Is Pono no more?

personally being a cd guy, i'm about to purchase my first digital juke box... the "hifi walker h2" flac/native DSD (up to 128 bit/5.6 MHz), bad ass dac, and most importantly.. GAPLESS PLAYBACK. now i can finally carry my cd collection with me.. if i want too.

 

My feeling on high res audio has always been that the blind test is absurd. Take an album on mp3, listen to it for five years, then listen to it as dsd or vinyl or 24/192 and you will notice the difference immediately.

 

Pono failed for two very simple reasons:

1. Streaming killed Downloads (see RIAA/Nielsen)
2. Content (licensing) is hard to get for a large enough catalog to be viable. (see 7digital)

 

Yep. After thousands of concerts and untold hours of listening to music I can't tell the difference. Sirius or Spotify through my Sonos system sounds as good as anything I've ever heard.

I am able to hear a difference with original vinyl through my '77 Marantz speakers. Had friends over the other night and put on my pristine vinyl of Nebraska and it sounded great. But wait -- that sound came from a cassette!

 

This thread convinced me to grab my Pono for some listening. However it's now claiming that file after file is corrupt. I copy the file fresh from my main hard drive each time I get the message, and it just finds a new file to call corrupt. The software on this thing left a lot to be desired.

 

Two points:

First, the "stupidity of the average consumer" thing was me trying to be funny. I do seriously believe many are mis-informed, hence the success of hot dog**** like Beats headphones which are pretty unanimously derided as overpriced rubbish.

Second, I'd hardly call myself an audiophile. Yes, I'm interested in good sound, but my priority is always new/better music first and new/better gear second. But point taken and I've frequently observed the rarified attitude that sometimes accompanies audiophile talk.

And yes, well spotted on the "testimonials." That was, to me, the closest I came to sniffing snake oil. You never get to hear the thing yourself as part of the campaign. You just listen to name drop celebs talking about how amazing it sounds. Had some cold sweat flashbacks to the Emperor's New Clothes...

Bear in mind, I'm not saying the Pono was snake oil. Just saying that portion of the campaign did its credibility no good.

Point. I suppose at this point, the iPhone is about the best you'll get on that front. Still, audio accessories are sold at places like Best Buy, so the idea that they could also stock portable players isn't so outlandish. It would also offer the possibility of a listening stand where people could see what the fuss was about, which based on owner testimonials here, I dare say would have been likely to move a few units.

This is strictly anecdotal, but I've got to disagree here. Maybe not necessarily between redbook and hi-res, but there's a distinct, audible difference between a 320kbps MP3 and redbook when the source material isn't trash. I went into that comparison not expecting to hear a difference, or to only hear a negligible difference, so my personal experience is hardly the stuff of bias. The twin areas that redbook will blast even the best MP3s out of the window are room ambience and bass. Granted, what's "mathematically" happening here is that the extreme high and low frequencies are left alone, but that's what a listener is likely to pick up on. Lower lows and much better "room information" in the recording.

Even with crunched, metal recordings, the low end on the bass and kick drums will be much more smoothly rounded out playing the same track back on the same equipment via MP3 and FLAC. The difference is just less pronounced, presumably on the tracks I auditioned due to the recording not being done at a high enough bitrate to have information much beyond what you'd get in an MP3.

And yes, I've gotten repeat results demonstrating this to other people who nominally don't care about audio quality at all. The difference is there to hear, but it's a question of what material is being used to show off the effect.

Just replying to your post to give it a thumbs up (again). You nailed the argument I was trying to make better than I did.

Yeah, I honestly had no idea. There aren't any Frys immediately around me, so I both missed any announcement of this AND lacked the capacity to just accidentally wander in and find the thing sitting there. Any word on how much foot traffic moved units at Frys?

Wait... You're ****ting me, right?

 

I'll definitely take a look...Much obliged!

 

They did, with Fry's. Not sure they flew off the shelves.

 

Based on that, any good recommendations to load up as examples in the Revealer on the Pono?

 

I purchased my Pono at Fry's and I am not sure it ever even made it onto the shelf. I went and physically looked in store and asked a clerk about one and got nowhere. Then I went online and did the buy and pick up in store gimmick and sure enough about 20 minutes later an email arrives saying that my order is ready. Back I went to the same store and they indeed had the Pono pulled for me.
I will say that some months later I noticed that they had an endcap set up promoting the Pono, but the display model in the case was not actually hooked up so you could try it. My take away was that the Fry's "partnership" was a decidedly half assed affair.

 

If you're talking about comparing hi-res to redbook, Weezer's Everything Will Be Alright, Dream Theater's self-titled and Opeth's Pale Communion are a few solid examples, IMO, of course...

 

If I recall correctly, Pono had, at most, six employees, maximum, at any given time. The Fry's deal was probably a handshake and two signatures on the back of a McDonald's hash brown packet. They should have held another damned Kickstarter to build up their internal infrastructure! LOL If only, right?

 

I'd have to dig back and find the CD I created as a "proof of concept." Keep in mind, it made a difference regardless of what and where I played the thing. Maybe a boombox wouldn't reveal the difference, but I'd be curious to try that...

Basically, if you've got a recording that was made in a room with acoustic information from the room which wasn't created by a digital plugin, the difference will be night and day. I've even encountered some electronic music (a band called And One) where the bass simply gets cut off a the knees by the MP3 encoding and it's only after listening to either the redbook or a lossless rip that you realize how much was taken out.

 

That's great insight, thanks!

 

So vintage jazz recordings would be good candidates, no?

 

Great point. Add Kind of Blue and Miles Smiles to my earlier list.

 

Acoustic stuff really shines. I have a Allison Krause/Union Station recording at 192/24 that is sublime through the Pono. I believe that for most rock music, in stereo, it's hard to hear a difference between hi res and red book. However, well recorded and mastered acoustic oriented music is pretty amazing at 96 or 192 khz.

Note that the real mojo in the Pono experience was the Ayre design and components. The analog (headphone) output is pretty amazing.

 

Great point. Pono failed to get their product demoed to potential customers. There was no way for a potential buyer to hear how good it sounded!

Instead they marketed Neil and friends saying " trust me, it's high res, it must be better"

 

Those stupid videos of Sting and Eddie Vedder riding around in Linc Volt...

 

sorry for your loss. funny you end up here of all places!?

 

has anyone else here checked out the "hifi walker h2" ? <--that thing is the cat's ass!

 

That does look good, bluetooth and high def flac/dsd, does it do gapless? Looks like a decent alternative to Fiio's X1 Gen 2 or X3 Gen 3.

 

gapless, yes. that was one of the biggest selling points for me. gotta have gapless!

edit: well that and awesome sound quality and native dsd! (and flac)

 

I thought gapless was pretty much a common thing these days.

Groove Music on my phone does gapless.

 

My car stereo does 24/48 flac via usb and it's not gapless, my phone doesn't do gapless but it's not absolute high end phone and it's a couple of years old.