PONO Feedback? Anyone have one yet?

Who wants to compete? I can't speak for anyone else, I queried the logic that says all phones sound bad that's all. If they did, do you think I'd waste my time with mine?

I use mine all day at work, so if it sounded as bad as some of you people think smartphones do, there's no way I'd use it. I'd have bought a dedicated player.

However, the sound quality is good. Excellent in fact. It's a nice interface, that works well and neatly with Gracenote to get album data.

The phone is a Sony Xperia Z1 Compact, it has the aforesaid Onkyo app, though I mainly use the Walkman software. Sounds great.

And seriously, I get pono. Completely. I just disagree with some aspects of how the player is touted. I'm sure it's very good, but the near Apple fanboy cult worship leaves me cold.

 

I suggested that you listen to one before commenting about it and comparing it. Because if you had you wouldn't have considered a phone to be a viable substitute. The PonoPlayer and some other select portable players are at a whole nother level of audio quality compared to a phone.

 

I could care less about the resolution if it's a horrible mastering job. The pono store doesn't specify if they are remastering the audio to a higher resolution or they are simply selling random high resolution masterings. That would be more or less a crap shoot of what your gonna get. I wouldn't want to here the 1980's Beatles digital remasters high resolution or not.

I'm also a little disappointed that Neil opted for a 3.5mm input. High end headphones don't use 3.5mm cables for the most part. I almost want to mod it and put in a 4 or 5 pin XLR input.

 

Sorry but you are making statements you can't back up. If I wanted that level of performance, I'd simply get the more complete product (for my needs) in the Astell & Kern AK120.

 

The AK120II is $1400
The PonoPlayer is $400

And yes, the $400 PonoPlayer can hold its own in sound quality against players like the A&K. If you'd just go out and listen to a PonoPlayer you would know and you'd stop making such comments that make you look like a fool. The sound quality of the PonoPlayer is obvious if you'd just listen to it.

 

A player for general use has to support the 3.5mm TRS connection. Its the standard. It's what 99.99% of people have. Only the 0.01% even know what a balanced headphone is.

The PonoPlayer does support balanced modes. Balanced line-out to two 3-pin XLR interconnect cables for home/studio gear. And a balanced mode for headphones. To use balanced connections you plug in to both 3.5mm jacks using a custom headphone cable or a custom adapter.

I've ordered a balanced headphone adapter for my PonoPlayer. It should come in the mail this week. It's a short adapter with two 3.5mm TRS plugs and a 4-pin female XLR that you connect a balanced headphone cable to.

A balanced headphone adapter looks like this:

 

1. I'm in the UK and it's not generally available here, US sales only last time I looked

2. It's a Beta product and not the finished article, so I'm told and still has glitches, in other words, I'm not spending £400 on somebody's work in progress

3 the AK120 is £1200 in the UK

4 It offers greater storage options in two 128Gb card inputs

5 I prefer the design

6 Better UI

7 Better screen design

8 Fewer niggles (daft volume control, othwerwise, no issues)

I'm delighted you like the pono, it's a nice concept wrapped up in a small bundle. It's not a goer for me for the reasons I've mentioned. That doesn't make me foolish, nor does suggesting that smartphones offer great sound, which they often do.

What it does show is that I'm open minded enough to have thought through the options and come to a reasoned conclusion that you either don't get or choose not to. God forbid that someone should exercise their choice and not lavish praise on Neil's pono. Thanks, I'm fine where I'm at. Pono? Not close, no cigar.

 

Actually, all you're doing is offering an uninformed opinion within the context of the thread. You don't have the player and have apparently never touched one, so your impressions of it don't come from any true personal experience of it. The next question was if you eventually intended to inform your opinion with actual hands-on experience. From your last sentence, the answer is no. The conclusion is that your opinion and impressions will stay second hand or wholly uninformed. All that is left to be answered is how many times you will continue to "contribute" to the thread if your statements can only come from exactly the same place.

 

Ouch.

 

Send one across. Otherwise I refer you to the answer I gave yesterday to another questioning posting on this thread without having a pono.

And my opinion is based on those reviews and owner opinions from across the board here and elsewhere, rather more than just looking at the pono site or store and going by that.

Since I don't expect you'll be sending one for me to try, you'll need to make do with this in response to your point-scoring observations.

And incidentally this is what comes from you people when my earlier post mentioned an alternative hi res app that Onkyo produced. Apparently, nobody's allowed to suggest that now either.

 

I was the OP.

I don't understand why people who don't have a PONO are commenting negatively on this thread. Sure, it's the Internet, so I guess anyone can say anything.

Nothing better to do I guess?

I like the concept of it, will buy one when I can hear one in a store.

 

FiiO X1. Sounds great and is $99 new.

 

So you wouldn't find it useful if someone found positive or negative user feedback from somewhere else and posted here?!

Just buy one online and return it if it doesn't suit. A lot rate it though soundwise, it's how much the ancillary niggles bother you though, but they are working through those.

 

MY feedback (from someone who ACTUALLY owns a Pono player, not one whose main task is to derail and thread crap):

I have the Tom Petty LE version.

I love my Pono.

It is not a perfect player. The shape is very restrictive IF my goal was to be completely mobile. BUT the shape accommodates the battery for easy replacement.

My goal for my high res player was to have a unit that sounded good, that could have the battery replaced easily without having to throw the unit out, and to have the ability to insert SD cards for more space.

The D/A converter on this thing sound amazing. I compared the same files (Apple Lossless) of Petty's "Hypnotic Eye" on my 80 GB iPod and the Pono. Same headphones. Totally different sound. The bonus highlight for me was the surprise inclusion of "Wildflowers" as a THIRD free album with the player. Way to go, Tom! (they were only supposed to include two free albums with the LE players).

Sounds great plugged into the van (analog in). Would it have been nice to add a bluetooth option? Yes, but you would have had to sacrifice space and sound to do it.

My main use for my Pono is to use it as I drive in the van, when I fly, when I am in a coffee shop reading or at home wanting to escape that was not combined with my phone. I didn't want it for the times I would go running or for long walks (but I could, it would just be in a case).

The last two firmware updates have done the following: the first allowed gapless playback (something a lot of people on here complained about), and the second allowed DSD files to be played on the player. Talk about two significant updates!! Not bad for a company of 6!

Some of you can slag this product all you want - because you have nothing better to do than to slag something you will never own just for the sake of slagging - but I am very pleased with it. I was on the fence before I bought it, but it met and exceeded my expectations. You don't like the shape? Go with a Fiio. You want a multipurpose unit? Go with a smartphone that will never have the quality DAC that Pono has. It's really that simple.

 

This sounds like a great cheaper alternative. It has no onboard hard drive for music right? Just one SD card slot? Does it play DSD files?

With the Pono you are paying for the hard drive space and the included SD card up front. I wonder how the DACs compare in both units?

 

Yes it is an affordable alternative. It has no on-board memory. You must purchase a microSD card for it. As far as I know, it doesn't play DSD. You have to move up to the X3 or X5 for DSD, and I believe those convert DSD to PCM before playback. X1 has a Texas Instruments PCM5142. Not sure how the DACs compare, but this thing sounds awesome to me for $99.

 

That Onkyo app is iOS only right now, so this would be akin to suggesting the Neutron player for Android, since you mentioned your phone is the Xperia Z1 Compact. I'll assume from that that you haven't tried the Onkyo player yourself.

Again, you've said you have no interest in this player now under the current circumstances, so I think my point is still relevant as well. The thread was supposed to be meant for first-hand experiences with the player. If someone has to lend you their player for you to bother trying it out then I think that is simply another restatement of your earlier point.

For what it's worth, my current phone is the Xperia Z3, which should have DAC specs at least as good as your phone, and have had it for about the same time as the Pono player. It of course can handle hi-res FLACs as well, so I've used both the native audio app and the Neutron player, which I consider to deliver sound about as good as you can get on this mobile platform. Listening to the same files, the Pono player sounds better, particularly with regards to width of soundstage, the midrange and tightness of bass. As I don't have any DSD files at the moment I cannot attest to either device's playback performance regarding that format, since the Z3 can play back those files. DSD playback a feature that the Onkyo app does bring to the iOS platform that may be unique to it right now.

 

The Onkyo HF Player app is on my phone just now, it's not just iOS and hasn't been for some time. The rest is all very much YMMV. And mine does.

 

I've been listening to my hi-res music since I bought them, probably beginning when HDtracks started selling them. That's never been a problem for me. When I saw that Neil was going to sell a player specifically made for hi-res music, I was in.

I'm very happy with the Pono player and my NAD Electronics VISO HP50's allow me to walk around the house enjoying my music as if I'm sitting in my listening room playing my system. It's the ability to have a wide and deep soundstage, listening to the music as if I was in the room while it was being made that I enjoy the most.

Of course I wish the player had bluetooth connectivity, but it doesn't. I read a post earlier today that was full of complaints about the Pono player, but I'd rather enjoy what I have right now vs. what it "could/should have."

 

Well as much as I like my Petty player - I decided to throw it up on Ebay. Not using it nearly as much as I thought I would.... I can always revisit down the road... like trading a stock... lol

 

I would love to give an opinion on mine. I received it 3 days ago but have been unable to do anything with it except update the firmware to v1.0.5. That took multiple attempts to get the PMW to recognize the player. Since then, no recognition by the software despite trying different USB ports etc. Nothing, nada, zilch. (Macbook Pro-Mavericks-Ponomusic World 20.0.50). Should it really be this difficult? Very frustrating . Hopefully their tech support can help me out.

 

I don't know if I'm imagining a pattern or not. But it seems that my player doesn't get recognized as reliably if the screen is off when I plug in the USB cable. I'm using Windows.

So try this:
Set the Sleep & Lock time to 45 seconds or 5 minutes instead of 10 seconds
Hit a button on the player to wake the screen and make sure the player is awake and ready
Plug in the USB cable to the player and the computer
Cross your fingers

I don't know if I'm imagining things or not, but that process seems to work better. I'm on firmware 1.0.5.

 

I'm on 1.0.5, but cannot recall ever having such a recognition problem. My Sleep & Lock time is most always set to "never" (just cause I'm usually in a positon where seeing a song title makes sense to me--and anyway I got tired of the display shutting itself off when I didn't want it to do that).

But perhaps that is beside the point for me. I never connect (or disconnect) my Pono's USB cable unless the player is off. That's just kinda long-time electrical procedure for me. Once the USB is connected, then I'll turn the player on and wait for it to present me with the load music option. It just never fails to do that. If I do select load music, complete recognition is no more than a few seconds away. And, as I've pointed out earlier in this thread, I only drag and drop to the player.

 

That's interesting. I had never tried getting a USB connection starting from full shutdown. I just tried it that way a couple of times and it connected each time.

Put the player into full Shutdown
Connect USB cable to player and computer
Press the power button to turn on the player
Wait
When the Load Music prompt comes up hit Yes

The PonoPlayer drives got recognized each time I tried that procedure.

I suspect the issues are to do with subtle timing problems in initializing the USB connection. I'm sure they'll get that tweaked and worked out in future firmwares so we won't be having these USB connection problems.

 

A slight correction to my previous statement...

I said I only disconnected the USB cable if the player is off. While that is true if I've been listening to music with the USB cable connected (connected in order to not deplete the battery's charge), if I've been modifying the stored music on the built-in drive or on the inserted micro-SD card I'll use my Win 7 icon to eject the Pono player. Then, once Windows gives me the go-ahead, I'll unplug the USB cable with the Pono player still powered up...and make sure it recognizes my modifications.