Moon Audio is a well known company in the audio world and is mostly famous for their Silver Dragon IEM cable. Based in the neighborhood of Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America, they deliver worldwide though.
Their cable offer for IEM can be browsed here. The Bronze Dragon IEM cable is their latest product and it comes with some new 2 pins connectors and a new design, an excellent and awaited upgrade. You can check the product page here.
Customer experience
That was the first time I ordered on the Moon Audio website. Being a European customer, I feared the custom duties, but finally I received very quickly the Bronze Dragon without additional fees.
Plus, the customer service is very responsive and helpful. Indeed, PayPal caused some issues and took my old address as current delivery address, Moon Audio employee calls instantly Fedex in order to change it.
Design
The Bronze Dragon is the first Moon Audio Dragon cable with the new design based on 4 braided strands and new IEM connectors. The Silver and Black Dragon have now a v2 too, but the v1 is not discontinued.
The new 2 pins connectors are much more ergonomic and seem to be durable just as the amplifier connector. Moon Audio offers many other terminations as straight or RT angle 2.5mm, 3.5mm, XLR, Pentaconn for Sony or Kobiconn for RSA devices. Though, it's a shame that for now Moon Audio doesn't offer a premolded amplifier connector without additional fees.
Nevertheless, this new Dragon's generation is very well designed, light, without tangle effect, but flexible enough to be used outside with ease.
/!\ Spiral Ear CIEM used recessed socket with longer pins than usual. Despite the previous Dragon version works fine with those sockets, the new ones are not enough long to be properly inserted.
Sound
The Bronze Dragon IEM cable is designed to "create a warmer presentation with bigger and fuller body adding bottom end strength and muscle [...] musical without becoming lush or bloated. In cases where you own a bright or thin sounding IEM, the Bronze Dragon will add body to the sound. It will provide a fuller, bigger presentation to the music. The bass will have more weight to it without being bloated and lush sounding. The Bronze Dragon is a warm and musical sound signature."
I tried the Bronze Dragon with the EarSonics EM10 and Vision Ears VE8. The result is as expected by Moon Audio with both CIEM's sound signature. The clearer and somewhat aggressive EM10 gains in smoothness, keeping its awesome bottom energy, whereas the darker VE8 has more mid-bass and lacks of clarity with the Bronze Dragon. Although, the Silver Dragon is a better upgrade cable for that kind of sound signature.
Stage size and coherency remain the same as with a stock cable, but as the Bronze Dragon tames the trebles a bit, the soundstage can slightly be reduced with treble-head earphones.
Bottom region is thicker with a bit more extension on bass heavy tracks. With a thick presentation, like the VE8,
accuracy or transparency are not great, but it doesn't really bleed.
EM10's voice reproduction gains in naturalness thanks to the additional bottom warm. It's a bit thicker, hence more natural to my ears.
High mids and low trebles, are more articulated on fast tracks as this frequency region is less aggressive than with the stock cable. Take it with a pinch of salt, that's not night and day changes, but definitely enough to be pleasantly perceived.
The same effect is also perceived with the ES5 monitors, the high mids like violin's presentation is clearly more articulated, bass is a bit stronger and highs are generally more smooth. It's a great synergy with EarSonics products.
Dragon comparison
I initially bought a Silver Dragon in order to drive the EM10's high mid - low treble peak, but the result was not great: same peak and moreover I didn't retrieve my beloved bass slam! The synergy with the VE8 was much better, improving air between instruments and offering a different focus on instrument presentation, which was pleasant and certainly a good alternative to the stock cable.
Their cable offer for IEM can be browsed here. The Bronze Dragon IEM cable is their latest product and it comes with some new 2 pins connectors and a new design, an excellent and awaited upgrade. You can check the product page here.
Customer experience
That was the first time I ordered on the Moon Audio website. Being a European customer, I feared the custom duties, but finally I received very quickly the Bronze Dragon without additional fees.
Plus, the customer service is very responsive and helpful. Indeed, PayPal caused some issues and took my old address as current delivery address, Moon Audio employee calls instantly Fedex in order to change it.
Design
The Bronze Dragon is the first Moon Audio Dragon cable with the new design based on 4 braided strands and new IEM connectors. The Silver and Black Dragon have now a v2 too, but the v1 is not discontinued.
The new 2 pins connectors are much more ergonomic and seem to be durable just as the amplifier connector. Moon Audio offers many other terminations as straight or RT angle 2.5mm, 3.5mm, XLR, Pentaconn for Sony or Kobiconn for RSA devices. Though, it's a shame that for now Moon Audio doesn't offer a premolded amplifier connector without additional fees.
Nevertheless, this new Dragon's generation is very well designed, light, without tangle effect, but flexible enough to be used outside with ease.
/!\ Spiral Ear CIEM used recessed socket with longer pins than usual. Despite the previous Dragon version works fine with those sockets, the new ones are not enough long to be properly inserted.
Sound
The Bronze Dragon IEM cable is designed to "create a warmer presentation with bigger and fuller body adding bottom end strength and muscle [...] musical without becoming lush or bloated. In cases where you own a bright or thin sounding IEM, the Bronze Dragon will add body to the sound. It will provide a fuller, bigger presentation to the music. The bass will have more weight to it without being bloated and lush sounding. The Bronze Dragon is a warm and musical sound signature."
I tried the Bronze Dragon with the EarSonics EM10 and Vision Ears VE8. The result is as expected by Moon Audio with both CIEM's sound signature. The clearer and somewhat aggressive EM10 gains in smoothness, keeping its awesome bottom energy, whereas the darker VE8 has more mid-bass and lacks of clarity with the Bronze Dragon. Although, the Silver Dragon is a better upgrade cable for that kind of sound signature.
Stage size and coherency remain the same as with a stock cable, but as the Bronze Dragon tames the trebles a bit, the soundstage can slightly be reduced with treble-head earphones.
Bottom region is thicker with a bit more extension on bass heavy tracks. With a thick presentation, like the VE8,
accuracy or transparency are not great, but it doesn't really bleed.
EM10's voice reproduction gains in naturalness thanks to the additional bottom warm. It's a bit thicker, hence more natural to my ears.
High mids and low trebles, are more articulated on fast tracks as this frequency region is less aggressive than with the stock cable. Take it with a pinch of salt, that's not night and day changes, but definitely enough to be pleasantly perceived.
The same effect is also perceived with the ES5 monitors, the high mids like violin's presentation is clearly more articulated, bass is a bit stronger and highs are generally more smooth. It's a great synergy with EarSonics products.
Dragon comparison
I initially bought a Silver Dragon in order to drive the EM10's high mid - low treble peak, but the result was not great: same peak and moreover I didn't retrieve my beloved bass slam! The synergy with the VE8 was much better, improving air between instruments and offering a different focus on instrument presentation, which was pleasant and certainly a good alternative to the stock cable.
