I haven't ever needed to format the micro SD cards I've used in my Pono and they've always worked flawlessly. Current is a SanDisk Ultra 400gb Class 10.
Yes, but the Ayre Codex and the PonoPlayer aren't the best DAC in existence. Not even close. The special headphone sound with the PonoPlayer and Codex is due to the special sonic synergy with the DAC section and headphone amp section. It's the synergy that makes those devices sound so good with headphones. The DAC section on its own and the headphone amp section on its own doesn't make those devices exceptional. It's the synergy of the two together that makes it work. The DAC section of the PonoPlayer and Codex isn't exceptional. The measurements of the PonoPlayer and Codex done by Stereophile give some clues as to why. But combine the DAC output with the zero feedback diamond buffer headphone output in balanced mode and you get some synergistic magic. The PonoPlayer gives a headstage experience with the headphone soundstage sounding outside the headphones and sounding around the head and in front of the head that I would normally associate with special $1000+ headphone DAC and amp systems. And the Codex does that better and drives the headphones better. A big reason why I like the PonoPlayer is because it presents a headphone listening experience in balanced mode with suitable headphones that I would normally associate with $1000+ or $1500+ headphone systems. The Ayre Codex does that better by having a more powerful headphone amp section that drives the headphones better (especially for higher impedance headphones like the Senn HD650 or more power hungry headphones like the Audeze LCD-2). The downside with the PonoPlayer and Codex as a DAC is that the distortion profile of the DAC section is very picky about what kind of amp they have synergy with. I have tried a PonoPlayer and a Codex with my Cavalli Liquid Fire headphone amp and the Ayre DAC didn't have synergy with the Cavalli amp. I've tried the PonoPlayer with some Schiit headphone amps and the combo did work very well. So the synergy of the PonoPlayer or Ayre Codex with an amp depends on the sound qualities and style of the amp. The PonoPlayer and Ayre Codex are solid state devices, but I consider their pairings and temperamentalities to be more similar to matching various tube gear pieces in a system. When pairing tube gear in a system some tube gear will have synergy in a system while other good tube gear will not. You need to listen to the gear in your system and be wise to knowing when that gear has synergy and when it doesn't. The PonoPlayer and Ayre Codes are kinda like that. But in a solid state way instead of a tube way.
I have been using mine every day for years. I drag and drop ripped CDs from my iTunes library directly to the Pono. Sounds as amazing today as it did when I auditioned it at Fry's in 2015.
My concern with buying a used one would be the condition of the battery. The PonoPlayer is old enough now that some are going to have batteries that don't hold a charge as long and have shorter play time than they did when new. The battery can be replaced. But takes some soldering skills. I haven't had to replace a battery yet so I haven't dug into the details of a battery replacement.
I don't know for how much they go on there, but the sound quality is excellent, superb for the price. I've had mine for years now, no battery problems luckily.
Just my opinion, but I wouldn't if it was my money. I had two Pono players crap out on me within a few years. Maybe it was just my bad luck, I don't know. Yes the sound quality is wonderful. But everything else about the unit is very frustrating, IMO. Even when it worked. I don't know how much they want for the Ebay unit, but I'd proceed with extreme caution unless they're selling it for under a hundred bucks.
Hey HS, I was reading through another thread on the forum and saw you talking about the blue light feature for the Pono tracks. I’ve been messing around with some various hires tracks I have trying to get them to show the blue light. The relative tags associated with the blue light are: (track) Title, Artist, phc and release_guid. You can change, or even delete, all other tags on a song and it won’t affect the blue light operation. I took a non-Pono track and copy/pasted the info on those 4 tags from another track bought off the Pono site and was able to get the blue light to work. The obvious problem with that is that you’ll have to rename the track to a wrong name, and possibly even wrong artist. All that was just for experimenting to see what works and what didn’t. Were you ever able to generate specific phc/release_guid hashes for non-Pono songs? Another reply on that thread talked about generating an md5 hash from the title/artist/release_guid and putting that into the phc tag, but I’m def lost on finding anywhere to do that.
The blue light is a no value added feature that probably drains the battery faster anyway. I couldn't care less if the blue light shows up on mine. And the fact that it will light up for any track purchased from Pono no matter what the quality means even less to me.
I did get the expression to create a proper PHC tag value to work. But lost interest in doing that for my library since it really didn't serve a useful purpose other than doing geek style hacking. I'll have to see if I saved any of the code or documented any of what I did so I can recreate and tell you how to do it.
There is a GitHub project called flactag that is able to add the proper PHC tag to get the blue light to work. GitHub project is here: eehmke/flactag It is written in Python and cross-platform. So can run on Mac, Linux, and Windows. To run on Mac and Linux you'll have to read the readme file to find out how to launch it using the python command line. For Windows the project made a compiled EXE to run so no need to mess with launching python. Windows exe is here: Release v0.1.8 · eehmke/flactag Download flactag-win-0.1.8.zip and extract the zip file to a convenient directory. Then go to the dist folder inside the extracted folders and run flactag.exe It has a graphical interface. Should be easy to figure out. The drawback is that it can only process one file at a time. So if you want to add the PHC tag to every file in an album you have to do it one file at a time. Open a flac file in the program. Click the "add HiRes Tags" button to add the magic PHC and release_guid tags. Then save the file. Then repeat for every file in the album.
I totally get that, especially the battery drain part. It’s really just a nerd hack thing for me. And I’m bored, so it gives me something to do for now.
Just did that yesterday. The response? They sent me here. see below: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dear Rick, I'm really sorry to hear this. Ayre designed the audio circuitry for the unit, but all manufacturing and handling of the firmware that drives the unit, digital circuitry, etc. was all done by Pono. I'm afraid that I do not have a location at this time for any repairs, but that really sounds to me that it may be a fault leading up to the DAC in the unit. I'm afraid I have nothing here to be able to diagnose this any better than any repair shop as they didn't make us privy to their schematics either. I do know there's some active Pono people on forums out there, but the places that I knew about seem to be gone now. Perhaps the latest active thread I've seen was at: forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/any-active-pono-users-experts-still-around.808707/ I'm sorry I can't be of more help here. Best Regards, Ryan Berry Ayre Acoustics, Inc.
Well that sucks! These things are probably disposable at this point. The little Sony DAP isn’t horrible, FWIW, and it’s cheap. I bought my daughter one.
I finally decided I needed to hear how the Pono sounded in balanced mode and purchased from Surf cables the Pono package for my sennheiser HD-600 headphones that I have had since 1999. I am floored by how much better the Pono sounds in balanced mode using these headphones with this cable upgrade. It seriously doesn’t sound like a portable device anymore and is having no trouble driving the HD-600s. Part of the package includes an adapter to allow the balanced cable to used with your normal 1/4 TRS headphone jacks. So I connected that to the cable and hoped that it sounded as good as it usually does through the home stereo. Let me tell you the Surf Cables sounded great despite the extra connection to return the balanced mode back to be able to connect to the 1/4 input. Many years ago I had upgraded the stock HD-600 cable to the HD-650 cable and noticed a nice improvement. I was not expecting the giant leap I just received with these cables. It is making twenty plus year old headphones sound like a new pair. No affiliation with Surf Cables just wanted to state my experience in case anyone is on the fence about doing this.
Yeah, when I had my Pono run balanced with Surf cables and the Sony top-of-the-line XBA-Z5 the sound was spectacular. Ultimately, however, battery issues drove me away. JohnK
Do you have a recommendation on a balanced cable/headphone combo? Just picked up a pono on eBay and want to give it a whirl
If you want to try the Sennheiser style of sound with the Pono I'd suggest either the Massdrop Sennheiser HD58X Jubilee (about $170) or the Sennheiser HD660s (about $400-something). Both are 150 ohms and easier for the PonoPlayer to drive than the 300 ohm HD650 or HD600. Then get a Surf cable or similar Pono compatible balanced cable for the Senns and you're good. You can use most any good headphone that is reasonably efficient and reasonable impedance that can accept a balanced cable. I've used a lot of different headphones with the Pono. All in balanced mode. Senn HD600/HD650, HD58X Jubilee, Oppo PM-2, Brainwavz HM5, Audeze Sine on-ear, Audioquest NightOwl and NightHawk, and an Audeze LCD-2. The Audeze LCD-2 isn't quite efficient enough and will max out the volume. The Senn HD650/HD600 are also not quite efficient enough and can also max out the volume or be near max volume. The other headphones I've used are all more efficient and have plenty of volume. When using a balanced headphone with the Pono you have to go into the settings on the Pono and enable the balanced output setting.
