Pono store to open with 2.5million tracks?

They will still offer high res content. Some of what is in the store will just be 16/44.1.

Same situation exists at HDTRACKS.

 

I don't see the problem in offering 16/44.1 for albums where no higher resolution is available.

 

But why bother??
Why be half pregnant? 16/44.1 is on every virtual street corner and then some anyway.
It just confuses the hell out of uneducated end users! And if they are "not part of your target market" anyway....your shooting at a way too small barrel with bugger all fish, comparatively speaking. In my opinion.

 

Pricing should be simply tiered. $0.75/song for 16/44 up to $1.50 for 24/192. No way that CD quality downloads should cost more than a CD.

 

I love vinyl too, but it's more like 12bit, 20khz, and that's when it's not rolled off on the highs and lows...

 

Where did you get that info from ?

 

Actually, it might be cool if he could even get uncompressed 16/44.1 mastering from the original tapes. I'd gladly take 16/44.1 before brickwalling on modern or remastered releases. Right now you have to seek out original CD's, done with crude DAC's by todays standards, or a HYPER COMPRESSED REMASTER. There is also the option of vinyl, but that could very well be from the same brickwalled master.

I don't really understand what he's trying to do with Pono. It's a weird looking, bulky device, capable of playing formats that only a very small niche market cares about. Getting anyone else on board, when most people can't tell the difference between 320 mp3 and 24/96, will be very difficult. But I could see getting more people on board with better mastering, straight from the source tapes, bypassing the need to rip from CD. Of course with access to the master tape, I could see them just doing 24/96 to make people happy. But for those things where the master is 16/48 DAT, I'd be happy with that if it wasn't squashed to hell (I'm looking at you, Oasis back catalog).

 

Ugg... I'll take a guess that 2.5M songs likely reflects the FLAC library for the Omnifone people.

Remember Pono partnering with these folks recently:
http://www.omnifone.com/content/omnifone-powers-neil-youngs-ponomusic

Nothing wrong with FLAC 16/44, but of course NY promised much more. A promise which frankly I believe he would never have been able to deliver simply because of the fact that people do not get "blown away" by a simple shift to lossless, 24-bits, or 192kHz sampling rate of the same audio mastering.

I believe Apple understands this and although lossless may be sold through iTunes one day, I have doubts they will ever push 24-bit or higher sampling rates in a meaningful fashion. For now, Pono can hide under the mystique of promised fancy hardware and dramatic reaction videos. But when that online store opens, and those Toblerones end up in the hands of the consumers, they better see/hear something good! As usual, market forces will decide the fate of this company and I suspect it will not be pretty.

 

Re this whole debate...given the advances in technology,is it not possible just to produce a "Hi-Res" compact disc as standard to replace the red book format?

 

A high-res compact disc? Nothing would be compatible with it to be able to play it.

You can release high res on DVD discs as DVD-V or DVD-A. Or on Blu-ray as Blu-ray Pure Audio Disc. DVD players will play DVD-V audio discs. Some DVD players will play DVD-A audio discs. Blu-ray players will play Blu-ray Pure Audio discs. But otherwise those DVD or Blu-ray discs are quite inconvenient. Especially if you want to rip.

The other alternative is to sell CD or DVD data discs with just regular computer files on it. You'd need to copy the files to a computer to be able to play them.

 

Here's to hoping. They've seen downloads take a hit. They realize streaming is the future of the mass market, hence iTunes Radio and their acquisition of Beats. They've got over three years of studios sending everything in 24/96 so all they'd have to do is flip switch.

 

Exactly. I think that I am the target audience for this service, people like us here at this forum. I am the "average" consumer of music; I buy approximately 100 CDs a year plus about 100 high rez music titles a year, including Blu Ray, SACD and high rez download. I am computer savvy and I have a music server. Perfect candidate for Pono Music. But yet, considering all this I do not "get" what Neil is trying to do and I proably won't buy anything from Pono unless there are unique masterings of titles that I am interested in. It is a shame.

 

When faced with the choice of a 16/44.1 download or a physical CD with the same mastering, I will most definitely opt for the CD. It's a total no-brainer. The whole Pono experience is starting to look more and more like an elaborate joke.

 

I agree.

 

I'd never heard of omnifone before.

Will Pono store be transparent about which files are hi res? I hope so.

 

They did. The public didn't go for it.

 

They've said that they will put out the best available res and the consumer will know what it is before purchasing. They also said they will "spot check" their entire catalogue for updated files masquerading as high res. They have not, however, said anything about whether mastering info would be readily available. My guess is not, but I'd be pleasantly surprised if they do.

 

Where did you hear that? Can you provide a link?

 

Well, I prefer downloads because I don't keep any physical media. So buying a physical CD just means more touch labor on my part, before I resell or give it away. But totally agree with other posters that CD downloads should be at least a buck or two cheaper.

 

I don't either. And anyway, we don't know what the content will be yet anyway. People are pulling their heads off over speculation. Sheesh, wait until it appears - y'all can still whinge about it then.

 

Yes, the whining, defeatist, disgusted, preemptively hostile, schadenfreude-fueled negativity from people who care about sound quality but just hate Pono based on speculative worst-case gossip is a fascinating psychological syndrome.

 

Well - if it's 16/44.1 - it's called a CD.

And I am sure every single release they will offer is (or has been) available on CD.

Finally - unless these "16/44" downloads are the original unremastered mixes and priced less than 10 bucks - I cannot see this ever succeeding.

And for those with the "defeatist" comments - I think WE ALL wanted this to be the biggest things since sliced bread - a new, accessible panacea of great sounding, reasonably priced tracks that once and for all deliver on the true promise of HD quality sound.

But if there is even one person out there that believes Neil and his gang had the time, the resource or the cash to repurpose 2.5 million tracks into a true "PONO" state in time for this launch - they are dreaming.

Like another poster remarked - if the library was 2000 or 5000 tracks to start - I might start to believe that we are getting something special - but the sheer number of tracks to start clearly indicates that the bulk of the "stuff" came from elsewhere - which takes Neil and his promises of fine fidelity out the window.

How are we not to assume this is just the same old loudness induced crap that the labels peddle every where else?

VP

 

Read about the Omnifone/PONO relationship here. Yes, it's propaganda from the companies involved, but it does provide some hopeful specifics.

Some nuggets:

"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. This rich collection of premium quality audio - and its distributed delivery from the cloud - will enable PonoMusic to achieve global scale quickly."

“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.”

I am not on the PONO bandwagon and have no plans to purchase a player. But all of the baseless speculation about PONO offering less than what's been promised is just that... baseless speculation. I'm perfectly willing to wait and see what the PONO store actually offers before passing judgment for or against.

 

I'm just guessing/hoping. See post above - Apple could "turn on" a high-resolution store in an instant. Maybe they're saving it for Hi-Rez streaming?

Bill