AIO was that beater watch, that all-day espadrille, that home-cooked fully nourishing comfort food!

It was easy on the ear. I felt it relax that constant inner alert whereby our audiophile species watches out for the spectacular. It was, to say it once more, that genuine soft power of music. Which didn't imply it couldn't rock. At 40 on the throttle, the sheep outside would have started bleeping had they not been on the mountain side of the field.

Given our domestic ban on hosted microwave radiation—we can't do anything about neighbors but rural means they're sparse and distant—network music just meant a wired connection via cheap but certified BlueJeans Cable CAT6. This plugged into a network switch which hardwires by 30m CAT6 to our Tp-Link router. The iMac with our music aboard its 3TB FusionDrive plugs into the same switch. Audirvana 3 now saw AIO in its UPnP server as simon audio 082. I could stream locally hosted files, Spotify+, Tidal and Qobuz all prompted over the iMac's glorious 27" Retina display. It worked like a charm. Naturally, so did spinning CD. This sonic Seiko then came with radio-controlled atomic clock corrections and solar battery charging.

Outro. Our Aura Notes didn't make an appearance on purpose. AIO was squarely superior. No need to beat up on relatives and Simon's former house. AIl hail the new note called, still temporarily we're told, the SAG All-in-One Music Player. With it, Simon and his loyal collaborators have given us an unfussy most handsome deck that's perfectly intuitive yet doesn't elevate convenience over very mature sound. Mature means well considered. It's like a man in the autumn years looking back over youthful excesses and temporary infatuations. He's learned the value of keeping things simple. He whittles them back to their essence, then allows them to speak for themselves, no embellishments or braggadocio necessary.

Proper active linestage. Class A/B not D 'single-ended' push/pull Hitachi lateral power Mosfets. Burson Audio V6 Classic discrete opamp. Sanyo disc drive. Sabre 9038Pro DAC for 384/256 PCM/DSD. Remote control. With Simon's signature prowess of getting superior flavour from simple but quality ingredients, this silver-rippled box with the elegant glass lid should become the centre of many a very contented listener's system. 100wpc/8Ω power and solid voltage gain will support even more challenging loads where deep integration doesn't mean limited choice.

So on his behalf, I say that Simon says ,"I'm baaack."

And a very fine global debut it is!