PONO Hands-on Review

Lossy compression introduces additional challenges and difficulties for gapless playback than lossless formats do not.

Lossy compression typically uses blocks of a fixed or variable size to hold the samples. Let's say that the minimum block size is 128 samples. Let's say that a song ends and the last block holds only 25 samples of music. In order to fill the last block the codec needs to fill the last block with 103 empty samples at the very end. Those 103 empty samples will cause an audible gap during playback.

So in order to do gapless playback with lossy formats you have to account for potential empty samples at the very end of the song. Those empty samples need to be removed (or not played) so the next track can begin playing with no gap. It gets tricky. The LAME MP3 encoder adds a field that can tell the decoder how many empty samples are at the end. That info can be used to enable gapless playback with LAME encoded MP3 files. Other lossy encoders have different methods. It all gets complicated. Especially when needing to account for all the different encoders out there in use.

I do hope Pono will add support for gapless playback of lossy files. At least for AAC and LAME MP3. My library is FLAC. Very little MP3. I'm no longer ripping or buying MP3. And one of the reasons I got the PonoPlayer is so I could do all lossless on the portable. I really try to avoid MP3 now. But I still do end up with a few MP3 from sources like the live music archive at archive.org. It would be nice to be able to play those with no gaps since they're live concert recordings.

 

Sure there are. They have been linked here.

Use your own ears and decide. If you can't hear a difference yourself, then save some money and don't buy 24-bit music. Simple.

 

AES London 2010 P18 - Audio Coding and Compression, P18-6 Sampling Rate Discrimination: 44.1 kHz vs. 88.2 kHz—Amandine Pras, Catherine Guastavino, McGill University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada

It is currently common practice for sound engineers to record digital music using high-resolution formats, and then down sample the files to 44.1 kHz for commercial release. This study aims at investigating whether listeners can perceive differences between musical files recorded at 44.1 kHz and 88.2 kHz with the same analog chain and type of AD-converter. Sixteen expert Listeners were asked to compare 3 versions (44.1 kHz, 88.2 kHz, and the 88.2 kHz version down-sampled to 44.1 kHz) of 5 musical excerpts in a blind ABX task. Overall, participants were able to discriminate between files recorded at 88.2 kHz and their 44.1 kHz down-sampled version.
Furthermore, for the orchestral excerpt, they were able to discriminate between files recorded at 88.2 kHz and files recorded at 44.1 kHz.Convention Paper 8101

 

Weren't you just recently admiring the quality of alleged 13/32 LPCM recording from early 1970s?..

 

Yes, one of them and it sounded damn good! You could hear the quantization noise though. And it wasn't "alleged," rather, it was documented as a 13-bit, 32kHz recording from 1970.

 

Just a note about this paper. It is available on-line here as PDF.

The most important quote for me comes from the Results section on Overall Discrimination:

Cumulative binomial tests on the number of correct
responses were conducted for each participant,
collapsing over all comparison pairs and all musical
excerpts. At this individual level, three expert
listeners out of 16 obtained significant results,
p < .05, 2-tailed. However, they significantly selected
the wrong answer, suggesting that they could hear
differences between A and B but picked the wrong
one (e.g. A = X when in fact B = X). Subsequently,
we will present the results of these three participants
separately. The remaining 13 participants did not
perform above chance level, either at the individual
or group level, p > .05, 2-tailed, when collapsing over
all format comparison pairs and all musical excerpts.

Seriously. Does this sound "significant" to you in the big picture? Yes, all kinds of statistics and subgroup analyses were conducted on these short recorded samples of "5 to 8 seconds" to see which group resulted in significant results and which did not. But the bottom line is that as a whole, nobody should come out of this saying that there was anything close to a "night and day" difference or that some kind of "veil" was lifted between 44kHz and 88kHz!

Heck, if anything, it looks like those 3/16 folks (sound engineers with average 8 years experience) liked the 44kHz sample more! They tried to explain this as some kind of psychological phenomenon:
"A possible reason could be that given the difficulty and duration of the listening test, participants doubted so much that they lost confidence and systematically picked the wrong answer."

Hmmmm... Why not the idea simply that the DAC was optimized for 44kHz and maybe sounded better than 88kHz playback (RME Fireface 800)? Or as open-minded scientists, how about the idea that 44kHz can in some instances sound better than 88kHz because you've filtered out ultrasonics that could create intermodulation distortion through the playback gear?

Bottom line folks: data still not there to suggest high sampling rate buys you much "improvement" in sound quality. Furthermore data like this suggests the possibility that the difference may not even be preferred!

 

Check the spectrogram of the audio from the CD then...

 

Any idea as to why I can't download any music? It all says "coming soon" even though I see people on here and on the pono store commenting about how they've downloaded it (I do see people having the same problem I'm having). I created an account and am logged in and I'm in the U.S. so I don't get what the holdup is.

 

I know it was recorded using a prototype NHK 13-bit, 32kHz PCM deck. There was no such thing as a 44.1kHz deck in 1970. If you think there is content over 16kHz, ask Denon what the explanation is.

 

I gave you the proof you wanted. If you can't hear the difference between rebook and hi-res, just save your money and don't buy hi-res. Simple answer!

 

The only people at this point who can download music are those pono Kickstarter supporters who have received an e-mail notification that their personal pono is shipping. That unlocks meaningful access to the pono store.

 

Oh well, I don't plan on ever owning one, I just want to buy a few hi-rez titles.

 

If you were in Vancouver Washington rather than Vancouver BC I would lend you mine. Hopefully you'll be able to borrow one from a local Canadian.

You may want to wait a bit though. The balanced cable accessories are not available yet at the Pono store. Reviews and impressions so far indicate that the player performs better in balanced mode. To test in balanced mode you'll need special adapter cables. Some of the boutique cable companies are able to make the Pono spec balanced cables and adapters. But being boutique they are expensive. I'm not going to pay $100 for an adapter. So I'm waiting for the balanced cable adapters to show up in the Pono store and hope they're affordable. Or I may end up making my own adapter because I'm getting impatient and really want to try the balanced headphone mode.

The PonoPlayer has a unique balanced connector. Uses two mini TRS jacks. Each wired to the tip and ring. One mini jack for the left channel and one for the right channel. I need to wire that up to a large 4-pin XLR jack so I can use my big headphones in balanced mode. Pono has the wiring info in their support area.

I haven't seen any measurements yet for the PonoPlayer and Pono hasn't published much about the specs. I'm getting curious about what it's doing and is capable of under the hood.

 

Yeah, Vancouver CANADA.

It looks like a typical 3.5mm to XLR cable can be used for the balanced output. I've seen some available online and I think at a local electronics parts store would work. Of course would be nice to test with the "official" Pono accessory!

Hey, if anyone has one nearby, just PM me!

 

Something more to chew on for the flat earthers who believe 16/44.1 is "perfect sound forever":

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=17497

From the AES paper:

 

A review I stumbled on to:

http://gizmodo.com/dont-buy-what-neil-young-is-selling-1678446860

 

Another flat-earther relying on Meyer and Moran.

 

That is not a review. The "reviewer" never even bothered to listen to the PonoPlayer or any PonoMusic. A hack job. By a hack who is too lazy to do a real review.

 

What he said.

There has been a rash of commentators who have been proclaiming hi-res as "junk science," but in doing so they ignore piles of white papers and scientific studies demonstrating that there are real, audible differences between hi-res and redbook. See posts in forums such as hydrogen audio, anythingbutipod, and others. Worse, they don't even listen themselves. It's gotten so bad that I think there may be a hidden agenda at work.

 

Well, as an audiophile and a online gamer i hate to tell you guys but, this generation of kids have taken ignorance to an entirely new level. They truely beleive in digital future and in hacking. Their minds just cannot grasp what we all took for granted growing up. If you sit one of them down in front of a $100k turntable sound system with tubes they will not understand what they are hearing and look bewildered that you are trying to trick them. On a gaming note, they cannot fathom paying $60 for a video game and not using cheat codes. Most the kids I know don't read books either. But thats another rant )

 

Actually.. there is no published up-to-date ABX testing on 24 bit vs 16 bit audibility. That's just a fact. Not implying the testing won't show what you say ... but it just is not there. We're at the launch of a whole 'nother format with no test data.

Of course, you can refute this fact by simply posting a link.

 

Actually .... there are no published test results on the audibility of 24 bit vs 16 bit, that is just a fact. We are at the launch of the latest format and there is no testing.

Of course you can refute this fact by simply posting a link to just one example of 24 vs 16 testing .....

 

I am so buying a Pono when I have the cash to do so, which is in about eight to ten weeks. My current portable player is the weak link in the chain, as I have good headphones and many well-mastered hi-resolution files. I was planning on buying a DAC anyhow, but seeing as how a good 80-90% of my listening is done while I'm on the go, this just makes sense for me.

 

I posted the link earlier re hi-Rez audibility. Again:

 

Lookee here, if it takes five eggheads in labcoats, 16 audio experts and and room full of beeping and blinking gizmos to come up with the result that nobody did better than guess -- I ain't forking over $30 for another copy of "Tea and the Tillerman." No wonder kids are turning to vinyl!