PONO Feedback? Anyone have one yet?

Agreed, and it's a point I've been making on this forum for a while now. There's tremendous value to music fans in offering lossless downloads of OOP CD titles at a reasonable price.

 

There are some samples that sound better than the CD. Those are among the ones I will be rebuying.

 

IMO the value in PONO:

1) A portable DAP player that has much better than average DAC converters and headphone amps than current cell phones and Ipods that provide DAP. It will make any music, any format recording sound better through it

2) A music file store that "promises" to provide high sound quality masters, at all, or many, popular sample rate/bit depth formats for purchase. This is where they will live and die in differentiating themselves from Apple. They must succeed here.

I am not an expert, but I think great masters can sound just as incredible at 44.1/16 as 96/24, but since I have a lot of 96/24 files, I am pulling for 96/24 for the "win"

3) Their ultimate short term fall back is that the PONO player will probably sound considerably better than a phone or Ipod when playing back brickwall limited, poorly mastered MP3 320's and the like. It wont be enough to save the company, but it will give them a little time to get things right


You listening Neil?

 

How much of that 44/16 OOO material has been remastered?

Value yes. It is one of the big advantages of digital. The marginal cost of offering one title online is probably not measurable. Nothing ever needs to go out of print again.

 

My Pono didn't come today, unfortunately. My question still stands about the pricing tiers, not just at Pono but HDTracks and others. Is it just because we'll pay for the higher res? Supply and demand? I did listen to 'Standing...' through my Plex server, and even then it sounded noticably better than my CD. Wonderful. If only Late For The Sky would sound as good - they're selling a 192 version but the samples don't thrill me.

 

In short... Yes. Supply and demand. Its a common marketing theory to capture the full value to the buyer by tiered pricing. A simple example: A good copy of Miles may be worth $50 to you but $2 to the next guy. This captures some of that. It's got issues but that is the idea.

Once the time has been spent on the remix I think the cost to put out a second format is negligible. That's why you feel a bit gouged. Such is life.

 

I'm in total agreement with you, but at the same time I'm surprised that some NY titles are only offered at that resolution. While he can't force all the other artists to provide hi res, I thought at least all of the NY albums might be offered that way.

I'm hoping the OOP Time Fades Away is offered at some point.

 

Cold comfort. I'm a musician and have an interest in this working out. I am hopeful that more money will make it's way to the artists with Pono, but you can't price yourself out of the market. The big companies did that and hastened the problems with the current 'industry'.
I'm still hoping, though : )

 

There is so much I can say to this but I won't.....
In my partially informed opinion just get protools and put your own 24 bit out there for whatever price you like. You can always sell the rights later. Or do a new production of the work. I think the industry is basically broken or fractured due to technology leaving it in the dust. "Why" is they part I'll leave out....

 

Got this today and I'm very happy with the sound.
As I was hoping - mp3s sound much much better than on my ipod or tablet, but still with limitations. I listened to a flac file, Arcade Fire's Reflector, and it sounded incredible!
The included album Harvest was the one I was hoping for as it fills a gap in my 70's NY collection. It sounds great, excellent distinction between instruments, but volume needed to be turned up to release the sound. Storytone was a nice surprise as I hadn't heard he was releasing new music. Incredible sounding, both orchestral and acoustic.

It was a nice feeling walking to another room and still hearing good sound.

Got 3500 songs on it already! (mostly mp3s)

 

I don't know. Remastering can be good or bad. The site provides samples that you can hear prior to purchase. With respect to the title I'm asking about, I think Mark Wilder and Steve Berkowitz have done a good job.

 

I can't see which Neil Young titles are offered in various formats, but I do know that many of his titles were recorded digitally in 16/44.1.

 

Wow. The first sighting of a Pono in the wild. Glad you enjoy.

Can you compare it to a 24 bit async USB DAC at the same price level? I realize it is portable so you may as well use this as a dac all things equal. Can you control the playlist and volume from Jriver on your laptop easily?

 

My impression is that the Pono player is self contained. It cannot receive a digital stream or output a digital stream. Cannot play DSD. Definitely doesn't interest me. There are better options in my opinion.

But the music store does interest me, well just have to wait and see what the music store is all about when it opens to the public.

 

I do not understand what the appeal of these units is supposed to be.
1. Are they portable? Only if you don't mind carrying an awkwardly shaped brick around with you.
2. Do they offer DSD? No
3. Are they better than a high-quality DAC that you would connect to your system? No.
4. Do they offer high-res support? Yes, but very little material is available.
5. Do they stream? No.

So who exactly is the market for these supposed to be?

 

If this takes off like we hope it will, could that be the motivation for Pono to create home systems? Could it motivate other manufactures to step up their game? Can neil Young actually turn things around? Can we get ten years of iTunes users to buy better quality music? Can this make Apple pull its head out of its arrogant ass and compete?

 

Have you not been paying attention?

1. According to all who have heard it or have it, it equals the quality of a DAC you connect to your system, unless you are one of those wealthy dudes who can afford to drop $50,000 on a DAC on a whim.

2. The number of hi-rez albums are increasing at a rapid rate, and the Pono store promises to make them available at a higher volume than the other hi-rez stores.

3. The streamers are clearly not the market for either the Pono player or music store. The idea is for the consumer to come to the fountain, not for the industry to pander to them.

I believe that once music consumers discover or rediscover what they have been missing after years of data-compressed music on cheap playback systems, they will come around. It won't be overnight, but it will happen. But, it's also up to us to spread the word.[/QUOTE]

 

Already irrelevant.....

http://www.ultrahighendreview.com/pono-music-players-now-shipping-and-already-irrelevant/

 

More misinformation. A lot of people seem to believe the music store will be exclusive only to those with a Pono player. That may or may not be true right now, but the store will open to everyone in a couple of months, or sooner. As the videos show, you will be able to download just as you can on any other store, and you won't need the Pono player. Think about it: to only let Pono owners use the store would be mighty dumb! Why would anyone go through all that money and trouble just to create an exclusive store for exclusive owners? The record labels would not be loading up all those albums if the store was going to be exclusive. There would be no monetary justification for it. Have you taken a look around the store? It's looking just like iTunes and 7-Digital, store, in terms of content. Have you seen HDTracks? Very little available because it's only hi-rez.

Isn't the idea to let everyone partake? It's not going to be an exclusive club. If that's what people think, Mr. CEO Young had better do some better marketing.

The audiophile world is only focused only on hi-rez, and that's good. But, the ability to download even CD quality is much better than what the general U.S. consumer gets now. It's a step up for the consumer and the industry.

Certainly, there is a market for those who do not wish to own anything, or do not care to have files. They would rather stream. Good luck to them, for they are at more mercy from the labels than the buyers. And, streaming is dependant on an internet connection. Sure, you need one to download, too, but you don't need an internet connection to playback your music. And, with the FCC and the White House pushing for net neutrality, that could be even worse for the streaming fans.

"But, the regular listeners do it. It's cheap, you get all the music you want and don't have to own anything. Besides, no one cares about sound anyway. What we have now is good enough."

^ Some reviewers and technological enthusiasts tend to push for anything new, not taking into consideration the pitfalls of deserting what works.

What the guy who wrote that article doesn't seem to understand is that there is a huge market for those who do not want to buy a shiny silver disc. They don't want more 'things" cluttering up their living space. They also don't want to look around stores for what they want, and many don't care to order from Amazon. They want their CD-quality music on demand, and they want to possess it. Oh, streaming? Don't forget that most artists are getting screwed up the butthole on it.

 

Its way too soon to bury PONO.

The writer forgets that PONO is bringing higher performance and sound quality in a portable player and is marketing the crap out of it. People have already provided reviews that a 44.1/16 file through it (especially if its a good master) blows away an MP3 on an Iphone.

I believe that over time, the PONO store will have more hi res files as exclusivity contracts end with other file re sellers (like HD Tracks)

 

I will bet this will be a huge Christmas item along with download gift cards for Dad. I will not be in if the downloads for high rez are $30+ . I'll just keep spinning my TTs and buying vinyl I can find for way less than that and convert them to 2496 for my Tascam DR-2ds.

 

Pardon my ignorance on the subject. I currently use an Ipod hooked up to an aux jack on my reciever to play digital file. Now am I correct in thinking that the ipod's DAC isn't very good, at least to an audiophile's standard?
I realize that the Pono also plays higher resolution files. Since my reciever only has analog inputs, is Pono what I nheed to listen to digital music or should I buy a seperate DAC?

 

i ask again:

won't the sound coming out of the pono player be only as good as the speakers (headphones, earjacks etc) you are listening to it with?

 

Not at $14.99 an album.

 

Yes, the thinking is that the DAC in iPods aren't very good, or only "acceptable". Er, I believe 5th generation iPods and earlier used Wolfson DACs, which are considered very good. Still, in audiophile circles iPods aren't looked upon very well.
Yes, the PonoPlayer has very good a very good DAC and a line out port, in addition to a headphone port, so all you need is a y-cable with a mini-jack at one end, as would go into a headphone jack, like your iPod, and 2 RCA jacks at the other. Radio Shack has this cable for $8.99. Or, AudioQuest has an audiophile version for, I believe $25.00.