Pono music store closing temporarily...

"Infrastructure parter" = content provider. Pono didn't have any releases that 7Digital don't - they just chased the high resolution versions more aggressively.

 

After doing some spot checking I find this largely to be true, excepting Neil Young's own releases that he chose to make available only via Pono.

However: the LSO Live release of Sir Colin Davis's Sibelius symphony cycle was for sale at ponomusic.com in 16/44100 FLAC for $10.29.

The same material at us.7digital.com is available as 320 kbps MP3 only at an everyday low price of $41.99. That's forty-one ninety-nine, for anyone who assumes that was a typo.

So I'm curious about how this all shakes out.

 

Almost certainly a mispricing at Pono (pricing a multi disc release as a single disc release). I have seen it happen from time to time on the various sites (I think I got The Kinks Anthology for some crazy low price at 7digital for example). I think I got the LSO Live Mahler from Pono for a super low price too, but again, surely an accident/oversight.

 

Even if so, it's an even worse mispricing at 7digital. LSO Live's own webiste sells downloads of the same titles at prices much closer to Pono's (former?) prices than to 7digital's. For example, the Nielsen symphony cycle at 24/96000 is available from LSO Live for £14.99, or about $20 U.S. at current exchange rates.

 

I don't think so. I'd wager Pono had the same releases 7digital has simply because that's what the labels offered. Thet're the real content providers here. I also believe an infrastructure partner is in charge of digital pipelines behind the scenes but know nothing about these things.

 

From a post on the Pono site:
"FYI:
Eric Clapton
Omnifone (Pono) 24 bit albums = 19
7Digital 24 bit = 6

Price (US$):
Crossroads guitar festival 2013
Pono = $23.99
7Digital = $31.49"

 

I'm not not sure what you're saying/arguing - Omnifone was Pono's original content provider - 7Digital is their new content provider. There are several website like Technics Tracks that are mirrors/fronts for 7Digital - I'd be surprised if the new Pono store is anything other than a branded 7Digital mirror. Pono didn't/don't have their own library of releases, and any high res releases that they had "exclusively", was only exclusive because other retailers hadn't bothered to obtain those different versions yet.

 

There's no reason for Pono to offer their own library of releases (beyond Neil Young's own stuff if he owns the rights to it) : they're a store, not a label.
The key statement in the Pono announcement is this one :
"Please rest assured that our contractual relationships with all the major music labels remain fully intact and will transition to our new platform."
If Pono's contractual relationships with the content owners that are the music labels remain "fully intact", as they state, there is no reason for their current offerings to change, either in nature or price. Those will transition to the new platform provided by 7digital.
On a side note, this implies Pono will, unlike 7digital, remain closed to most European countries.

 

Is content provider the right description? I am not sure, I am more asking, but I have to believe not. The same way Netflix uses Amazon's AWS cloud services is more how I see it, both Netflix and Amazon sell movies, tv shows etc. and Netflix tells AWS what to host and at whatever price Netflix sets; there are things Netflix offers that Amazon does not and perhaps even overlapping things at different prices (I have never noticed if that last point is the case however). I am just speculating of course, you may well be right, I am just advocating for the devil.

 

Several weeks to get Pono back up and running seems like a long time to me.

 

Lots of speculation here. There might be some major restructuring going on with the store and within the business. If they knew in advance that they needed a new supplier, they would have found another one, negotiated and made the transition seamless. Unlike HDtracks, they carried a lot of odd catalog albums, some even out of print, and happen to be found on 7digital as well. Pono was a great source for digital downloads of flac files. Closing the store, without a reopen date is strange. It's like a restaurant closes, the sign reads "closed for renovations", and three weeks later it's gone. Perhaps this is Neil Young's way of doing business. He certainly pulled the plug on BD-live pretty quick without telling anyone. I hate to diss the man, but he makes a lot of promises he never intends to keep. The Pono promise wasn't anything that the other outlets didn't deliver as well, except they created the illusion that the customers had some sort of input with voting in their favs. That's not how reissues happen. Someone on the other end has to put the parts into motion by either the artist or the company. Now Neil Young has a lot of friends, and does wield some sway over WB. He could use that cache to influence record companies to reissue and supply his brand, but he's too busy putting out mediocre albums. Yeah, that was a bit inflamitory, but personally I haven't enjoyed a Neil Young album in 15 years. His records are rife with sub-par songs, terrible lyrics and recycled riffs.

 

As I inadvertently posted elsewhere...

Without knowing the specific contractual language anything said here regarding the future of Pono is pure conjecture and speculation. Fun but pointless.

 

Respectfully, I strongly disagree with you one point... no human being can ever truly know another human being's thoughts or intent. Therefore, to say that "he makes a lot of promises he never intends to keep" is pure conjecture on your part. It might be true, but you cannot know whether it is or isn't true. Only Neil knows that.

 

Maybe Neil can change mind about Pono in some future, but here in Europe he's having a very successful (also artistically ) tour. We love him.

 

It took several weeks or more for the PonoMusic site to get fully up and going when they first started. It was a long process of ingesting the files from Omnifone and adding them to the store. If I recall correctly, the store was open during the process of ingesting the new files. It is probably not so easy this time around because they'll have to both ingest the new files from 7 Digital and also sync those files to what was on Omnifone so that purchases you had made on the old site will match up properly with files on the new site on 7 Digital. So probably not so easy this time around, and the process of syncing the old Omnifone database with the new 7 Digital database may mean that they can't keep the store open during that process.

 

Am I right in thinking that if 7digital take on Pono's catalogue that the UK could be able to purchase Mr Young in 24bit, if so this is a good thing as all Neil bangs on about is hi res but only sells his precious files from one shop.

 

Yes, Omnifone was Pono's content provider - they even state this in one of their press release. Pono doesn't/didn't have it's own catalogue.

 

Yet again, Pono says this : "our contractual relationships with all the major music labels remain fully intact and will transition to our new platform."
If you were previously unable to make purchases through Pono where you are, you won't be able to when it reopens either.

 

First I'm not having a go at you, I am just trying to learn more; and you were smart to bring up the press releases, so here is what stands out to me, although I don't think it answers anything definitively.

Pono currently states on it's Under Construction sign "Omnifone has been the exclusive content provider for PonoMusic." so you are well right to call them content provider; but what was interesting to me anyway is how Onmifone described their role in their July '14 press release. Omnifone powers Neil Young's PonoMusic | Omnifone »

-Omnifone today announces that Neil Young’s PonoMusic has selected Omnifone’s MusicStation to power its high-resolution digital music service.
-Omnifone was selected to power the PonoMusic store because of its award-winning cloud music platform and its industry-leading audio expertise and commitment to audio quality. Standing at 35 million tracks, MusicStation - Omnifone’s cloud music platform - hosts the industry’s largest catalogue of high resolution content, obtained from rights holders in all corners of the world.
-“PonoMusic is the perfect partner for Omnifone to debut its high resolution audio cloud delivery capabilities..."
-“Omnifone is providing the scalable music acquisition and delivery infrastructure but we are also working on some funky stuff such a technique to verify the provenance of the audio and its end-to-end signal path from the studio to the listener via the cloud.”

 

Having worked directly with iTunes as a former content provider, I think there may be some confusion here on how a digital music store works. My understanding is this:

1. Pono negotiates with the labels for the licenses to sell certain releases. They do the sales, marketing, customer service, etc.

2. The record labels provide the digital content (hi-res files). They are the ones who actually upload the files to the servers.

3. 7digital hosts the files on their servers and provides the technology and web programming that allows the files to be delivered to the customers.

The confusion in some of the above posts is the misinterpretation of "Omnifone was Pono's content provider." It would've been much less confusing if it had been stated "Omnifone was Pono's content deliverer." Omnifone did not actually provide the music files; they only hosted them on their infrastructure. The record labels provided the actual music files.

 

And my guess is Pono chooses what it wants hosted by its content deliverer, and that is done as a walled-in garden controlled through the Pono website/software (recognizing the walled-in garden metaphor does not mean you don't need to own a Pono to download from the Pono store, just allowed to by location so far). On that front I fear our international friends are still going to have to wait, but I hope either Pono changes that through its garden or by smaller chance in my opinion 7digital gets these (again I don't know if it is rights thing why you cannot buy them outside Pono markets or Pono has some other reason.

 

I have no idea, of course, what's happening inside Pono -- they may be back in business "in a few weeks" or not -- or when we will know.

The only good news for me is that when they offered a "Father's Day Sale" of a 25% discount on the player, I bought one for myself, saving a hundred bucks. It plays fine and obviously it does not care where the files are purchased. I hope Neil Young can achieve his goals; in the meantime I am buying from other sources, feeding my Pono player and my home system thru my DAC.

 

The Pono through your DAC? Congrats I hope you enjoy it.

 

Pono with headphones.

Home system is a MacBook configured as a dedicated music server. Files fed thru VOX to Peachtree DAC to pure analog input of my AVR.

Best two channel playback I have heard at home. More please.