Products- the Eclipse was superb, the P5 preamp a bit dry for me. However, their Attraction preamp/HT processor was the home run for me- just excellent- sonically very neutral, with an extremely low noise floor. For HT is was great, however I still seem to prefer tube preamps for 2-ch at this point.

Now, as for their customer service, that's another thing. I have been trying to contact Costa at Sim Audio for like 2 weeks now. I left a couple messages, even e-mailed him with NO reply. All I want to know is how good the new Stargate processor is compared to the Attraction I used to own. He won't even return my call, and I have spent many thousands of $$ with their company, AND highly recommended the Attraction processor to many A'Goners who have contacted me- extremely disappointing...

I have a Sim Audio Eclipse and I have to say I love it. I cannot talk about the Nova but I'm sure it's not a waste of time... I cannot see a company making an excellent unit and a piece of crap unit as well... I'm sure the Nova will have some similarities to the Eclipse. I would try auditioning it if I were you... Don't let the dealer keep you away from a unit you may want to buy... Give it a try and let your ears tell you.

As for Sim's house sound... Their amps are pretty good. Their Eclipse CDP is excellent (huge amounts of sound details). On the other hand, their preamps are not on par with the rest of their lineup...

Just my 2 cents

I will seek out the Nova for a listening session after reading these remarks, thanks. It makes me mad though, the more I think about it, to be told that decent digital starts at 5k as he put it. I thought it seemed exclusionary,(is that a word?) and kind of contrary to the idea of spreading this hobby amongst the average guys like myself, who can't afford a reference transport and dac from Levinson, yet still want a safisfying system. I don't mean to get too philosophic here but the irony hit me today with my family talking about the things we are thankful for, when I'm rolling 6 thousand dollar cd players around in my head. I'm sure I can be completely happy with something less than a state of the art piece.