Have Any Pono Backers Received The Email Their Player Has Shipped?

Ship notice on Thursday, received yesterday, black model.

 

Got my shipping notice yesterday as well (Neil Young LE). Downloaded the app and it definitely feels "Beta", but I'm curious as to whether, given the drive towards HD files, this thing is going to have the power to hold large libraries of 10+ TBs of data. Anyone test it out? iTunes got really, really slow the one time I attempted such a feat...

 

Got my ship message (NYC) yesterday and it's 'on the truck' today.
The Pono store is very much a work in progress. But re

A lot of the records I want to buy (like HARVEST - duh!) are in 16/44.1 or "coming soon". Harvest IS there in 24/96. The 'catch' is you have to view album details to see the resolution. You also have to be logged in or everything is tagged Coming Soon. That a service predicated on hi-res would offer primarily 16/44 and, worse, offer no way to filter or readily view higher res offerings is um disappointing for sure. Still, i'm feeling generous toward the whole endeavor. It's an ambitious project.

 

Hats off to you early adopters. I'd really like to hear this device before spending the do ra me. I've been the guinea pig many times in the past and have spent countless dollars chasing the sound. I really hope this project succeeds.

 

The PonoWorld application is based on JRiver Media Center. JRiver Media Center can handle HUGE libraries spread across multiple drives without slowing down. It has been tested with libraries of over 250,000 files.

 

Excellent! This might be a good way to pull out of my digital "black hole" of files that are just sitting on the external drives - to date I've been more of a "just load up what I want to hear" user and just deleting new stuff out of iTunes after I tag the files and move them to an external drive, so it'll be interesting to see if I can change my habits and maybe start enjoying my digital files collection more. That, or at least my digital "black hole" will all be in one place!

 

I got my Willie Nelson player today. It came with Red Headed Stranger and Teatro, two of my favorites by Willie so I think they chose well. It sounds very large. I have no experience with hirez except for SACD and a couple of DVDA discs, but the sound is really good. The shipping box itself is more robust than usual and when you add in the bamboo box, it should be resistant to all but the hardest mistreatment.

 

JRiver Media Center is very capable. Different than iTunes though. Requires a somewhat different mindset in how to go about some things. There will be a learning curve.

I don't know if you're PC or Mac. The Mac version of PonoWorld is going to be more "beta" than the Windows version. JRiver only recently ported JRiver Media Center to the Mac. The Mac version isn't a full mature product yet and not feature complete yet either. So expect the Mac version to have more problems or quirks than the Windows version.

JRiver has a form section where they're posting latest builds of PonoWorld. You can see what the latest version is and what has been fixed in each version.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=41.0

 

I got my shipped notice Monday. It's supposed to arrive tomorrow.

 

I really don't think "high resolution" is going to make a difference if the mastering isn't done well. I was really hoping Neil Young would be pushing for proper mastering of CD-quality content. I think the record companies are backing "high resolution" because they want to resell you all your albums again in, yet, another format. I don't see why it's so hard for record companies to put out good-sounding CDs. I also found it kind of ironic that Neil Young considered 16/44.1 "underwater" yet from what I'm hearing, the Pono store is still mostly 16/44.1.

That said, his Pono player looks interesting. I probably wouldn't pay $400 for one though.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'm a Mac guy, but don't really do a lot with music on iTunes other than drop files in the library so the files are organized on the hard drive and play a bit when I'm at my desk (I use XRD to rip, and some other program im blanking on to tag), so hopefully it won't be too steep a curve and hopefully the Mac version will improve over the coming year.

 

Thank you! I did think it was quite bizarre that Neil's most famous record was NOT available in 24 bit. I was logged in but it didn't matter. I will try it again

 

I have two ideas on the 16 bit/44.1 available at the store. Since it is for backers only at this time they can buy the 16 bit now and receive the upgrade free when it becomes available. I'm noticing they are charging more at the Pono store for the higher bit rate albums. It is a gamble as to when or even if but if you bought it at the lower price now you could save yourself some money down the road.

At first I was a little concerned with so little hirez in the store now but there is hirez in many other stores anyway so it doesn't really matter to me. I can wait. This player isn't going to replace my turntable anytime soon. It sounds really great with a good source. I can hear the difference when I play a file that is less than stellar. It stands out to me. I put a NY at Bonaroo show on their and it sounds good but it doesn't sound like the studio albums I have on there, even at 16 bit/44.1. I shall remain patient.

I hope they take some of the clunkiness out of the function.

 

Based on what i've seen, if there's one statement everyone on this forum would agree with it that mastering is the most critical factor in a good sounding recording

And of course the record companies are enthusiastic about the prospect of a new revenue stream, especially if it involves little/no effort. Unfortunately remastering is effort.
And i'm sure Neil Young is waxing enthusiastic about the sales hi-res potential and, who knows maybe better mastering too, but it's no surprise that the Pono store is launching with mostly 16/44.1. The higher res stuff requires some effort on the suppliers' (record companies) part whereas their catalog is already available at the lower res format. Launching the store with only hi res would mean rather lightly stocked shelves and reenforce the perception that this is a niche effort on the consumer and the supplier sides. From that perspective it makes sense, what doesn't is that there is no way to refine or search for hi-res, but but let's be generous and allow that they've chosen speed to market over perfecting the product.

 

I've been following the Pono stuff a little bit over the past year, and just assumed everything available on the store was going to be remastered hi-res audio. That definitely changes things (and not for the better) as far as I'm concerned. The store might look better to consumers with lots of available content, but it will only reinforce the idea that hi-res audio is snake oil if it doesn't actually sound better. Trotting out the same old brick walled/compressed masters even at 16/44.1 isn't going to make people go ooooh over their iTunes versions.

I think pricing is going to be an issue as well. I saw the Warner Bros music store is selling the Neil Young Storytone album in 192/24 for $32, but the CD is available on Amazon for $12. I have no idea what the Pono Store pricing looks like, but general public will flatly reject it if it's anything close to the Warner Bros music store price. It will be nothing more than a niche effort. Look at the pricing differences between movies on DVD and Blu Ray. It's maybe a couple bucks now? Even when Blu Ray was new they might have been 25%-50% more than the DVD version. But $12 compared $32 is bend me over the guardrail outrageous, and I'm not even getting physical media. At least I have something to hold in my hand when I buy Vinyl.

I'm also not sure why they bothered making a portable music player. I'm not going to want to walk around with a separate music player if I want portability. I'm already carrying a phone, and that is good enough for (for me) when listening to music in imperfect listening environments such as the car, the gym, or walking down the street. Sure, you can hook the player up to your high end stereo, but then your stuck selecting songs using the controls on the device, looking at the tiny screen, and dealing with the paltry 128gb of storage. Your also forced into using the players internal DAC which is fine if it's the best sounding DAC that will ever be made.

IMO they should have started with a Sonus style unit that has wireless connectivity and can be controlled with a tablet, phone app, or ten foot interface on a TV. Give it a decent quality internal DAC, as well as HDMI, COAX Dig, and Optical outputs for external DACS. If Pono is dying to sell hardware, they could just make a Pono brand USB DAC that does 24/192.

Sorry to be a downer here. I really do hope this succeeds. I want nothing more than to be able to download hi res 24/192 non brick walled masters of albums and play them using Jriver Media Center on my HTPC connected to a decent audio system.

 

To anyone that's interested, there has been a firmware update and it seems Pono now offers gapless playback!

https://ponomusic.force.com/ccrz__CCPage?pageKey=updates

 

Funny how there was so much chatter about it NOT playing gapless and absolutely NO chatter about a gapless update.

 

Well, I guess I'll be that guy and say that mastering is not the most critical factor in a good sounding recording. All artistic factors aside (songwriting, performance, arrangement, etc.), the recording engineer and/or mixing engineer are going to be much more critical to a good sounding recording than a mastering engineer can or should be.

With that said, a bad mastering can really ruin a great mix and a great mastering can really make it shine.

 

The recording is the bedrock on which the house is built.

 

Good that they've done it. Kudos.

 

What retails stores is PONO supposed to be available at today? I checked FRYS and NONE of their SoCal stores have them in stock. There was a banner on their web page last week saying "coming Monday". Now today, it just says "coming soon".

 

I would simply say Mastering is more important than resolution.

 

I think i have to agree with you. Although I've not heard any hirez player or sacd, or any of this stuff. I can't even figure out what 16/41 or 24/192 means after all this time reading about it.

I've got some cds that sound great! Some sound horrible. Same with vinyl. Same with digital downloads. What this experience has taught me, in my mind, is that while hi-rez may be technically better it's not worth the premium or the cost of re-buying all my albums.

When blu-ray came and blew away dvd resolution (in a way that i am yet to any audio blow away a cd) i re-purchased about 7 movies that i HAD to now see in hi Def! I don't feel that what soever with audio. Maybe my eyes can just see better than my ears can hear, or detect.

Sorry, one more point... While I'm willing to spend a bit of money on my home rig (a bit, not the farm), portable music is not something i can sit back and relax with, it's an on the go, rushing, or while accomplishing tasks type thing. Background music. I don't need my background music to be so hi-rez that I'm going to go spend a ton of money to get it. That seems like a very niche market to me. Hell, even with vinyl most of these people I've seen purchasing it lately are playing it on a Crosley. I think that's really saying something. But I'll leave that one up to the analyst's.

 

So, has your Pono player shipped?

 

As far as i can tell, my pono player hasn't even been built yet.