PONO Hands-on Review

I've looked at full datasheets for all 3 flaship 24 bit DACs (TI/Burr Brown, Cirrus/ESS, Woflson) online, just because I can. I also looked at TI and ESS 24-bit ADC. On paper they are all excellent, all are sigma multi-level Sigma Delta with a similar general architecture but each their own secret sauce. Their >120 dB performance are all staggering. I know that the rest of the external amps and implementation may influence and you have to listen. But on paper they look great.

Interestingly a passing observation is that both ADC above have lower performance numbers on paper, about -20 db more or less. They are still staggeringly good. So maybe all these DACs are input limited in a real system? Again not sure, need listening test.

 

I am so done with their software and store until they sort this garbage out. i downloaded Kind of Blue cause it's priced cheap. $9 clams for 24/96 - download failed - yet I kinda have the files in the download section of the Pono Jriver download section - which says failed and I can't move them nor are the files on my Enterprise Search function of my macbook.

I realize it's Beta but seriously - I can't take it ... done done done until they are V2 or V3 minimum. Player is good, but I'm only using drag and drop on my own files from now on.

I really don't have time to call Pono and sort this nonsense out.

Apparently Neil was all over the forums the other day, answering people's questions etc. He was shocked that the store has mostly 16/44k files. Really? You stopped smoking pot years ago.. No wonder John Hamm quit... ROFL

I hope the the lava flowing in Hawaii goes right into Neil's living room and destroys all his beloved Mcintosh gear... rant over...

 

You get that mad for $9.99? Lol

Downloads are indeed slow, and I held my breath watching the bar of progress. Kin of Blue 192/24 for $9.99. A steal! It's $24.99 on HD Tracks.

Mahalo!

 

Funny you should say that now. I got my player today and thought about d/l KOB too but I have it in so many formats and though I still continue to play it on the house system at least every few months or so I don't need it portably right now. I have most of Music Matters 45s on disc but they aren't flac so I would need to rip them to a new file as a flac and then upload them to my Pono and I can have cool analog sourced jazz on my digital player.

I'm not in any hurry to fill this puppy up and I'm certainly not going to rebuy a bunch of stuff. I'm going to take the opportunity to explore some new music AND check out this new fangled machine.

 

What format are your needledrops in? Pono plays more than just FLAC.

 

I ripped them with my HHB Recorder, so WAV file?

 

I hadn't heard about the 8 hour battery life.

 

Cirrus and ESS are two different companies and their DACs use different topologies.

 

https://ponomusic.force.com/ccrz__P...f-bb84-282388123ab6&sku=NY001&store=ponomusic

See specs. The battery has playback time of up to 8 hours (which is quite low IMO for a DAP).

 

It plays WAV files.

Can I play digital music files I already own on my PonoPlayer?
Yes, you can and it will probably sound better on the PonoPlayer than you've ever heard it.

The PonoPlayer is designed to play PonoMusic with stunning clarity. However, the player can play almost any kind of music track including FLAC, ALAC, mp3, WAV, AIFF, AAC (unprotected).

What this really means is the PonoPlayer can play all your digital music, and all of it will sound great.
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...your-soul-rediscovers-music#project_faq_83697

 

8 hours is on the low side. On the other hand, players that get 30+ hours have wimpy headphone amps that don't sound good and can't drive good headphones. So you end up needing an external portable headphone amp that might get maybe 12 hours of play time.

I'll take sound quality over long battery life. But 8 hours is still low.

I wonder if the PonoPlayer is able to play while plugged in to the charger or an external battery pack?

 

With all that space inside i would think aftermarket larger capacity batteries will arrive soon.

 

Yes it does.

As to battery life, it's possible that the processing of higher resolution music files uses up battery life more quickly. This was the case for the music player app I have on my phone.

 

Apologies for the lack of detail in my post as I'm about to hit the road but I just wanted to chime in on this thread and say that I'm absolutely loving my newly acquired Pono. I can't recall ever having enjoyed being in a traffic jam but on Tuesday night I sure did! And then I took the long way home..........

 

I received my player last week and am loving mine as well. And, yes, it sounds great in the car with a stock 2013 Honda Civic stereo. Much, much better than an iPod classic with lossless 24/48 files. Not even close.

And the Pono should continue to burn-in and improve. I've probably used it for 30 hours or so, and the sound has already opened up quite at bit and lost the initial harshness. I expect it to do so more, per Pono and experiences of others.

The Pono really, really shines with Hi-Res. The difference between redbook and 24-bit is quite apparent, more so than on anything else I've heard.

I find very easy to use and quite intuitive. I find book the look of the device itself and the graphics also better than I expected (perhaps the graphics have been upgraded with recent firmware).

It should be noted that I have only 'side-loaded' music via dragging and dropping files from my PC. The Ponomusic app does not seem intuitive, but I have only used it to upgrade the firmware. I will also use it to purchase music, but have not done so yet. I doubt I'll use the app for anything else.

I planned on only using the Pono for work/portable use, but this has changed, as the Pono easily out-performs my home DAC/music server set up. This is while plugging in the Pono with at cheap Radio Shack mini to RCA Y-connector cable. Easily beats my MacBook music server connected via toslink/optical cabling to a Schiit Bifrost (upgraded in 2013) DAC.

I guess I will have to look into a new receiver/amp that will support balanced mode to get the most out of the Pono at home. Also would like to replace my Seinheiser HD 595 cans with some that also support balanced mode (I'll probably wait for the upcoming Pono headphones, as (so far) you can't beat Pono hardware for bang-for-the-buck.)

Oh, and one more thing. The latest firmware update enables gapless playback for all lossless files. Hats off the Pono engineers for addressing this quickly.

Thanks so much Neil et all!!!

 

We need someone like Archimago to get Pono player, run some tests (listening ones, too) & post his measurements/impressions...

 

I'm a little skeptical yet. Has anyone done a side-by-side with the FiiO X5 or one of the higher-end Astell & Kern players? I still haven't seen one professionally-conducted blind test that conclusively proves "24-bit music" is better than the same thing at CD-quality.

That said, I'd love to listen to some of my FLAC rips on a Pono and compare it to my FiiO X3. I don't think I'd pay $400 for one though.

 

And does it work properly? This was a big issue for many (and rightly so, imo), so it's strange that its resolving didn't get more attention.

And why only for lossless? Sure, many Pono users will be mostly interested in lossless and hi-res, but it shouldn't stop there. Listening to lossy files gapless should be possible as well and I guess they will offer it in a future update.

 

Yes, gapless seems to work perfectly. Before upgrading the firmware, the gaps were quite annoying.

Since the upgrade, have not heard any gaps at all (and I played 'Live at Leeds [Deluxe Edition]' in 24/96 very loud immediately after upgrading.)

I'm not sure about lossy files, as I have almost all hi-res on my Pono, with a few lossless cd rips thrown in.
Perhaps gapless has never been a problem on lossy? Not sure.

As for enabling gapless not getting any attention; features/benefits of Pono don't seem very noteworthy around here. Just faults (real or otherwise.)

 

Just use your ears and determine if you can hear a difference between 16 and 24 bit files.

That being said, there are AES studies confirming the audibility of hi-res vis a vis redbook. Google them.

I don't trust "professional" reviewers for almost anything, considering they are often beholden to outside financial interests. I'll only trust individual listeners or a nonprofit organization like AES.

 

Someone mentioned burn in?

To be honest, I'm a little skeptical of the whole theory of burn in, and I think it is mostly psychological. I'll concede that the theory itself makes some more sense when considering it for tubes or speakers, something where the component is physically moving or changing temperature. But for a digital piece of equipment, with no moving parts, processing ones and zeros, undergoing absolutely no physical, chemical, electrical, or temperature changes? That sounds just silly, and I'd attribute any burn in of a portable music player to someone just getting used to the sound.

Anyway, back on track, 8 hours of battery life sound absolutely crazy low for something like this.

 

Thanks for the feedback. That's good news.

This is what it says on the Pono site:
Tracks for lossy file types (MP3, AAC) are played with no gap added by the player - however any padding added by the original file encoding process that is contained in the file itself is not removed.
I'm don't really know what that means, but maybe gapless playback is only an issue for some lossy files.

Sadly, this appears to be true.

 

The company already put out a tech sheet explaining their idea why burn-in works. As to nothing at all happening to digital equipment, well, if you have a phone that never heats up when you're busy playing Angry Birds and won't eventually fail because of it, well, then, you have proof their theory would not hold up. But any signal is still beholden to the circuitry it travels through, and if thermal stress affects the life of the component it may also affect the performance.

 

No there are not. Please provide a link. There are papers discussing opinions about other papers, but there are no actual ABX test results of modern 24b FLAC vs 16b redbook since 2007 Boston Audio Society paper that found redbook could encode the output of SACD/DVDA without being detectable blind (with actual testing on large number of subjects).

I get these assertions often but no link is ever provided, or if one is it doesn't conclude what you thought it did. But if there is I would like to read it.

 

Would love to... Anyone in the Vancouver area willing to lend me their Pono for a few days over the holidays?