Interested to read what he had to say about the 2150 and the Moon, I went to the link. Across several paragraphs Fremer does say over and over again that the Moon outperformed his Dartzeels (though he also states that this at least in part due to the fact that one of the speakers was much harder to drive which he seemd to suggest put the 888 at an advantage).
Here are several quotes:
"...For whatever reason(s), the darTZeels weren't able to effectively control or grip the [EgglestonWorks] Vigintis' woofers...The Moon 888s' grip on the Vigintis' woofers produced a seismic shift in the speakers' sound... I'd been about to write that the EgglestonWorks had somewhat sloppy, underdamped bass. Now, with what was clearly the right amplification, they were producing a far more enjoyable and reasonably well-controlled visceral wallop."
"...the Moon 888s delivered a pristine rendering, preserving and detailing all of the recording's crystalline threads without smear or glaze....When I reinserted the darTZeel monoblocks in my system, I could still hear these differences, but not as dramatically."
"Compared to my reference darTZeels, which do a damn good job of it, too, the Moon 888s produced "blacker" backgrounds and more air, without in any way sacrificing the rich sheen of Riddle's massed strings."
"...with the best recordings, regardless of genre or whether it was on LP, CD, or hi-rez file, the Moon 888s produced the highest level of sound quality in my system [which normally is driven by the 458s which he owns/uses as his reference], passing along warmth or chills, transparency or sludge, grain or greatness, as dictated not by the electronics but by the recording itself.
But he does say in the end, "...Given a choice between the Moon by Simaudio 888, the Boulder 2150, and the very different-sounding Ypsilon Hyperion, which would I choose? That's my business. Which you'd choose is yours. I'm sticking with the darTZeel NHB-458s. They're not perfect, nor are any of the three mentioned above, including the Moon by Simaudio 888—to some degree, they all "sound." But based on what I've heard, clearing out Simaudio's skunkworks closet has paid off."
