HiRes Music Downloading Guide

Moon Audio does ONE thing. We make audio cables in our Cary, North Carolina headquarters. Many sound engineers and musicians you know and love use our cables because they hear the music they created. Our Silver Dragon, Black Dragon, Blue Dragon, and Bronze Dragon audio cables shorten the distance from their guitars, voices, instruments, and mixing boards to your ears. Our Headphone Listening Guide shares tips, tricks, and secrets so the music you love sounds better. Our award-winning audio cables help you listen to headphones and earphones like a pro and our Download Guide shares how to download music like a pro too.

Audio engineers created "analog" recordings that were pressed into "long playing" records or LPs. Webster defines analog as, "of or relating to a device or process in which data is represented by physical quantities that change continuously". Today we record digitally. Webster says "digital" is of or relating to information stored in the form of numbers 0 and 1.

Analog audio sources were recorded on analog master tapes. As CD's brought the digital revolution to town digital music files for CD's were created from analog master tapes. Analog masters were typically recorded at 16 by 44.1kHz (expressed 16/44.1kHz). As the digital revolution marched on higher resolutions such as 24/96 and 24/192 became available.

There are two ways to create higher resolution recordings. Either hi-res recordings are re-recorded in the higher resolution or higher resolutions are crafted or interpolated from original analog files. This "crafting is called "upsampling". Upsampling has the "Picasso Problem". No technology can create data not there to begin with on the original 16-bit formats. Upsampling can distort new hi-res recordings. Sometimes new high resolution recordings sound worse than the original 16/44.1kHz files.

Save, Download, and Catalog Music at Optimal Sound Quality

Great sound always starts with the original high-quality source of the music or recording. Starting with an original CD or High Resolution (Hi-Res) Download is the best way to ensure your source is able to output the highest quality sound for your music listening. Standard CD's are a great place to begin if you want your digital sources to have optimum sound. We buy CD's to support the arts, musicians, and to RIP the CD to our digital music catalog to ensure our digital music is also uncompressed quality.

We also buy LP's for home listening because there is so much more "music" when listening via a home turntable audio setup. It's MAGICAL music to our ears and digital music simply cannot replace lp listening. Many vinyl lovers, are still LP purists today and a recent vinyl resurgence in "record sales growing by more than 50% in 2014 to hit more than a million" says Newsweek. A recent article named "Why Vinyl has made a Comeback", published in April 2015 via Newsweek says 2014 had the highest rate of record sales since 1996.

In summary, always control your audio source by starting with an uncompressed audio file such as a CD, high-resolution download or LP.

*NOTE: Moon Audio does not condone the illegal downloading of copyrighted material that you do not own. FBI Anti-Piracy Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Next, share this audio recording by uploading it to your digital music libraries.

High definition downloads can be shared across your portable Apple devices along with your office & home computers once you save them to a digital music catalog.

Nuances, details, and music as the recording artist intended are not heard when listening via compressed audio files. We passionately hear the sound difference via headphones & audio devices every day. We test our handcrafted dragon audio cables daily via headphones and once you HEAR the hi-res sound difference, you can't go back.

Have your CD's on iTunes?   Don't want to carry CDs with you?

We HEAR you. Optimizing headphone sound via Hi-Res portable DACs, amps & media players is our specialty at Moon Audio. The quality of your audio sound always leads back to the music source, cables & devices paired with your headphones too.

RIP your CD to high-quality digital music software such as JRiver, Media Monkey, or Audirvana and catalog it in one of the LOSSLESS audio formats. Our favorite lossless audio formats for optimal sound quality include WAV, FLAC, or AIFF.

There are a multitude of hi-res music download websites these days. A few solely operate in the United States but a few of the smaller, hi-res download sites, like Blue Coast Records, do have rights to sell outside the U.S. HD Tracks is another choice and they recently just received distribution rights outside of the U.S. too. We also like to buy from Beatport (great for DJ tracks & harder to find tracks), iTrax (natively recorded music), Acoustic Sounds and many more.

Remember, first control the source or it will control your listening quality.

1. WAV - The best lossless format for sound quality closest to the original recording and the most common WAV audio format is uncompressed audio in the linear pulse code modulation (LPCM) format.

• Wav is a perfect copy of a cd audio file.
• Always our 1st choice when ripping a CD to a digital catalog.

2. FLAC - Flac has slight compression and the ability to tag with metadata and album cover art.

• An identical copy of the original audio recording with a slight compression.
• It is a lossless compressed audio file.
• We do not recommend FLAC as we prefer the WAV lossless format.

3. AIFF - is an uncompressed or lossless audio file format standard used for storing sound data developed by Apple Inc. in 1988.¹

• AIFF is not our preference for sound quality.
• We don't use it in our personal digital music collection.
• Many people do like AIFF on their Mac or Apple computers.

4. Don't use lossy audio formats when you download, such as MP3, AAC, WMA if you want best sound quality.

Wikipedia says MP3, Vorbis, Musepack, AAC, ATRAC, WMA lossy are all considered lossy audio file formats.²

Organizing your music with a high-quality Digital Catalog Software helps optimize your music file management & provides great options for storage, downloading, sharing & streaming.

In summary, we experience our music collection the most when we can see it, view it, and touch it virtually just like anything we love to feel. We enjoy and like to flip through our digital music catalog with our senses so if we scroll through our music collection with none of the album artwork, it's not the same experience.

In addition, when we see the album artwork, the artist's face or band imagery, it adds to our experience. Let's face it, record companies don't spend thousands of dollars on photographers, artwork, photo shoots, models and clothing without good reason. It enlivens our senses and our emotional experience which is after all, why we are passionate about music and why we LISTEN, isn't it?

Music is relational, emotional, and it allows us to experience life through our emotions, the nostalgic memories of our first kiss, date, or dance, or the emotions that each song appeals to at the time they capture our heart & wallet. What captures our heart is most important in life, isn't it? We certainly believe so!

 Bottom Line: Best Digital Music Catalog Choices

1. PCs - JRiver Media Center or Media Monkey

2. MACs - JRiver Media Center or Audirvana

Not all Digital Players sound the same. They have different core engines resulting in different sound qualities. Media players come in various shapes and sizes, both for portable and desktop applications. Do you enjoy sitting at home and listening to your music? Then perhaps a desktop player is right for your needs. On the road or like to listen to music when you're on the go? Portable DAPs are for you. Here at Moon Audio, we carry a large variety of media players to fit every need. Below we'll include some of our top brands and some suggestions including some very popular media players for all budgets.

There are many choices on the market today including:

Desktop Music Players

Portable DAPs

Optimize and Tune Your Headphones

The materials in high-end headphones are going to make a sonic difference and upgrade than your run-of-the-mill cheaper headphones. The general rule of thumb in the audio world is you typically get what you pay for. Materials, design, cables, and the connections will all have an impact on the fidelity of your music.

The stock cables that come with most headphones are not that great. They are afterthoughts for most companies. They put all their effort and time into making amazing headphones for sure, but the cable is treated as a cosmetic feature rather than the integral component of sonic fidelity that it actually is. That is why it is important for you to upgrade your cable. Like your headphones, the materials used in your cable should also be premium to have excellent isolation from outside noise and quality components to make sure your music can sound the absolute best it can.

Here at Moon Audio, we specialize in creating custom cable solutions for your gear; only using the best materials and quality components and connectors. We have a multitude of options to choose from regarding cables, connectors, and more and can make any cable to your exact specifications.

Custom HACK option is done in Cary, NC by Moon Audio with one of our in house skilled headphone mavens.

DIY HACK is available with our detachable upgrade headphone cables on many well-known headphone brands.

Just like a pair of new shoes, your headphones and cables also need some time to get worn in so that they can present your music optimally. Straight out of the factory, the drivers in your headphones or in-ear monitors are a little "stiff" and usually needs some time to flex. Similarly, cables need time in order to get broken-in and sound the way it's meant to. Each of our cables has a different "break-in time" suggestion, for instance, the Silver Dragon V3 Cable has an estimated break-in time of 80 hours. See each cable product listing for the estimated break-in time. We suggest the best way to do this is to plug your headphones and/or cable to your source/streaming service at a low volume overnight (for a couple of nights in a row). After the initial break-in period, you'll be surprised at how much the overall fidelity has improved!

1) "Audio Interchange File Format," Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Aug. 2014. Web. 04 Sept. 2014.
2) Audio File Format,Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 09 Apr. 2014. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.
3) High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Sept. 2014. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.