Last month while VPI was at the Montreal Audiofest show we extended our visit longer for a factory tour with our friends at Simaudio's MOON. It's very exciting to see other company's factories and how they operate. Also for the learning experience and sharing ideas to improve production process. Walking in the door we were immediately greeted by a lovely receptionist followed by Simaudio's MOON Champion Costa. I didn't take a picture of it but you have to check out their desk, it is shaped just like an amp! Costa gave us the grand tour starting with their conference room where we had possibly the best coffee I've ever had in my life. Go to Simaudio's MOON for the quality engineering and experience, stay for the quality coffee! After starting the morning with a nice caffeine fix we made our way into their service department. Very impressed with their procedures, you can see dedicated technicians servicing product and repairs from before I was born. It showed the long legacy and historySimaudio's MOON has and their ability to take care of long time customers. Very organized and intuitive with their process, they gave us some ideas for improving upon the VPI repair department. We continued our tour to the production floor meeting the team that puts together the Simaudio's MOON electronics and makes the magic happen. Seeing another company's quality control, workflow, and dedication makes me feel more connected to a brand.
After assembly, all units go through their testing run times and quality control checks to make sure the unit is running at spec. We learned more about theSimaudio's MOON product line and saw how much of the work they do in house. Each room we walked through was filled with audiophile history including a museum like wall of original products bearing the Sima Electronics name! Once they test and package the product, units are sorted by their appropriate voltage and destinations. I got to see a shipment heading over to one of our share distributors.
This brings us to their sound and training room. Very impressive system with Rockport Speakers and Nordost Wire. The room treatment was custom made and built entirely by the Simaudio's MOON engineers. It was certainly well worth it because this room was a perfect compliment for the system. There was no "please excuse the room" comments here! This was a custom built room that most audiophiles and music lovers dream of! We are proud of our VPI listening house but we might have to visit Montreal more often to borrow this room! Our timing couldn't have been better! As we walked into their listening room they were wheeling in the 888 power amplifiers. They were larger than we expected and looked like they could eat the already massive looking mono blocks. Though their 888 might be a bit too hefty for us, we are excited to get some Simaudio's MOON gear fired up at the VPI listening house and have more collaborations with a dedicated team that prides itself on professional, quality product made in Montreal! We loved our visit and look forward to coming back to spend more time with our friends from Simaudio's Moon.
