RIP Pono and Pono Music Store

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by SKBubba, Apr 21, 2017.

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  1. Atmospheric

    Atmospheric Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eugene
    Yeah, I'd love to see a frequency plot of any cut on that album. I bet that the plot would fall off a cliff at 22K. There would be virtually no information beyond that. It would be an interesting exercise.
     
    c-eling likes this.
  2. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    I do too. I will tolerate buying a 320 kbps file if there is absolutely no other way of getting something I really, really need. Otherwise, I want lossless. Better yet, if I can afford it, and I think it's important enough to me, i'll get the hi-rez.

    I would really help it you could be more descriptive instead of just using catch-all terms. It would eliminate confusion. A person reading your post might think you mean CDs from the 80s, or music made with digital keyboards, or something.

    192 kbps is intolerable to me. I can hear the degradation of the sound.

    Nope! Read Joey_Corleone's post.

    Most 192 kHz/24-bit albums cost around $24. If you buy the 92 kHz/24-bit albums, you can usually get them for under $20. If you know a better way, PM me!

    Sure! If they're music buddies.

    And, that's a problem. There are millennials who have no concept of hearing music through quality full range speakers in the most proper way. The closest many ever get to that is in a car, where the bass and treble are usually jacked.

    And, you know what the record labels say? "Sucker!" Man, when you download a $13 album on lossy AAC or mp3 with no artwork or liner notes, all you are doing is paying for the convenience of getting your music at four in the morning without having to leave the house. It's no wonder album art sites do so well.
     
  3. Archimago

    Archimago Forum Resident

    Absolutely, there are many "high res" albums over the years with that tell-tale 22kHz drop off. Although I didn't post one for "Brothers in Arms" specifically, I posted a number of others over the years in my list of SACDs suspected to be 44/48kHz upsamples:

    Archimago's Musings: LIST: Suspected 44 or 48kHz PCM upsampled SACDs.

    One could make a list like that for DVD-A, HDtracks and Blu-Ray, etc... At least these days I think HDtracks and others like ProStudioMasters will weed out obvious upsampled albums like these.

    Remember folks, even if a studio is recording initially at 24-bits, that doesn't mean they used the best studio techniques and the final mix from multitrack to stereo could be greatly compromised. Vast majority of the time, there's unlikely to be benefit beyond 16-bits for dynamic range. I'm a fan of 24/96 if the recording/processing/mixing/mastering is up to the task.

    Very few albums out there truly need/benefit from high resolution. And vast majority would be in the classical / acoustic genres.
     
    HanowarHAIL, hvbias, Tommy SB and 2 others like this.
  4. Atmospheric

    Atmospheric Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eugene
    I have to disagree with that. Just off the top of my head, Grateful Dead Studio Box Set, recent Welch-era Fleetwood Mac, and Don Henley solo albums all sound noticeably better in hi-res. In all cases they are the definitive versions.
     
    Nostaljack likes this.
  5. jimbutsu

    jimbutsu WATCH YÖUR STEPPE

    Ooh- I've had my eye on the Grateful Dead studio set for a while - how do you like it and which provider did you get it from? I've been seriously tempted on that one...
     
  6. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    Wish granted, from the US Ludwig cut. The massive compression used on Henley's Building I thought was awful. Definitely not definitive for me :cheers:
    [​IMG]
     
    PhilBiker likes this.
  7. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!


    I can't agree with you last sentence at all.

    There are good reasons a recording doesn't stay in the digital domain. These days, with as good as digital sound has gotten, it is a matter of sonic choice. Sometimes, that analog flavor is desired, so a digital recording will be dumped to analog tape, or analg processors will be used, and those two actions render a recording DAD. It is why, in fact, the SPARS code was discontinued in the early 90s, because so many conversions were done to initial digital and recordings that they couldn't reliably be labeled at all. Is something ADD, DAD, DDD, AAD, or does the CD have a combination of some or all of these on the same disc? You get the picture.

    The end result is really all that matters. I remember back in the 80s, there were many people who wouldn't even buy a CD unless it was DDD. It made no sense. To flip that around, there were lots of people (probably some on this forum) who would only buy an AAD recording.
     
    Nostaljack likes this.
  8. Time Is On My Side

    Time Is On My Side Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison, WI


    [​IMG]

    Above is the CD-layer of the MFSL SACD. I thought the album was recorded digitally at 16-bit, 44.1khz?
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2017
    c-eling likes this.
  9. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    It's a great recording to begin with, IMO. Regardless of Bit size or depth... :)
     
    PhilBiker likes this.
  10. Paul Chang

    Paul Chang Forum Old Boy, Former Senior Member Has-Been

    Ditto.
     
  11. PhilipB

    PhilipB Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    The original iPod did support MP3. It also supported MP3 VBR (variable bit rate), AIFF and WAV. As can be seen here:

    It didn't even support AAC initially. That came about in 2003 with the iTunes Music Store when Apple started selling 128kbps AAC files with DRM. That lasted until 2007 when they launched iTunes Plus and gradually moved to the now-standard 256kbps AAC files without DRM. It's correct that Apple has never sold MP3s though - they've only ever sold AACs from the iTunes Store.

    One of the things Apple introduced with the original iTunes Music Store was the idea of being able to buy individual songs from an album, instead of having to buy the album as a whole (like a CD).
     
    MikaelaArsenault and Grant like this.
  12. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    I have no regrets about supporting and using Pono. I agree with Neil's vision. I agree with him that high-res sounds better than CD-res and better than lossy formats. I agree with him that high-res files need to be made more accessible and less expensive. This is a long game strategy, not a short game strategy. Long may he run. We need people like Neil pushing a vision like this, otherwise it will never happen. The labels aren't going to do this on their own.

    I have no regrets about having purchased a PonoPlayer and purchasing files from the store. The player and the files still work. I've lost nothing.
     
  13. liv3evil

    liv3evil Forum Resident

    Location:
    Upstate NY USA
    This.

    It may not be logical fiscally, but bandwidth and storage are cheap (these days), and I've never thought it made sense to charge more - if the content is the same, i.e. the same number of tracks - for the same product, regardless of resolution. Especially in the digital domain (not physical Blu-ray, SACD), with - or often without - a digital booklet, and usually devoid of source lineage, engineering, or mastering information. What am I buying, really?!?

    I'm glad to pay (a premium, even) for the part of the process that presumably requires most effort: the digitization process and everything leading up to it. If that is either done well or renders a good result, it should be readily apparent at all lossless resolutions. In general, at the endpoint, configuring a CPU to render 1s and 0s differently (96k vs. 192k, etc.) is relatively easy.
     
  14. liv3evil

    liv3evil Forum Resident

    Location:
    Upstate NY USA
    Forgot to mention that I don't own a Pono player, but I bought a dozen or so albums via the store (generally CD-quality albums that were either expensive imports or otherwise out-of-print). Sad to see the store go, though I'm glad it didn't end up becoming some kind of permutation of 7digital, which is a mess.
     
  15. Atmospheric

    Atmospheric Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eugene
    HDtracks

    I initially felt the same way. I almost always prefer a more dynamic mastering. But I'm starting to warm to the idea that DR=10 isn't always awful. I certainly wouldn't call any double-digit DR "massively compressed." But admittedly, my standards are being lowered as time goes on. I wish nearly everything were DR=13 and above.

    For me, the detail on the Henley hi-res stuff is stunning. I can literally hear backup singers slightly beside each other rather than directly on top of each other in the soundstage. For me, greater detail is even more important than greater dynamics, although the majority of the time one goes hand in glove with the other. But hey, I celebrate each of our right's to listen to what we find most pleasing.
     
    c-eling likes this.
  16. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    You'd think as I get older modern compression standards would start to lose there affect on me :laugh:
    I'm glad we have choices and this forum in which to make informed decisions that tailor to our tastes :)
     
  17. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    Grant wrote the following as part of a post:

    As with you, a 320 kbps CBR MP3 file is okay if there is no other option for the music I want. When it comes to higher quality downloads, Red Book FLAC is good enough for me. My own experience (based on some ABXY testing using Foobar 2000) has been that I can't hear a clear difference between a lossless FLAC and a well-encoded 320 kbps CBR MP3 file, so I doubt that hi-res would offer me much of an advantage for a Red Book FLAC to justify the added cost and the larger file size.

    In fact, I think at this point (if it is possible) I think on-line retailers (like Amazon.com and iTunes) should start transitioning to lossless formats. I'd be willing to pay a bit more for an album if it is lossless, and the justification for lossy formats (slow internet download speeds and small storage space on listening devices) is likely a thing of the past. Plus, if space is an issue, the user can just convert the lossless file into a lossy format themselves (at the quality level they choose), either for storage or on the fly when loading it on the player.
     
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  18. MikaelaArsenault

    MikaelaArsenault Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    :edthumbs:
     
  19. ElvisCaprice

    ElvisCaprice Forum Resident

    Location:
    Jaco, Costa Rica
    OR you have so much great lossless music already, far more than you have time to listen to, that you just refuse to accept a lossy file regardless of artist. Life is too short to waste on subpar quality.
    Hard drive space is dirt cheap, you cares about file size, at least for desktop.
     
    Atmospheric likes this.
  20. TonyCzar

    TonyCzar Forum Resident

    Location:
    PhIladelphia, PA
    I'm with you halfway, but I've accumulated a lot of lossy music over the years which I either still cannot replace as a lossless download, or care to spend the money to. (Many times, the upgrade would mean spending money on an import or out of print redbook CD - or finding the bootleg as a torrent - and I'm not in a position to do that. Life indeed is short and keeps doing that day after day.)

    What I have refused to do is buy what I already own in 16/44.1 again.
     
  21. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    I was concerned about storage space on a portable player, rather than storage space on my hard drive (where I agree with you, I just purchased a 1TB hard drive for $50). Even my iPod Classic (160gb) doesn't have enough space to hold all of my music even when I disregard duplicates, so I down convert some files when loading them on my player (such as audiobooks with one person speaking where I find a 192kbps MP3 file acceptable) to give me more room for other files on my player.
     
  22. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    Ivand and stereoptic like this.
  23. Prophetzong

    Prophetzong Forum Resident

    Location:
    NE WISC
    Pono/downloads:biglaugh:. Just buy a vinyl record or cd. Problem solved:whistle::frog::whistle:
     
  24. Atmospheric

    Atmospheric Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eugene
    Another thread crapper added to my ignore list.

    I guess posts like that must feed his ego in ways I'll never understand.
     
    bru87tr and Grant like this.
  25. tim185

    tim185 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Australia
    If you cant reverb tails as part of dynamic range, and I do, ...massive difference in 16 bit to 24 bit IMO
     
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