PONO Hands-on Review

Yes that is cool!

I was looking at some of the Sony balanced cables. They are kind of pricey, purchased on their own.

(Sorry - everybody - for my confusion earlier.)

 

Magic_Randy (Member)
Another Fry's deal on PonoPlayers
1 day only - July 27
In store only
$100 off ($299.99 plus tax) with promo code

 

As I just ordered a Pono yesterday and already own a pair of Sennheiser HD 650 headphones, I'm really interested in learning more about the much talked about "balanced cable". Where can I purchase the cable for a reasonable cost? Is there a particular style of balanced cable needed for my headphones and the Pono? Any info would be greatly appreciated!

 

Given the fact that standard balanced cables for the 600/650 from Sennheiser retail for $240, the Surf Cable Pono cable seems pretty reasonable starting at $85.

 

You could also go with Venus Audio in Wisconsin on Ebay...Dale has done work on 3 or four cables for my Pono now....Canare cabling cost me about $50. Cardas cabling was slightly more...Great quality!

 

The Surf Cables headphone cable is rather stiff. I don't think it would be a very ergonomic headphone cable. Price is good though.
Venus Audio cables also look to be a bit stiff, but likely less stiff than the Surf Cables.

CustomCans has a UK web store and also tends to have a Sennheiser cable on the US eBay store. These cables will be flexible enough and the price is reasonable compared to some of the other options.

Some of the other options that can do a Senn HD650 cable for the Pono are
Norne Audio. The Zoetic cable can be done for the Pono. Price is going to be over $200. Email them to find out which other of their cables can be done for the Senn and Pono.
Moon Audio can do Pono cables. They're into the $300ish range.
ALO Audio can do Pono cables too.

I'd probably go for the CustomCans cable.
But what I might do instead is get a good flexible short Pono to female 4-pin XLR adapter and then use 4-pin male XLR style balanced cables for the headphones. That would end up being the most cost effective way for me. Since I've got home headphone amps that have balanced 4-pin XLR connectors. I'd probably go with Norne Audio for that option. Norne cables are ergonomically friendly, and look nice. Though a bit expensive.

Currently I'm still using a Surf Cables Pono to 4-pin female XLR adapter that is too stiff to be practical. I need to get something more suitable and more flexible.

 

All great options, Ham....Folks within the official Pono community absolutely rave about CustomCans, while a bunch of posters on Head-fi are equally enthusiastic about Norne. Plenty of fantastic options out there at various price points.

 

This is certainly a much better price at £35, and one that allows for even casual interest in balanced playback. This looks like exactly the same build quality as the cables I'm currently using on the Oppo PM-2 headphones for balanced playback, and I can attest to the improvement in the sound: in short, there is more there there.

 

I have nothing to compare these cables to. Given that, I am happy with the CARDAS PONO PLAYER BALANCED MODE HEADPHONE CABLE SENNHEISER from venus_audio . (About $105 shipped to the USA.)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/171629420247?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

I do not find them to be stiff. I have heard no microphonics. They plug in to the headphones easily.

 

How does loading music on Pono work. Is it possible to have say two microSD cards, and switch back and forth between the two without a computer. In other words I dump the music on the cards directly and Pono reads from the cards. I am wondering if it would work on the road without a computer. Thanks

 

I just drag and drop from computer folder to Pono folder, or folders. The internal storage shows as one folder and the SD card shows as another folder.

They are not separated in the UI though. That shows up as if there is one unit of storage.

Yes, you do switch back and forth between the SD cards without a computer involved. The Pono reads the library each time it is powered up (after a complete power down).

No problem with the SD card switching.

You will have to find something to charge it though. I have only been using my computer to charge my Pono and have not thought about looking for a non-computer charger. Wonder how easy it would be to find one that is safe to use. Anyone find one, AC and/or DC?

 

Thanks, is the reading time very long once you put a new card in? I don't need playlist ability, just go to an album and play.

Also I am very interested in the charging from a wall socket, if anyone found a solution for that as it seems pretty critical.

 

It will read the card and the internal memory. I have the internal 128 GB about full and the 128 GB SD card about half full. It doesn't take a full minute to read that.

 

Actually, the Pono player comes with an A/C adapter. It's a small two prong A/C plug thing that the included USB charger/data cord plugs into. It does what it's supposed to. I mainly use it when I'm using the Pono's line out to drive my main rig.

There are probably people who'd like to run the Pono long-term in a car. For that, I picked up one of these (can take one or two standard USB cords).

 

Thanks for everyone's input! Just purchased a set from Surf Cable.

 

I hate to be picky because I very much appreciate all of your help but for the record the internal memory is 64GB right? Maybe they upgraded it already which would be cool? Honestly I was very close to pulling the trigger on the Ibasso dx90 but some of the design features ayre put into this I am beginning to think may just be next-level stuff.

Maybe I should and perhaps will put this next question in the Pono headphone thread that has been lingering next to this one, but the Cardas EM5813 with a balanced cable looks very interesting and possibly a nice match with this DAP. Does anyone have experience with that combo by chance? I have the etymotic ER4S so that is my wheelhouse and I would love to hear any other IEM opinions, especially balanced mode, with the Pono; I think it might be time to put my trusty ol' war horse to pasture especially given its driving requirements-- ready to give up the portable amp I am.

 

Yeah, 64GB internal memory. I misremembered the internal storage size. I also forgot about the AC charger. A bad day.

This is not a recommendation, just an observation about how some of what is special about the Pono sound can be heard with $80 IEMs. When I first got my Pono all I had handy was my HiFiMan RE-400. I never heard them sound so good. I also knew I was keeping the Pono based on that first listening with these.

 

I haven't done much testing with load times when swapping cards. I only have one microSD card. So I'm not swapping cards.

The initial load of a card can be a bit slow. Even slower if you have DSD files on the card. But after that initial load the future load times for the card will be faster as long as you don't change the files on the card. The PonoPlayer does some caching of what is on the card so subsequent load times of that card can be faster as long as the content on the card hasn't changed. I don't know if it will cache multiple cards (I think it may).

 

Could you please post if the 200GB micro SD worked?

 

A question for the thread: Where is the download link for the Pono manual? All I can seem to find in the Pono support section are videos.

I'm looking for actual technical documentation. Thanks.

 

My PONO came with an ac brick much like what you use with an iPhone. The PONO usb cable plugs right into it

 

Thanks for the help. This is what the Pono site says about the card scanning times as it relates to multiple cards.

The PonoPlayer keeps a cache for 3 microSD cards, so if you use no more than 3 cards you can swap the cards and the media scan will be quick. If you then insert a fourth card one of the existing 3 databases will be deleted and a full scan is done on the 4th card. That 4th database is then cached. So, if you then insert the card whose database was removed, the player will do a full scan on that card again (and remove the oldest database).

 

It worked just fine. I copied around 130GB to the card using an external reader and the Pono (after quite a while ingesting) was able to access and play the card contents without difficulty.

The sound quality of this thing is huge compared to the price and physical size. I'm not a huge fan of the tiny, low quality LCD touch panel that you can't really see unless you're looking at it dead-on (angular viewing is almost impossible). The GUI is decent, but would be better with a larger, better quality LCD touch panel.

But for $400, cutting corners on the "extras" is OK with sound this good. Everything I plug in from IEMs to full sized cans (nothing over 100 ohms yet) sounds very nice. The Pono is a keeper.

 

Thanks for the info. I'll be able to carry almost all my hi-res music on one card.

I had a conversation with my son last week about my Pono. He said, "I don't get that thing. I listen to music on my iPhone like everybody else in the world does." Let's just say that I - ahem - educated him. I probably didn't change his mind, but he has his own interests and hobbies. He enjoys music. he had no idea that there are different forms of music, i.e. the best sounding music available and music that's cut down to a small size with a good chunk of the music missing. I explained how I used to spend several hours making MP3s with an application I used. He's better educated now, but doesn't seem to care about better quality music, which is his prerogative.

 

We turned off my Pono with lossless files in the car yesterday to play Kiss 108 (today's hits) on the FM radio for my two kids. Very compressed, beat driven, lots of rap, processed unnatural female vocals, and they were happy as can be.