Is Pono no more?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by conjotter, Nov 4, 2016.

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  1. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    The sound quality of most of the Fiio's isn't bad. It's just nothing special. Kinda meh. The Fiio amps and players I've heard are going to sound better than my iPod Classic playing direct from the headphone jack. I always use an external portable amp with a line out dock cable with my iPod Classic. It sounds better that way. I've used a Fiio E12 Mont Blanc amp with my iPod and even that old not so good E12 sounds better than the bare headphone iPod output. And I don't consider the E12 to sound good.

    Fiio's are what they are. Nobody is buying them as giant killers in sound quality. Price and features are the main selling points. Sound quality doesn't factor in for most people buying a Fiio. There are portables with better sound for people after sound quality.
     
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  2. TonyCzar

    TonyCzar Forum Resident

    Location:
    PhIladelphia, PA
    My personal Fiio-quest was because I wanted both a hi-res portable player, and an Android machine which would not force me to leave my Tidal library behind. At the end of the day, the accumulated expense ($600-700 for an X7mkI) took it out of the running for street use once I got it home. And at home, I strictly use line-out, so that rather innovative "pick any one of three headphone amplifiers" approach ended up being moot for me. My amplification (I chose model AMP3) is always at zero.

    Maybe my cheap shoes and off-the-rack suit is obvious, but at that price, it's a home component, not a street toy.

    Anyway, it made a DSD-believer out of me, so it must have something going for it sonically.
     
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  3. Waymore Lonesome

    Waymore Lonesome Forum Resident

    Here's how Pono's marketing came across to me, granted I never really looked into getting one, but I actually was under the impression that you could only put music on it from their store. Not only that, but I didn't think they even had 16 bit files, I thought the whole idea was 24 bit 192khz remasters done by Neil himself or something.

    Hearing these rave reviews of the Pono is confusing, I've read over the last few days several articles just talking about how much they sucked, what a huge disaster they were.

    As for Fiio, I don't think I care much for streaming, would probably prefer non touch screen android myself, but I hear the sound is vastly improved on their new model.
     
    Runicen likes this.
  4. wwright

    wwright Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco, CA.
    Agreed. You also need to hear the latest Spectral CD player. Makes standard red book CDs sound a lot like vinyl. A very interesting development.
     
  5. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    The X7 is neat. I haven't heard one, but I like the idea of an Android based player like that optimized for audio. Fiio, A&K, Onkyo, and a few other companies are doing players like that. It's good to have Fiio in that market and working on products like that.
     
  6. Phillip Walch

    Phillip Walch Forum Resident

    They didn't do a good job with the marketing, it was not made very clear but in the FAQ's it stated that it plays other resolutions and other files. Neil even mentioned himself somewhere that other resolution files will sound better.
     
  7. It's interesting the way human factor considerations are so easily dismissed and marginalized by some folks here. Why should someone waste their time listening to a device that they KNOW they wont love because of design choices that seem to have little human factor consideration beyond a great sound? Sound quality should trump all other considerations? Why exactly? Neil and his financial backers apparently bought this line of reasoning and reaped their own financial harm for it -the public spoke by staying away in droves.
     
    marcb likes this.
  8. JeffMo

    JeffMo Format Agnostic

    Location:
    New England
    It sounds great with high res, lossless and even mp3 or AAC files. I was surprised how good even the lossy files sound.
     
  9. Runicen

    Runicen Forum Resident

    Eh... maybe I'm the odd man out, but I can't see the form factor being anyone's primary consideration for staying away from Pono. As I mentioned above, my main reason for not taking the plunge was the sense that my iPod was "good enough" and wanting to stick with what I knew.

    While it's not off the chart, I'd be very... confused, let's say to meet someone who would actively avoid the Pono simply because of it's shape (which is, admittedly, odd).
     
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  10. uzn007

    uzn007 Watcher of the Skis

    Location:
    Raleigh, N.C.
    If that's true -- and I have no reason to doubt your impression -- then the marketers really missed the boat on this one. The marketing materials made it sound like listening to lossy music files -- or even 16-bit CDs -- was little better than sticking knitting needles directly into your eardrums. You might as well be listening through two tin cans and a piece of string if you're not listening to remastered 24-bit FLACs, etc.

    If they had marketed this as "It makes everything sound better", they could have opened up a much larger potential market. But then of course they would have gotten a lot more push-back on the lack of wifi/bluetooth connectivity and the quirky user interface and the lack of streaming. Still, increasing their potential market tenfold (at least) might have been worth it, and it might have prompted them to make the changes needed to turn it into a viable mass-market music player.
     
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  11. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    I would. I’m not an audiophile so the absolute best sound is not my top priority. For a portable player, software features and portability are my only priorities.
     
    LivingForever, Runicen and Pete Puma like this.
  12. oneway23

    oneway23 Forum Resident

    Location:
    NY, US
    Human factor considerations, huh? It's an audio device. I don't need it to make my coffee or butter my toast. I didn't discount any other considerations, I simply said that, in my opinion, the primary focus of an audio device should be sound quality.

    I completely understand why the shape of the device was a bit bewildering or off-putting. That's a subjective determination, and that's fine. The market obviously decided that, but the shape was decided upon because of the circuitry involved and the battery used.
     
  13. An "audio device" is somehow immune from human factors considerations? Again, it's this arrogance and dismissal of what people want in an audio device that has killed off this device commercially.
     
    bubba-ho-tep likes this.
  14. Please to meet you. I actively avoided the Pono because of it's shape and user interface. I chose a FiiO 3ii because I wanted a nice sounding player that was portable and has an interface that harkened back to the iPod. The price point was also a factor as the FiiO was about half the price.
     
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  15. Phillip Walch

    Phillip Walch Forum Resident

    You are totally on the money there. It did come across that way while in reality the player works well with WAV, FLAC, MP3, I also added DSD which sounded incredible and no doubt many other formats work really well which I do not use.

    16-bit CD rips of my own sound far better on it than other devices I have used.

    The marketing made it sound like lossy was the plague. Which of course for most people is not the case. It works just fine for them.
     
    JeffMo likes this.
  16. eddiel

    eddiel Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    Well if you're ever up here in Toronto send me a PM and I'll buy you a drink, or tea/coffee if you prefer and you can meet someone who would :)

    It really depends on how someone intends on using the Pono. I was looking for something that could replace my iPod one day and I needed something with a similar form factor because of the way I use it. Portable players designed like the ipod, basically a thing rectangular box, work the best for me because they fit in my pocket. They're easy to hold and use. I tried to imagine myself walking down the street or sitting on a bus with a Pono in my pocket. Not gonna work is it?

    If I was going to just stick this in my car when driving around I probably wouldn't care as much. But carrying it around is not an option I wanted to entertain.
     
  17. JeffMo

    JeffMo Format Agnostic

    Location:
    New England
    The Ayre components are WOW, and I suspect they played down how great your iTunes 256 AAC files sound because they wanted you to buy high res files at Pono store.
     
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  18. Rgfinch

    Rgfinch King Rocky

    Location:
    Uk
    I didn't get one because it only had one card slot so capacity was feeble. Even if it sounds awesome I can't stand the idea of swapping memory cards in and out all the time.

    My portable rig (1st gen Fiio X5 with OTG storage) uses 700gb.
     
  19. Phillip Walch

    Phillip Walch Forum Resident

    Good point about them wanting the sales.

    I never intended to buy their files, I made sure that I could use the player with any formats I use and got it for them. Plus at launch they had no international store for music (if they ever did I don't know).
     
  20. Rgfinch

    Rgfinch King Rocky

    Location:
    Uk
    if the store had been available in the UK I probably would have used it - US pricing looked pretty good. The only FLAC/Hi res download site we have in Europe with even half reasonable pricing is Qoboz.
     
  21. curbach

    curbach Some guy on the internet

    Location:
    The ATX
    I think it’s fair to say that any attempt to mass market audiophilia is doomed to fail. The rest is just details.

    If you care about sound quality and are dismissing the Pono unheard for whatever reason, you are making a mistake in my humble opinion. Peace :hugs:
     
    ramdom, strifeknot, chacha and 3 others like this.
  22. LonesomeDayBlues

    LonesomeDayBlues Forum Resident

    Location:
    Long Beach, CA
    I have an Astell&kern Jr as my portable and use it everyday. I plug it into my receiver at work and listen to albums all day (while working of course).

    The interface isn't the fastest but it sounds good and it has a removable card and built in storage. When Pono came out, I was very close to buying it but after some research settled on astell&kern. Overall, it's been a great purchase.
     
  23. Runicen

    Runicen Forum Resident

    I've got to disagree with you (respectfully, of course) on this front. Improved picture quality still makes bank and each gaming console generation somehow manages to sell a $400 device only marginally more powerful than the last, so clearly the market for improvement is there. I suspect the proper pitch hasn't been devised for quality audio though. Perhaps that's a byproduct of the limits of streaming, perhaps not. Hell, Beats fly off the shelves, and they're hot, buttered garbage! :laugh:
     
    curbach likes this.
  24. Dino

    Dino Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kansas City - USA
    I really miss the Pono download site. I found out of print CDs as downloads sometimes. They were bargains compared to the OOP CDs. I found at least one "never on CD" that I really wanted. They had the widest selection of 16-44 downloads of the sites I've tried, being in the USA. Sometimes downloads were cheaper than HDTracks. They never posted DR though, dammit. :) (I guess that is usually not in download sites best interest.) Bruce Botnick's "provenance" project held promise but never really got off the ground, IME.

    Their last gasp "everything on sale" time was great for me. I don't remember the percentage/amount off, but it was significant. I bought a bunch of downloads during that time. Most were 16-44 and seemed really cheap.
     
  25. followmehome

    followmehome Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    Personally, I wouldn't want a CD to have treble roll off, vinyl crackle and sibilance - but whatevs :)
     
    Musicisthebest likes this.
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