PONO Hands-on Review

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Bowie Fett, Nov 15, 2014.

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  1. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    They are profitable now, and doing better than big oil, but that won't last.

    You just pointed it out: they are all about profits now, not innovation.
     
  2. The Apple doomsday scenario yet again. Give me a break!
     
    tima, uofmtiger and Mazzy like this.
  3. Gabe Walters

    Gabe Walters Forum Resident

    They're coming out with a new product category next year. We'll see how it does.

    In the meantime, have you heard the Pono? I think that's what this thread's supposed to be about. I'm looking forward to auditioning one when I can.
     
    Billy Budapest, Grant and Simon A like this.
  4. anede001

    anede001 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Wow, I never thought I'd see the day where someone would post a clip from Buckaroo Bonzai. Cheers to you. What a great flick.
     
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  5. Master_It_Right

    Master_It_Right Forum Resident

    I would need a little more proof than just someone's word. Also, to do a double blind test you would need everything but the players themselves to be the same.
     
  6. Vinylsoul 1965

    Vinylsoul 1965 Senior Member

    Well, needing more proof means you either have to buy one or find a friend close to you who does so you can listen to it. Spending time on this thread won't help you. I will say for the record this forum has always been a great place to find out the best versions of certain recordings, gear, etc. so for me, someone's word can be very helpful as a starting point. You really have to hear one for yourself.
     
    Robert C likes this.
  7. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    I don't care what the negative reviews are. As soon as they work out the gapless problem, I am going to buy one.
     
  8. rbp

    rbp Forum Resident

    Neil will be grateful.
     
    Mazzy and Grant like this.
  9. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    So will I. I'm all for advancing sound quality, not for trying to squash advancement.
     
  10. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    Lack of gapless is poor I have to say. I use a Sony Xperia Z1 Compact phone. It has Walkman and Onkyo's HF Player apps. Gapless playback is a given on both. I can't work out why this is a problem for manufacturers in 2014. Apple has had this covered for years, Sony manages it on their phones and sound quality is excellent on both. Where is the problem here? What the heck am I missing that a standalone £300 player can't deliver this functionality?
     
    tima, GetHappy!! and gd0 like this.
  11. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    The PonoPlayer can and it will. They just haven't completed the software development tasks yet to do it. They've promised to have gapless playback in a future firmware update. Software development takes time. Gapless support on a custom player hardware on a custom version of Android isn't necessarily trivial to implement. Software development of that sort can take time.
     
    Billy Budapest, Metralla and ynnek4 like this.
  12. PanaPlasma

    PanaPlasma Forum Resident

    Location:
    Belgium, Europe
    Received my player yesterday. The player itself looks very good.

    The interface of the player + PonoMusicWorld (a messy spinoff of JRiver Mediacenter) can be very confusing at the beginning. I installed PonoMusicWorld but only used it for checking if there were any firmware updates. That was already a challenge ... although I'm familiar with JRiver for years!

    I didn't use the software for syncing my music, and just copied my files manually with Windows Explorer. No problem so far.

    Like announced the player would focus on soundquality and nothing else. That's exactly what you get. The cover art looks very poor (worser than my 8 years old iPod Classic) and doesn't fit on the screen sometimes (sometimes you just see a part of the artwork). Browsing through the music is very challenging in the beginning as well.

    And now we're talking about the sound. Well, that's just amazing. No matter what genre, old or new, even some current albums with poor dynamic range. Everything just sounds amazing ... I even got the impression that some of the poorly mastered cd-rips revealed more detail than on my cd-player (sa8004/ki pearl lite).

    After 24hours of 'breaking in', I started listening on my stereo set-up (connected with blue jeans cable interconnects) + directly through headphones (NAD Viso HP50 & Grado SR125). Amazing! Haven't tried my cheap Sennheiser CX300 III smartphone-earbuds yet.

    For the music: I haven't tried any lossy files at the moment.

    I have been listening to cd-rips (Flac Uncompressed), dvd-a rips, Beatles 24bit Files (Apple Beatles USB), and hi-res downloads between 44.1/24 and 192/24 (from Qobuz and HDTracks).

    I chose files I am quite familiar with ... some alltime favourite classic albums & current favourites. All I can say: It's pure magic.

    But they should urgently working on their "Pono World" and "Player" interface. You can't sell this to kids this way ... I guess they would prefer sleek album artwork over better sound. For "older" people it will be very challenging browsing through their albums ... Touchscreen is very sensitive, and takes some 'experience' to go through your album collection with accidently opening a bunch of albums.

    I hope they'll figure out something for the gapless problem (you can check gapless, but there's still a little gap) as well as for the interface of the player.

    The sound of this player is one of a kind, but due to the interface it will be ridiculized by hipster- and all kind of blogs/press.

    Some of the albums I've tried so far:
    Fleetwood Mac - Rumours (96-24) + Tusk/Fleetwood Mac (192-24)
    Temples - Sun Structures (44.1-24)
    Tame Impala - Lonerism (96-24)
    Beatles - Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's & Let It Bee (44.1-24 Stereo)
    Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour (CD-rip from Mono CD-Box Set)
    Indila - Mini World (Limited Edition) (CD-rip)
    Christine and the Queens - Chaleur Humaine (44.1-24)
    St. Vincent - S/T (96-24)
    Beach Boys - Pet Sounds (192-24 Stereo)
    Simon & Garfunkel - Greatest Hits (192-24)
    The Preatures - Blue Planet Eyes (CD-rip)
    Melanie De Biasio - No Deal (44.1-24)
    And They Spoke in Anthems - June (CD-rip)
    First Aid Kit - The Lions Roar (44.1-24)
    Purity Ring - Shrines (CD-rip)
    Cat Stevens - Tea for The Tillerman (192-24)
    Angus & Julia Stone - S/T (96-24)
    Adele - 21 (CD-rip)
    Aphex Twin - Syro (44.1-24)
    Pink Floyd - The Division Bell (96-24)
    Norah Jones - Come Away with Me (192-24)
    Tweedy - Sukirae (44.1-24)
    Jonathan Wilson - Fanfare (88-24)
    Ben Howard - I Forgot were we Were (44.1-24)

    Over the next days I will be trying some more electronic stuff, jazz, classical, hiphop and harder rock + female vocalists.

    Everything sounds amazing but what I found really incredible was Indila's Dernière Danse on this device. Although it's a cd-rip with modern mastering, there was so many more detail revealed compared to my smartphone and even cd player. That was one of the tracks that completely blew me away. For US-people this will be an unfamiliar name, but this was one of the best selling singles/albums in Europe this year. Contains a couple of great tracks + some filler (it's a major label release off course).
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2014
  13. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    I get your point, but my phone's an Android handset and it's on the Kit-Kat version of same, so long and well implemented.

    Pono has been in development for a long time and again, it's not a new deal for users or developers. The money that's been raised should have been ample to cover that element of the project. Not looking to reinvent the wheel here, but I think the "it's a new product, it'll come" is a little well worn now. For the money asked for it, this should've been offered from the starting grid, not at the first convenient pit stop. IMO only of course.
     
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  14. bangsezmax

    bangsezmax Forum Resident

    Location:
    Durham, NC, USA
    It's Kickstarter. It's a friggin' beta product. 95% of the time it doesn't even matter because there are gaps between songs. It sounds amazing.

    The message from the Pono braintrust is: "We recognize the interest from many in gapless playback support. We had every intention of supporting this at launch but were unsuccessful at having it completed in time. However, gapless playback support for lossless albums is currently under development and will be offered as a software upgrade by Q1 2015."

    But by all means -- keep on carping about it because it's so helpful and enjoyable to experience that.
     
  15. Gabe Walters

    Gabe Walters Forum Resident

    The people who said this would never be released have to shift their negativity to something. Hey, maybe the company will fold before gapless support comes! That'll show you people enjoying your Ponoes!

    Ponoes is the plural of Pono, right?
     
    bangsezmax likes this.
  16. I probably won't buy the portable player (I have my portable hi-red bases covered) but I do want to hear it, and if Pono comes out with desktop model, I probably would spring for it. Ayre engineering, after all!
     
  17. bangsezmax

    bangsezmax Forum Resident

    Location:
    Durham, NC, USA
    :agree: This is the reason why this little box, UI and gapless issues notwithstanding, is a BFD.
     
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  18. AZRunner

    AZRunner Forum Resident

    Location:
    SW FL
    What's preventing you from using this as a desktop model?
     
  19. AZRunner

    AZRunner Forum Resident

    Location:
    SW FL
    I can't even imagine how empty, pathetic and sad the life of an internet troll must be.

    I'm still waiting for my unit to ship. I'm pleased by all the positive reviews from those who have received theirs. I'm really looking forward to getting my unit.
     
  20. ElvisCaprice

    ElvisCaprice Forum Resident

    Location:
    Jaco, Costa Rica
    I can think of many reasons.
    1. No digital streaming in or out.
    2. No DSD or higher PCM at 384 or 32 bit
    3. Very limited memory. Uploading is a pain.
    4. The UI has something to be desired, clunky at best.
    5. No gapless. (Which can be rectified)

    Like I said before, the Pono is already outdated functionally before it's even available to the public. As a limited portable device for non audiophiles it could maybe do okay, if they are willing to shell out $400 for it, which I doubt, when John Q public would rather have a smart phone/tablet capable music player with ear buds, that's multi functional. The Pono is between a rock and a hard place.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2014
    tima likes this.
  21. Metralla

    Metralla Joined Jan 13, 2002

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    If it sounds great I could enjoy it as a portable unit. I don't really need a desktop device.
     
    stereoptic likes this.
  22. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member


    Ho hum. £300 upfront to buy this, or near it, and it doesn't do gapless. If you're happy to put up with that, be my guest, because it's so enjoyable reading about consumers who fall over themselves to buy a product that's friggin' underdone.

    Edit: And I've no interest in Pono either for or against. Beyond that which waxes my wheels for any new tech product that fails to offer gapless which has been available for years. It's just slack.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2014
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  23. PanaPlasma

    PanaPlasma Forum Resident

    Location:
    Belgium, Europe
    They're working on the gapless issue. 300$ isn't that much compared to Astell & Kern.

    It does blow away any other high-res portable devices (FIIO, Ibasso, my Samsung Tablet,...) I've heard. I never heard the Astell & Kern, but according to some insiders Pono is better.

    It plays flawlessly on my stereo unit. It's definately in the same league as most cd-players in midrange-level.

    Once the bugs are gone, this player will be hard to beat.
     
  24. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    Couldb't give a hoot about Pono bashing on a wider scale. Just gapless. Oppo got it, Onkyo get it, so does any other manufacturer that fails here.

    You try listening to classical music and see how you fare without gapless. Or a live album. This is not splitting the atom.
     
    GetHappy!! likes this.
  25. PanaPlasma

    PanaPlasma Forum Resident

    Location:
    Belgium, Europe
    [EDIT] There seems to be an "APP" that automaticaly checks for firmware updates. Was not mentioned in the starter's guide, but in the Kickstarter Update mail, which I didn't read offcourse.

    After the latest update, the artwork looks slightly better ... and more acceptable. But don't expect crisp high-res pictures.

    But the audio is definately high-res and as crisp as can be ;)

    For no DSD: I'm afraid DSD will never become mainstream. Only a handful releases at Superhirez available. We all know that there's a war going on at Sony for ages between the software-side (Sony Music Label) and the hardware side (Sony Electronics). Just like any major label, they don't give a f**k about soundquality and they did their utter best to make the renewed (niche-)interest in high-res audio fail.
     
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