14 out of 15 listeners can't tell the difference between PONO & iTunes Store downloads on an iPhone

Probably has something to do with the fact that the iPhone can be used for many other things. This isn't that hard is it?

 

Not trying to dispute your ability to hear the difference -just that you are in a small minority. Now please continue with your smugness, it is generating the power to charge my iPhone.

 

But they preferred the sound in a blind test, not knowing it was the iPhone. So obviously they heard a difference.

 

Well, it's an I-Phone! It would be like giving someone a transistor radio and trying to hear the difference between a record being broadcast and a cassette. The bottleneck ain't with the record!

 

This should provide power for your iPhone for at least a day.

""And yet it moves" or "Albeit It does move" (Italian: Eppur si muove; [epˈpur si ˈmwɔːve]) is a phrase said to have been uttered before the Inquisition by the Italian mathematician, physicist and philosopher Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) in 1633 after being forced to recant his claims that the Earth moves around the Sun rather than the converse. In this context, the implication of the phrase is: despite this recantation, the Church's proclamations to the contrary, or any other conviction or doctrine of men, the Earth does, in fact, move around the sun, and not vice versa."

 

The title of this thread/article is misleading then.

 

Again, listening to my records when I'm at home suffices for me. I don't have the time to needledrop them so I can listen to them in hi-res in the car, nor is listening to records in hi-res in the car something I care about: iTunes and Beats music provide more than enough sound quality for a noisy environment when I'm not listening critically for sound quality to begin with.

 

And Neil Young should be Galileo Galilei ?:soul, believe me, 3%,15%, cds have mediocre quality, sounds like God...

 

So, what does Galileo have on his Pono? And does it move him?

 

Nice story, thanks for the link.

 

It sure is.

 

Probably because the analog stage on the iPhone is well built, and designed to accommodate a wide variety of impedances.

Y'all can call it an iToy all you want, if you think that helps the Pono in some way.

 

The original title of this thread is "14 out of 15 listeners can't tell the difference between PONO and a CD," which tells us that the OP doesn't know what he's talking about and that he only started this as a hater's thread.

So why was the thread title changed? Why wasn't the thread (and the hate) just deleted?

 

The truth hurts.

 

Buying a Pono would be extremely painful.

 

And these quotes are market proof of what I've said all along....this format change needs to be for music moving FORWARD....yes--there's also a solid technical reason for the industry to take one last pass at remastering as all the tapes (both digital and analog) are dying or dead. And almost all hold greater resolution than CD. But, I don't know where that means anyone needs to rebuy anything.

If I hand you a player capable of 96khz (and you're likely reading this on one now)...it also plays everything you own from a linear 16/44 redbook file to the compressed formats. Let's say I've handed you that:

-if you don't "reBuy" your catalog it sounds either the same or BETTER due to the DAC tech involved
-if you DO....it may sound EVEN better still.

So, you're not in any way obligated to rebuy anything you're happy with. You don't even have to rerip your CDs if you want to keep using the 320 files.

The driver for this needs to be new music. I hate to keep going back to this--but if the industry had simply switched to SACD in 2001 like was the plan before Warner&Co shat on that with a format war....I'd right now own some 4-500 SACDs. Maybe more, as I MIGHT'VE "rebought" some older titles....but, I just mean the number of newly released CDs I've bought since then. THose would all be SACDs. Even if I didn't buy an SACD player in 2002, which I did....I'd be listening to the CD layer....and at some point, I'd be "hey, I've got 350 of these things--maybe I should buy an SACD player and check that layer out"....I go back for a reason. It's not sour grapes--it's informing what's happening right now with files.

Imagine this....new Taylor Swift album is released. Only on 24/96 from Pono. He couldn't keep those little widgets in stock. Software sells hardware. Always. And, looking at the pono store or HDT is like looking at someone selling Microsoft Word97---"now compatible with Windows 8!!". I know that's not a perfect analogy, since technically a well done 24/96 actually DOES also sound better....but, I think from the perspective of the majority of buyers...that is the feeling.

 

I don't plan on buying a Pono and have only scanned the various threads about it, but your post leaves me more confused than ever.

My initial understanding was that Pono only played Pono files... all the albums that Neil loves were going to be remastered. But Pono "files" are simply hi-rez files, the same as have been issued for a few years now so the Pono shop is simply a gathering place outlet for all hi-rez. Now you're saying that the reproduction system within the Pono device will make any digital file sound better than on an iPod or other portable unit; hi-rez, WAV, mp3... they all get a boost.

But we're still talking portable, right? It's not a technological breakthrough that leaves audiophile Big Rigs in the dust, correct?

Portable listening comes with a lot of distractions... at least in NYC. I have enjoyed a recent upgrade to Fidelio ear buds (I just don't like walking around town wearing a full set of headphones) so I'm not totally resistant to the concept of improved fidelity. But when people spend big bucks and start salivating over a perceived 1% improvement in fidelity (post #298) I know it's time for me to back out of the dialogue.

 

This is much ado about nothing for me. I play hi res music files on a high quality home stereo. But I guess that that's not the major target for Pono store files or other digital downloads. On my home hi fi I can certainly hear the difference between hi res and lossy iTunes store files. 15/15 times.

 

"There's a sucker born every minute."

P. T. Barnum

 

Good posts on both sides here relative to Pono. I'm hardly a hi-res convert based on my own listening experience, but it makes perfect sense to me that a Pono player could sound better than an iPhone or iPod in some listening situations and set ups given that that Pono uses audiophile-grade hardware/components.

I bet I have tinnitus at least as "bad" as Neil, but I very much doubt that my very slight hearing loss at 8000 Hz and beyond rivals what ol' Neil is dealing with in terms of not being able to hear well. Anyway, tinnitus doesn't interfere with hearing, only hearing loss interferes with hearing. In some cases of tinnitus, the tinnitus frequency can correspond to the frequency of a person's hearing loss, and this can cause confusion during audiological exams for the person being tested, so audiologists will pulse the testing signal so the hearer can tell the difference between the tinnitus and the test signal. But that's as far as tinnitus interfering with hearing goes. Tinnitus can be a "side effect" of hearing loss, but the severity of tinnitus and the severity of hearing loss actually have little to do with each other. Some people who test as clinically deaf have no tinnitus, while some folks with very slight hearing loss, and sometimes no detectable hearing loss, can have very severe tinnitus. Roughly two thirds of all people with a measurable hearing loss have no tinnitus.

Anyway, tinnitus does not prevent you from being able to tell the difference between good and bad sound, and it doesn't make it any more difficult to do so. It is a separate issue from hearing loss.

 

You are kind of halfway making my point. If mom and pop store tries to talk to a big label, they probably aren't listening. But HDTracks is we assume somewhere in between mom and pop and Walmart. So they have limited clout, but not as limited as a mom and pop. I mean, it all depends on what kind of an outfit they want to be. If they want to be just a place to sell others' wares, regardless of the quality or shoddiness, then OK. The same goes for Pono -- are they going to be discriminating, demanding, fussy about what they sell, or will they just be like amazon, where you can buy a luxury good or a cheap substitute? At least on amazon, you get customer reviews, so if the hedge trimmer works for a month and breaks, people can complain about it. Last I knew HDTracks does not have such reviews. As for Pono, I don't know. I guess the customer reviews are posted here on stevehoffman.tv, but only a certain fraction of HDTracks customers know about this site or will seek it out. All I can say is, since none of the hi-res outfits has established a reputation -- at least not to my satisfaction -- caveat emptor!

 

The OP linked an article in his original post of this thread....the title, in my opinion, is immaterial. Honestly who cares one jot...sheesh. . If I had started this thread I may have called it "Iphone Sounds BETTER than PONO : Yahoo Tech Blind Test Reveal"

When a thread is created that some may find "offensive to their own beliefs"..the answer is to not delete the thing..it should remain viewable in order to stimulate debate...and that is exactly what has happened here. There are too many on here that sling their toys from their strollers at the drop of a hat...

Once again OP, thank you for starting this thread.

 

Actually it was not he who said that - "most likely spoken by David Hannum, in criticism of both P. T. Barnum, an American showman of the mid 1800s, and his customers. "

 

I'll bet Neil can't

 

Yes.

The value for money or bang for your buck of the Pono player may be open to debate but I don't understand the existential antipathy that people have for it: as though it needs to be hounded out of existence by villagers with pitchforks. As far as I can see the best case scenario is that it could be comparable to an audiophile source and the worst case scenario is that it's little better than an iPhone. Between those two points I don't see how there's room for all this vitriol.