MOON by Simaudio - Voice 22 Loudspeakers

Dave McNair listens to the affordable debut speaker offering from Simaudio.

How Low Can You Go?

I’m not talking about quality per se, but quality at a reasonably low price. At $3,200 a pair, the new speaker from Canadian audio electronics stalwart Simaudio is an exceptionally impressive listen at any price.

I had a hint at this when I heard a pair at the 2022 Montreal Audio Fest.

The Simaudio room was not a tiny hotel room but a medium to large-sized exhibit space on the lower level. It was paired with the Ace, a Simaudio integrated amp/streamer of about 50 high-current watts per side. This simple system, for around $7,000, played recordings in a way that made me want to sit down and listen—and I did just that. 

I also had fun talking to Simaudio's fantastic Anne Paul. Not only did I exclaim how impressed I was with the system, but it was apparent that she, product director Dominique Poupart, and the rest of the Simaudio crew were mighty proud of their achievements with the Voice 22. And rightly so.

Anne graciously agreed to send me a pair for review. I was confident I could get them to sound good in my room, but how good? 

I’m spoiled rotten by the best stuff available. While I can appreciate well-done design and execution, I don’t usually find long-term (or short-term) satisfaction in an entry-level component. But hey, I should get offa my cloud and review a modest but solid product as a change of pace. I don’t think I was prepared for how great they sounded in my Pleasure Dome.

Settin’ The Stage

I won’t go into the 43-year history of Simaudio, but over the years, I’ve enjoyed the sound and approach of much in their fine line of electronics. I own a Simaudio 310LP phono pre. It was my primary phono stage in an earlier version of my home system. It now holds the place of phono honor at my mastering studio, coupled with a Rega P10 and Shure V-15 III that I use to evaluate test cuts and pressings.

I’m very familiar with the sound of Simaudio power amps and integrated amps. It’s always been solid, but the latest stuff I’ve heard is a serious step up. Clean, fast, musical, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

So why would Sim build a speaker—and an entry-level one at that? I’ve heard it has everything to do with offering a great-sounding, affordable pairing for their Ace integrated amp/streamer. From my experience hearing that combo in Montreal, Simaudio has succeeded.

The Voice 22 is 14” high by 8” wide and slightly over 11” deep. It weighs in at a bit over 27 pounds. The pair I received was in a gorgeous, high-gloss black finish. A gloss white is also available. 

The speakers are supplied with a curved base piece called the Hover Base. This couples to the bottom of the speaker cabinet and has a rectangle of thin rubber-like material on bottom to prevent marring of the surface underneath the speaker. It’s a nice visual touch as well. More on this later. 

Also included were magnetically attached grill cloths (which I didn’t try) and foam inserts to tame rear port output - in the event of close rear wall placement.

The Voice 22 looks like just another smallish, attractively finished yet unassuming, stand-mounted two-way. 

Drivers are a 29mm soft-dome tweeter set in a waveguide and a 155mm mineral-filled polypropylene mid/woofer. The crossover is listed as 1.5Khz and uses metalized polypropylene film capacitors. 

Sensitivity is specified as 89db driven by 2.83 volts at a 1-meter distance. Frequency response is listed as being 55hz-24khz, +/- 3db. The nominal low-end rear port cutoff point is 6db down at 45hz.

This all looks pretty conventional, so is there any secret sauce? Well, the enclosure uses something Simaudio calls CGD, which is short for Curved Groove Dampening. These grooves cut into the side panels inside the cabinet are supposedly responsible for less cabinet resonance interfering with the grooves in my platter parties. I’m down with CGD.

The real story is how a modest-sized, garden-variety, entry-level speaker sounds so good. I’m clueless as to exactly which individual things are responsible, but I assume it results from a well-designed and executed balance of things. I think they call that excellent engineering.

Set-Up

After unboxing, I located some Dynaudio speaker stands that I used to use when I owned a pair of Special 40s. I immediately realized the stands were not quite tall enough, but no matter, let's hear whatcha got Voice 22.

Trying to get some height before the correct stands arrive

I began by feeding the Voice 22s from my reference VAC Master Pre, Ampsandsound Zion Monos with a TW Acustic Raven LS/Dynavector XV-1t for vinyl and an Inuos Zen Mini/Forssell Technologies MADA-2a DAC for streaming. 

I think most reviewers with analog and streaming start with streaming to easily access reference tracks. I’m no different. 

Cycling through my tried and true, along with recent faves, was a bit underwhelming. Wait, these speakers sounded great at the show, hmm. 

I moved them to and fro to find the best spot. Things improved a bit, but there was still a forward-sounding bark to the upper midrange, a detached, somewhat ragged feel to the treble, and a general lack of coherence.

I needed to get serious. 

After a call to my buddy and local hifi guru, Chris Livengood the co-owner of Ember Audio + Design, I borrowed taller stands that would place the tweeter/midrange axis right where I needed it to be based on my listening chair height and distance from the speakers. 

When I went to pick up the stands, Chris (who is a Simaudio dealer) hipped me to what he had learned for Voice 22 setup. He suggested I take the Hover Base off the speakers and place them directly on the stands. He also gave me some small bits of Blu-Tac to assist in anchoring the speakers to the stands. 

After returning to Casa de McAudiophile and performing the suggested procedure, along with less toe-in than I’d had, I sat to listen. Wow. Now we’re in business.

There was that excellent midrange I’d previously heard. The top end was much smoother but not dark. Maybe a little lacking in air, but not a deal breaker. In my experience, when a speaker is not designed to reach below the high 40 hz zone, too much top-end extension can result in a distracting tilt in subjective tonality. It’s all about that balance.

Listening and Tuning

Now, I was at the launch pad. At this point, even though I knew I’d play around with the setup a lot more, I could enjoy listening. 

I’m not in the mood to go down the list or even feature 2 or 3 impactful selections I played. I guess that's because I never had any “wow, I never heard that before” incidents. It’s not that kind of speaker to me, although I’m sure a lot of folks will put on The Weeknd, or Dylan, or Sun Ra and trip out to the sound. Instead, I’ll relate how the Voice 22 revealed its charms when I used various components to determine how far the speaker scales.

I started listening to the Voice 22 using a pair of Ampsandsound Zion tube amps rated at a very conservative 45 watts. They sound as powerful as most 100 to 150-watt solid-state amps. With the Zions powering QLN - Prestige Fives (which are power-hungry), I’ve never run out of power. But then I’m not in the habit these days of excessive crankatude. One of the first things I noticed was how the music seemed to dramatically leap out of the Voice 22— even with that same 45 watts.

I spent a few nights playing lots of small combo jazz, various simply produced songwriter stuff, and a smattering of classical quartets, solo piano, and the like.

The Voice 22s excellent midrange - with just enough weight in the upper bass to not rob the music of any soul, made for some delightful listening sessions.

Between my Acora Acoustics SRC-2 at the studio and the QLNs at home, I’m used to speakers with a phenomenal sense of dimensionality, and the Voice 22 excelled in this department. 

The Voice 22 reproduced the phantom center image clearly and with a rather shocking presence. The image width was presented in a lovely curved arc rather than a straight line from side to side. Sounds panned hard left or right (or with recordings that primarily use a stereo mic or pair) floated outside of where the speakers were placed. Fortunately, my listening room has enough area so that typical speaker placement is about 4 feet from the side walls. If a speaker can do the beyond-the-outside-of-the-speaker imaging phenomena, my room won’t interfere. I didn’t hear as much pinpoint delineation of images across the arc of sound, but it was decent, especially at this price point.

I did spin some of my fav prog and classic rock, but that stuff was a bit less satisfying owing to my status as a bass-freak and my constant exposure at work and home to speakers that go low.

For a week or so, it was surprisingly easy to let my neural pathways rewire, forget about any low bass I was missing, and simply enjoy.

But then I decided to dig out my old Velodyne SGM 12 subwoofer. Oh yeah! Now I can rock some Charlie Hunter or D’Angelo…

Playing with the sub coincided with some other gear arriving for review, so of course, I couldn’t help myself and proceeded to slowly insert said gear to see what more I could get out of the Voice 22.

My initial combo of the VAC pre and Zion mono tube amps isn’t exactly chopped liver, but what mystery synergy might be lurking in the newly arrived audio treats?

The first substitution was the new Luminous Audio Technology Archimedes solid-state power amps. Soon, I’ll be doing a full write-up on these phenomenal new amps, but I’ll tell you right now—the Voice 22 LOVED these little 100-watt, silver-finish dudes. 

Voice 22 powered by Luminous Audio Archimedes amps

I’m sure it had everything to do with current delivery, not just more watts. 

All the smaller-scale micro-dynamics came alive with the Luminous amps in the system. Quantity and perceived low-frequency cut-off in the bass region were similar but much more focused and punchy with the Luminous amps. I missed how the Voice 22 revealed the gorgeous midrange and lower treble texture of the Zion monos, yet the Voice 22 has enough resolution to show how the Luminous amps did not suffer from a flatter and less engaging image portrayal.

Next up was swapping in a recent review piece, the T+A, P 3100 HV, as the preamp. Okay, now I had too much of a good thing regarding speed and cleanliness, so the VAC Master returned.

Soon, a big box with three smaller boxes inside showed up - a Pass Labs XP-32 line preamp. This was a gorgeous sounding match with the Voice 22 but not a particularly real-world scenario to mate a $28,000 line stage to a $3,200 pair of speakers. Well, it’s just as crazy to hook up the VAC Master, but it’s my reference pre, so there.

Pairing Voice 22 with Pass Labs XP-32 preamp is not "real world"

Ultimately, I did most of my listening using the VAC and Luminous combo with the single Velodyne sub towards the end of the review period.

I’m happy to report that I had many sublime hours spinning records and streaming tunes. I know that a speaker design in this price range must have compromises. Still, the Simaudio designers have gone above and beyond in balancing the Voice 22 performance so that no little icky something, gets in the way of listening fun for the golden-eared.

My experience with listening to speakers of this ilk is generally that good tonality comes at the expense of dynamics and vice versa. 

Except for a slightly warmer overall vibe (read: gently rolled off top), I found no apparent flaws in tonality. There’s no little bump in the low-mid/high-bass area, yet male voices had enough chest to be convincing. 

I did, however, notice that when the Voice 22 runs out of headroom, it’s not pretty. 

And there is not much gray area here. A few volume clicks past a certain point, and the sound gets glassy, shouty, and overwrought. Kind of like if that Bono fella sang on all your rekkids. 

But hey, give these little guys a break. Simaudio designed the speakers to mate perfectly with the 50-watt Ace integrated/streamer and will play plenty loud and clean for anyone this speaker is intended for; don’t expect the canons in the 1812 Overture or Tool at 94 db to remain unscathed.

For Whom?

I need to find a new way to conclude a review other than who is the intended user. Or, to put it a different way, what buyers do I reckon will go gaga over this product? I will stay the course this time cause I think the Voice 22 appeals to many different buyers.

Reading the owner's manual, I felt like Simaudio would have no hidden anguish at the idea of many users simply putting them on a convenient bookshelf or credenza and commencing to get their jams on. However, I would not be surprised to read comments on a hifi forum 10 years from now about how a Simaudio Ace and a pair of Voice 22s were their deep entry into high-end audio. 

I loved my Dynaudio Special 40’s back when, but I think this is a better speaker and is more in the league of a Dyn Heritage. 

There are zillions of decent-to-good, two-way, monitor-sized speakers in the marketplace. But when it comes to great and affordable, the list gets mighty short. I’ll add the Voice 22 to that shortlist.

Simaudio has a real winner with the Voice 22 as both a Baby’s First High-End Speaker or as a second system for the seasoned audiophile. Are you done with your mega-buck system (and the oftentimes neurotic nature therein) and want to downsize? Do yourself a favor and go hear some.

  

Highly Recommended