… a total of 7 models.

But the group's ambitions go well beyond those.

The 3 Series is to gain the dedicated PH3 phono stage above…

then there's a flagship 1 Series in the wind, the flagship Model Zero speaker…

the music system called The Simon with 2 x Toslink, 1 x coax, 2 x RCA in, 384kHz/DSD256 USB B, WiFi, Bluetooth, 1 x coax out, 1  x pre-out, 1 x 6.3mm headfi out and switching power supply…

the aforementioned Philia tube integrated …

… and a higher- and lower-end version of the existing All-In-One whose AIO-S will be a flagship source with top-loading transport, full streaming support and an FM tuner.

That's a very ambitious road map for the Simon Audio Group. But without a plan, one tends to just sit there and go nowhere.

These folks are definitely not just going somewhere but somewhere very specific.

Initial short production runs will continue to drop for their direct-sales domestic market first. That's part of the boot-strapped model expansion program which happens in parallel to rebuilding international distribution. Reviewing globally available models as they bow is our contribution to this. For today, I review the i5 and its natural Model 3 speaker companion with Simon's speaker cables. It previews his compact system shy of the CDA5 which at time of writing was sold out to await its next production run.

To round out introductions, here we see Simon's listening room with a pair of Model One floorstanders in the back and, in blond wood, a new pair of Alain Pratali-designed nearfield monitors on the floor, one of them topped by a sideways CDA5 …

… and a few systems by Korean fans of Simon Audio.