Have Any Pono Backers Received The Email Their Player Has Shipped?

Gee, you think so?

 

Got my shipping notice today. In theory UPS will hold it for pickup tomorrow. Will post impressions when I get it. Of course it does gapless

 

As Plato once noted, I don't need to be a carpenter to tell whether a table is well or poorly made. The notion that someone needs to have started a tech company before they can criticize Pono is ridiculous.

 

Well when I hear the horrible sonics from today's artists, it's hard not to listen to the same old albums. Just listening to Blues Pills new album the other day. Nice music but TERRIBLE sound quality. Just absolutely vile.

 

Criticize away. Especially at something you haven't seen or heard yet. Why not?

 

Well, speaking as a "$5 folk", I've yet to receive anything. I know there were T-shirts with the Pono logo on them, but I wasn't sure if they were one of the gifts or not.

 

I couldn't care less about audiophile sound on a portable player. When I'm not at home, playing AAC files from my phone through Grado headphones or the office stereo works for me. If others want or need a triangle-shaped gizmo to play hi-res audio in their car, more power to them. I'll save my audiophile listening for when I'm at home with my turntable and LP collection.

 

My Etymotics 4Ps sound awful nice. Unless IEMs are not your thing (which is understandable).

 

Maybe it's a case of "Pono envy"

 

I just got my e-mail. I was one of the first to order the Neil Young Signature model. I received my Pono certificate a few weeks ago. I have certificate #8.

 

Neil Young is not a reason to buy this? If you want to talk about product specifications, try Computer Audiophile. It is a good site for nerds. This is a music forum. Neil Young! How could Pono fail?

But if I put on my nerd hat for a minute - the Pono has balanced outputs. My home system is balanced all the way, so I will be able to listen to the Pono player in balanced mode. Name one other music player that has balanced output?

But I bought my Pono before I was aware of its balanced capability. I bought it because of Neil Young. Really, what else do you guys need?

 

something I am genuinely interested in as I'd like to have a pair of higher quality earbuds to take out of the house with me; I basically refuse to wear headphones out because they look ridiculous.

 

totally agree with this. I see zero point in listening to audiophile music in environments that in no way cater to audiophile music. seems like just another gimmick to cash in on what few opportunities remain in the consumer music market.

 

Didn't you even read what you get on the Kickstarter page when you backed the project?

"Pledge $5 or more
1061 backers

LOVE + THANKS – That's what we feel for your pledge + a Thank You on our website – www.ponomusic.com – for helping us revive the soul of music!"

 

I'm a huge Neil Young fan. That said, I don't even buy all his albums, especially his last two. There's quite a lot of other Neil Young product that I'm not the least bit interested in buying too. And, he's a bit (more) off base in his explanation(s) about why music sounds bad these days. Seriously, the guy is all about resolution and never, AFAIK, talks about the importance of mastering? Let's just say Neil may mean well, but he's not exactly helping to educate people on what really makes so much music sound like crap these days.

So, I need to go to a "nerd" forum just to get an opinion on the quality of the player? Hate to break this to ya pal, but to most people on the outside-looking- in, this forum is about as nerd as you can get.

 

Here's a reason to get a pono - basement tapes 11 in 192/24 vs the cd set.

 

do you have the cd or album

 

It's still in beta, even though it is shipping. They'll have firmware updates. If the current firmware isn't doing gapless properly I'm expecting that a future firmware update will fix that. They've stated that the player will do gapless. So I know they've got that in their development and design plans.

I've ordered a black Pono player. Due in late December. I'm expecting the firmware to still be in active development (ie still in beta mode) when I get mine. I'm expecting to need to do a few firmware updates.

 

I should drop $400 to get some Bob Dylan files? Nah.

 

You're right, we should only listen to Neil Young albums released after 1997.

In all honesty, though, gapless playback was previously not the market standard for digital music players -- but that was years ago. If Pono doesn't deliver on this one element (providing they don't fix it immediately with a firmware update), it's just not delivering on what it promises.

I certainly don't mind a gap inserted between tracks at different sample rates (say, switching from a Redbook-standard album to high-def) while the converter switches over. But between two songs from the same mastering of the same album? That's inexcusable.

 

Not that I'm a fan of the Pono but it seems to me given that it's a new product, we need to cut the company a bit of slack. Not everything is going to be at 100% when first released. Things like gapless playback will, no doubt, be ironed out with later firmware upgrades. Seems they've done the best they can at this point and I have to admire them for launching a new hi rez playback system given the environment were in.

Seems to me many people want this to fail when having something to compete with iTunes is a good thing for portable players.

I'm not suggesting that those who are chiming in here who haven't ordered the device don't have legit concerns or points but maybe we can, at the very least, wish the company well in trying to establish a beachhead for portable hi rez with support from a major musician.

I don't have any preference in any of this myself as I haven't ordered one nor do I plan on doing so at this time but I am interested in seeing how this does if given a fair chance.

 

I wish them well, but more than that I wish they wouldn't screw up the industry-standard basics.

 

as much as I'd like to see things change, this awkwardly-shaped, $400 niche player isn't competition for the iPod.

 

I would agree it's over priced and it is, indeed, awkwardly shaped but if it is for the reasons stated, the latter isn't a big deal to me. While the iPod wasn't as awkwardly designed, they did improve it with time.

If this suceeds even a little bit perhaps we'll see a reduction in price and a redesign at some point. It's hard to tell as it is early days.