Is Pono no more?

Contact [email protected]

 

I recommend the lg v30, it plays lossless hires music through a high quality dac and I think it sounds incredible. And you can make phone calls too

 

Perhaps down the road the Fiio X1 will grow on you a bit more. It did for me, and I hated its interface at first. After a while, I just got used to its flaws/quirks, as the sound was quite decent. I've had it for over a year now, battery life is quite good, the drag-and-drop works flawlessly, and the micro SD card design is very flexible. You're exactly right about it being a bargain, and I'm jealous you got it for only $50. I paid a little more than double that, but consider it money well spent.

I think Pono missed some marketing opportunities. You know how they had some sig models with various artists such as Neil, Beck, U2, etc.? They could have offered a sig model that would have been the talk of the town. It would have featured Yoko Ono and U2 on one premium device. They could have called it.....

.....wait for it


....you know what's coming


.....will either make you cringe or smile



.....standby for.....



The Yoko Ono Bono Pono!

Massive opportunity missed there.

 

I ordered mine through Phil Baker at [email protected]

 

i am so confused about a couple of things:

why, after all that has gone on with this disaster, would people still want one of these?

and why does this thread, which has become basically useless, still go on?

 

Thread about Pono being no mo is a no go?

 

For the price, even when they were $400, you cannot find a better player. The sound is superb and it offers balanced output as well as line output to hook directly to your stereo.

Many of the "problems" are non-existent for most users. I have two units that have, and continue to, perform flawlessly.

Using a 200gb microcard I carry over 6,000 songs in mostly 192/24 quality although the unit will play anything from mp3 to dsd. Changing or adding music is "drop and drag" from your computer.

While the battery life is shorter than I would like, that's really the only flaw and can be worked around most of the time. All in all, it's a marvelous player. I heve never heard better sound using my Sennheiser HD660S phones.

 

Pretty sure they're just trolling, 360, but, I appreciate their gibberish in helping to keep the thread alive!

Hear, hear to your comments, though. I do still absolutely love my Pono...HOWEVER...Believe it or not....

Ironically, shortly after posting over the weekend that my only issue was I/O speed, and after a few years of no severe problems, when I went to listen last night, I started getting little skips and jitters during playback for the first time ever on my Ltd Ed. Metallica player. !#@!

Even the most ardent Pono lover has to be objective here and say that a mere three-year lifespan for any audio-based consumer electronics device is pretty pathetic. We're not talking about an $80 microwave from China, here...

Nevertheless, despite knowing the obvious quality control issues and the unfortunate lack of a future for the company, I'm STILL considering buying another Pono. Mental illness, I know....

Really not sure, though. Maybe it IS time to finally give up the ghost and to look at other options? Damn it, Pono...

 

Mine still works and sounds incredible. Better than my 17,000 stereo, better than my 3000 computer set up. I wished we would have got a Pono 2.0 with out of the flaws, but it sounds amazing. Have you heard one?

 

I'm sorry to interject, Leon, my apologies, but, one of the things I find most amusing, when I see this question around audio communities and the like, is that most folks (though, certainly not all) who have criticized the Pono usually either answer with an honest "No" to this question, yet they inexplicably continue on with one reason or another why the Pono sucks, OR, they simply don't answer at all and carry on as though it was never asked.

Let's see if we can coax some answers out of folks this time!

 

Even as someone who was left a bit cold by Pono at launch, I never got why so many seemed to want it to fail. Granted, I'm less than pleased on behalf of people who were early adopters who are now trying to deal with a company on life support for their product support, but that wasn't really telegraphed before they closed the storefront.

 

I never specifically wanted it to fail, but it seemed like a good idea that was 10 years too late. I think the effort would've been better spent trying to improve the sound quality/audio options on people's existing devices via better software/delivery, or alternatively be a separate device that could stream music as well as play local files (a portable Sonos, basically?) But an awkward looking electronic candy bar that could only hold a small number of albums (compared to what people were used to with mp3 players) and had no internet capabilities was never going to take off. The intent was noble, but the general public was never going to bite, even among dedicated music lovers. It seems like perhaps Neil has realized this (finally), and is taking a more current direction with his new projects, so we'll see how that turns out.

 

I never had any issues with my Fiio X1.

 

I don't remember, exactly, but, I BELIEVE that the CEO quietly stepped down shortly after KS deliveries began. That should have been a gigantic red flag, but, I think folks at the time were just excited to finally be getting to hear their Ponos.

 

The same reason people still listen to records...they sound great! I have two players and I love how they sound.
Re: the thread...some things, like rock and roll in the words of the founder himself "will never die".

Pono Up!!!!!!

 

I've told this story on here before, but, I went to a NY Head-Fi meet a couple of years ago and had an encounter with a vendor (who shall remain nameless...It wasn't A&K), and I asked the rep if he had heard the Pono, acting as if I'd never heard one.

He said "Oh, that thing? It's absolutely terrible. What a joke. The shape is awful and the screen is bad."
I replied, "Have you ever heard one?"
"N'ah", he said. "I don't need to."
"Welp, I've got one in my bag...Wanna check it out?"
"N'ah, I'm good, thanks. Check out my IEMs, though!"

This was a guy IN the business of selling IEMs that could have been a great match for the Pono, and yet he couldn't have cared any less about this audio device because of its screen and form-factor.

Are the criticisms valid? Perhaps they are, but, to not even listen first? That's the primary function of the device! The other stuff is important, of course, but, I just think that sound quality should be the main concern for any audio device. Everything else, while critical to the overall, should be lower down on the list, in my opinion, especially if you are spending hundreds (or, in some cases thousands) of dollars well beyond what the "average consumer" would on such a thing.

 

I never owned a Pono player but I was excited when the online store finally opened in Canada two years ago. I bought many hi res and cd quality titles over the next 8 months before the store "temporarily" closed. 7Digital serves that purpose now but there are still quite a few titles that the Pono store had in FLAC quality that 7Digital doesn't have.

 

Definitely. So much stuff not available elsewhere in lossless (tons of OOP) and the prices were much better than other vendors also. That was the big loss for me. I never had a Pono device either...

 

i have, and yes it sounds very nice...nice enough to re-buy all my music for a third time? not even close.

and after it's demise, i'm very very glad i didn't. who is going fix all these things when they start going bad? not neil young, that's for sure.

 

I've never owned a Pono either but I very much miss the store. A real shame they couldn't have kept that going even though the player was ultimately a bust.

Ed

 

Definitely. I'm pretty sure that Apple bought some of their provider's IP and hired some of its staff. Pono has always claimed that Omnifone provided either no notice, or very little notice, to any of its clients. Not sure, didn't work there, but, the store is absolutely a big loss.

Great selection, competitive prices, and free "hi-res" upgrades. You could see, especially with the free upgrades for "life", why the labels probably weren't in mourning when the store shuttered its doors...

 

He's not? And I expected Darryl Hannah to be holding a flashlight for Neil while he personally soldered the wires back onto the PCB of my Pono.

It's a Kickstarter project. It got up-started, funded to completion, and delivered. Expectation met. I was never under any illusions that I was buying from a company with the clout, marketing, and distribution of a big-box retailer. It's crowd-funding. Was it ideal? Nope...But, dems the brakes. Paid for it, benefited immensely from it, no regrets.

 

well said.

 

Thank you, kind sir....The question is, what to buy now to replace? I swear my Pono only started coughing up blood this past weekend because I jinxed myself by jumping on here spouting off that my Pono wasn't having any issues.

I'm actually unstable enough to want another!