Why Pono Is the Worst Audio Player I Have EVER Seen

[This was written about one year ago by Steven Finch at RouteNote, right after Pono raised millions, was getting praised by celebrity musicians, and was at the height of its fame. We haven’t changed one word…]

The following guest post comes from Steven Finch, CEO of digital distributor RouteNote.

Yesterday the world was introduced to Pono Music. Pono Music was launched by Neil Young, and it’s easy to see that this device was created by old school music bigwigs with very little knowledge about technology or design.

Pono launched with a Kickstarter campaign that has so far raised over $1.1 million $1.75 million and I really feel that people have had the wool pulled over their eyes.

There is a reason why every iPod and iPhone has been a flat device. So it can fit in your pocket! So Pono decided to make their new music player a triangle shape.. can that be more awkward?

We have been doing a lot of testing in-house with regards to audio quality. There is very little difference if you use a studio master and then transform it into FLAC format, compared to starting with an MP3 file and then transforming it into FLAC format. FLAC is a much better audio standard than WAV or MP3, but it still has limitations (size of files). High-resolution digital albums at PonoMusic.com are expected to cost between $14.99 and $24.99 (plus the CEO didn’t want to answer the question at SXSW about how much cut they would take on each sale!).

I find it very funny that the size of the music player itself was only mention in fine print in the footnotes of the Kickstarter campaign. The Pono Music player has 64 GBs of internal memory and a removable 64GB microSD card included – thus, 128 GBs memory. The average FLAC audio file will be around 70MB. Thus, you will only be able to fit 1,872 tracks on the whole Pono Music player.

Limited? Well, very much so compared to an MP3 audio player!

We have done extensive tests here in our office to hear if the average person can hear the difference between an average MP3 audio file and a FLAC audio file, and surprisingly they CAN’T tell the difference!

As technology improves, so will the audio quality on standard MP3 players and smartphones . Is Pono needed at present? NO. It’s just a PR Play that will simply go away and incremental improvements in audio quality will happen over time!

(p.s. does the main kickstarter video have to be so cheesey? Simply a load of celebrities saying it has amazing sound, but with no other information that means anything!)

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Neil YoungPONORoutenotesound quality

I just don’t think anyone wants this. I don’t even listen to my own CDs / MP3s anymore. I’m 100% streaming, all of the time, through either my Google Play Music account or Spotify. That goes for on headphones, in the car, or at home. I was thinking about deleting my entire MP3 collection from my harddrive to make room actually because I absolutely 100% never touch them.

How, exactly, do your personal listening habits (100% streaming? great.) extrapolate to the entire universe of music listeners?

You don’t care much about music og musicians? Nice to know.

And yet… despite you not thinking there is a market for it, it has raised over $3 million USD in a couple days. Shucks, I guess you were wrong about people.

wow. You’re deleting your mp3’s so you can stream them instead? What a committed, hardcore music fan you must be David. Idiots like you are what’s wrong with the world. Bet you walk into lamposts with your iPhone welded to your face, thumbs still twitching.

Lol hahaha

huge POS. i agree that we needed higher quality sales of music going “mainstream” but the pricing on the music and player on this service are outrageous in an already niche market. they will be lucky if they sell anything. neil young’s ego and money are the only reason this shit is even being presented.

This could be a boon for the Music Industry if people ‘hear it’ and it’s perceived as ‘cool’. Pono is WAY TOO close to the name Sonos though which may confuse the market seeking audio systems. That Sonos system is a solid device which solves many music networking needs for the home.

neil young figured out how to make money in the modern music business… raise money and make hardware… probably way more than he’ll make from a new album… how many units did Le Noise sell?

That’s right, Neil Young is a failure and loser when it comes to music… A person who has written and performed so many songs for over 50 years sucks? Well, while you may not like his offerings, implying him to be a failure is so laughable. Who are you? Bob Dylan? Are you Elvis? Are you the Beatles? If not, then maybe you should keep your high and mighty attitude in check about good and bad…

It’s fun to look back on uniformed people acting like they have informed opinions. I just received my pono two days ago, and I reserved my judgments for the day it came. I wasn’t going to pretend like I knew if it was snake oil or not, I was just willing to take that gamble because I enjoy high fidelity music.

That all being said, this player is more than worth it.

1. The player fits in my pocket comfortably. It is also very ergonomic to the hand, the triangular design avoids thumb fatigue that flat designs have. Also it is designed differently from other players not out of stupidity, but because the hardware is larger and needs more space.

2. Correct, the technology isn’t revolutionary, the idea of making it available in an affordable price range (as opposed to thousands of dollars for comparable sound) is. And to think $400 is expensive when ipods debuted and stayed at $300 for the baseline classic shows a complete lack of perspective on the issue.

3. The capacity is 128 gigs, which is a shit ton more than the average smart phone, and to find a portable player, even just an mp3 player with that size costs the same as if not more than the pono.

4. The difference between mp3s and lossless formats such as flac is only apparent when you have hardware that can properly play both files. Also, the average person probably can’t tell the difference between a 3 or 12 year scotch, or a 3 dollar wine as opposed to a 20 + dollar of wine. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one. The market is there, and the Neil Young is creating a player that is capable of maximizing you quality of your music at a very competitive price.

Clearly this whole article is written by a competing company, and has no interest in objective coverage, not to mention completely shat on the player before one was even in production… This guys a fool, enjoy your pono’s people.

Well said analogies. It’s so frustrating when casual listeners try to tell the world about serious music hardware. They should stay with the $10 ear buds and stay out of the serious listening arena. If there were no discernible difference between mp3 and high bit rate audio, the record labels and studios would make masters in the mp3 format. I’m glad to have the privilege of listening to high bit rate audio in my living room. I will be adding the pono to my car soon. And how is 1800 songs not enough for someone that actually listens to music?

I also just got my Pono player within the last few weeks. I think the sound is incredible. I have hooked it up to many different headphones, earbuds and stereos and to me, the difference in sound quality is quite apparent.

The writer of this article rips on it pretty hard without even giving it a listen for themselves. Also, these “tests” that were done, how were they conducted? on an ipod? a laptop? a smartphone? with cheap headphones? These devices don’t have the hardware capable of putting out the HD quality sound. They also speak of converting MP3’s to FLAC….well that right there says it all. You can’t turn shit into gold. There is no “up converting files.” You must start with a high quality file. Once it is converted to an MP3, there is no going back…

The writer is quite right that the FLAC format is not anything new. Pono is just giving a proper way to deliver the HD files. Take DVD’s for instance. Does it do the job? Yes. Does it deliver the best quality of audio and video? No, it is very compressed and when the BluRay came out, it gave a much better way of delivering HD audio and video. The HD quality has always been there with the recordings, it’s the ways of delivering it that is constantly changing. The same goes for music. HD recordings of so many albums exist, Pono is just a better way of delivering that sound to you.

As for the “the average person doesn’t hear the difference,” I think that is a load of crap. Under the right circumstances, almost anyone should hear the difference. Listening on your iPod or laptop with $20 earbuds isn’t going to allow you have a true test of the difference. You need proper equipment. I think more of a true statement would be “the average person doesn’t give a shit.” Which is sad… I don’t think most people know what the quality difference is because they are so used to MP3s and itunes and youtube that they just accept that.

I think something that Pono is trying to do is just make people aware and offer it to those who really want that high quality music. Giving them a great experience digitally. By doing this, it may slowly become a standard on many more digital players and that will drop the price all around. It’s only a matter of time..

You think a laptop can not output the same audio quality like a PONO player? Sad that many musicians, even on an academic level are working in a studio on a macbook or a comparable laptop.

I think the headphones or speakers are much more important than this PONO bullshit marketing. Have you really compared high quality FLAC, MP3s on this PONO with a normal mp3 player or your laptop in blind ABX test? If no shut up, it’s just subjective thinking and you may be even fooling yourself..

Yes. The Pono plays the music 10 times better.

Musicians using laptops to record are using external interfaces (external soundcards) that actually record at higher sample rates, and bit depths. You can easily access these pieces of equipment anywhere on the internet. What is really hilarious, is that you think plugging into onboard audio on a laptop gives an accurate replication of sound. Most audio drivers that are developed for laptops have a VERY distinct difference in audio quality, especially Realtek drivers compared to Apple products. Most apple products normalize audio, and the codec used completely changes the sound of the audio (Yes, your iTunes is garbage). The writer of this article is a moron, and there is absolutely a difference in audio quality between mp3 and FLAC.

While red book might be 16/44.1, and this number is scientifically designed for media playback, however, humans can’t tell the difference past 24/96. Now, I understand there are other articles on the internet that leave little to the imagination, or argue that scientifically this product does not make sense. While aware of that, you should also understand that the reason for the bit depth increase is to end the “loudness war” that has been going on for the past 3 decades. Why everyone limits their masters for loudness, is normally for their media device to play back at a louder volume, sacrificing dynamics in audio and increasing the noise floor. But if they didn’t have to do that, and the audio was well within the pain threshold (144db), this leaves a very significant room for dynamics to still exist within loudness. Thus proving, red book is no longer a standard, or should (the future) be extinct from our minds.

The MP3 codec in its own is a compression format. It doesn’t matter if its one million kbps, it’s still a compression format. Lossless files should have been playable on devices years ago, and I’m kind of baffled how arguing in favor FOR mp3, just for size, is going to really make a dent on your impression that having a limited storage device with interchange-able cards “doesn’t offer enough space if the file is 70mb.” Does anyone remember the iomega MP3 players? If space were even an issue in todays world where a TB only costs $100, I’d be dammed if you could even make that argument.

Just a simple idea, really though, is that if your favorite artist can go into a multimillion dollar studio to record an album, and have the privilege to hear it through $100,000 speakers mixed a very specific way; why wouldn’t you want the clearest replication of that experience if you actually like the songs they create? No one is tugging your arm to buy a vinyl, and no one is trying to make you buy a Ponos. Calling it rubbish out of stupidity, is just simply a riot in its own.

I agree with you 100 percent, I have been an Audiophile all my life. I recently paired my Shure SW 846 Ear Buds with a Sony NW-ZX2. There is a new music streaming service called Tidal ( no I don’t work for them ) I Tunes Streams at 256kbps, Spotify offers 320kbps, Tidal streams as high as 1411kbps. I have listened to crappy MP3 music for so long, it is great to listen to it as it should be. Yes you can definitely tell the difference, however only if you have the correct hardware.

It’s ironic seeing commentators accuse the article author of shilling for rivals, while they themselves write as though they’re fellating Neil Young himself. How much are you paid to bash this article? Or that feeling of self-superiority enough? Having “golden ears” makes you a better human being than everybody else, huh?Audiophiles can buy all the snake oil they want; thankfully it’s not my money they’re spending.

Yes, actually it does. Thanks for playing.

http://xiph.org/ Tl;dr: save yourself some money and buy a decent set of headphones

Hahaha. Audiophiles are the worlds biggest idiots. Actual SCIENCE tells us that most people can’t hear the difference between 320 kbps and uncompressed music. It also tells us that audiophiles can’t decide whether an iron hanger or a $1000 monster cable sounds best (go on, google the scientific papers).

I’m a sound engineer, I work with sound for a living. While getting my bachelor’s I had actual doctors in sound engineering who did their phd on audio compression tell me that, for the most part, compression doesn’t matter (of course you shouldn’t mix or record with compressed audio, but that’s not the issue here). Well, I’m sure hobby enthusiast know more about perceived sound than doctors in the subject. lol.

Anyways, as someone mentioned; when you’ve done your double blind ABX-test and found a statistically significant result I’m all ears, but until then: stop filling the internet with your biased idiot garbage. self-proclaimed audiophiles – you suck.

first of all respect for each and every one, some thoughts come to me in each point: 1. maybe it’s designed to plug out of your pocket; make sens hi-fi portable with standard headphones? 2. totally agree; isn’t a revolution, though if that player works fine, gonna be welcome; some smartphones have bugs playing wav&flac 3. agree again, so from a positive POV.. less capacity, better selection, easier to find your best music (who wants millions of songs with rubbish quality?) 4. average person isn’t educated in music, neither in emotions.. are you able to identify different mineralizations in water? average people don’t & drink everyday (p.s. just a load of celebrities¿? come on.. they are not Ladies Gaga, Justins Bieber nor Pamelas Anderson..) peace&dUb

get your fucking and amazing LIKE !!

Yeah, about the expensive wine…

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/wine-blind-taste-tests-and-your-money/

Interesting. An opinion about opinions.

Agree whole heartedly, love my Pono, it is not difficult to hear how good sounding it is.

Why all the haters? For $400 it’s competitive in sound quality, formats, and storage as most other players in this price range. Plus now you can get used in nice shape for about $250 if you look around, sometimes even a signature model. I own a lot of music and a lot of very good players, and my Ponos are some of my favs. My only knock? Battery life could be better. Rock on peoples…..

Bingo. Well said.

Actually the capacity for the Pono player is 192 GB. The player comes with 64 GB built in, and it accepts 128 GB card.

Boom. Thank you good sir, for saving me the trouble of typing all of that out. These naysayers are clearly as ignorant as a trump thumper, and have no idea what they are missing.

Look, the concept behind PONO, at the top end, using flac / aiff, is to render 24bit / 192khz sampled music. and of course, 80% (or greater) of the headphones could not even render that quality. The current market likes to deliver compressed net-ready audio, and even more so, audio that is “less than”. an MP3 is a friggin magic trick, that fools your brain, it’s all about math… crunching. Now, compared to WAV, as an example, MP3 does not even hold a candle to WAV, it can’t… WAV, in it’s current state, is the best we have, and now PONO will be…

Whomever the author is, does not know squat about audio – and I’d tag him as a complete idiot. If he did know about audio, then he’d know that a conversion from MP3 to a lossless FLAC or back to WAV will NOT improve sound AT ALL, it’s impossible. There is NO up conversion. yes, MP3 can be 320, and the converted flack can be higher, but it’s all a wasted effort, as the best you’ll get is 320 sound stuffed in the flac container even if the flac file rate is tagged at 15000 (or whatever…) it’s just going to be the same as the MP3 at best… period…

PONO’s 24bit / 196khz, is probably best served up on really expensive shure in-ear top end headphones to which has a capability of accurately reproducing the sound. don’t expect to hear the discrete difference on $5.00 headphones Apple, Samsung or Sony threw in with your phone, just won’t happen…

Hey, if you want quantity, then go ahead, buy your online music or rip your 64 – 128k MP3s so you can boast to your friends you got more songs on your device than they do… The point about file size doesn’t have any weight (hold water) with an audiophile – as they are concerned with quality of sound, not how much you can stuff in your pants…

PONO’s concept is to ultimately serve up music, to the listener, the way the artist intended it to be heard, that’s it!!

So, in the end, if you want to rip something, rip your cheap-ass copies of stolen music – (btw, even the music you pay for on Amazon prime or Apple, is low grade audio, a farce, a joke), don’t rip on artists who now have the opportunity to be proud to release music the way it was intended…

I’d be happy to pay 15 – 25 bucks for the real deal… vs. 99c for garbage…

What Rob said…….I second that! The author of this article obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Rubbish article!

mp3 was produced for reference audio via digital in it’s beginning. NOT for audiophiles. mp3s are for kids. Adults prefer the high end audio when they can afford it. Pono is making high end adult music listening convenient and affordable.

So, you kids who’s pallet for pristine audio hasn’t matured yet, keep using your I-pods and listening to your mp3s until the pubics grow in.

I agree with Rob.

Kids tastes haven’t matured enough to hear the differences between wav, flac and mp3s. You can’t hold that against them. Audiophile adult listeners who love hearing well produced and recorded music (not just as novelty the way preadolescence children do) will appreciate Pono and the convenience of 24 bit audio with good cans. Actually, there should be an age qualification for the purchase of a Pono. Like age 21 or older. Because that’s about how old you would be to distinguish the difference between the wav. flac and mp3s.

So kids, when all your pubic hairs are grown in, mo and pop will buy you a Pono for your birthday. Until then, you’ll just have to listen to your I-pod and your mp3s.

Except that when you’re 35+ you start to stop hearing some high frequencies (about 16-17 KHz) so all this is quite stupid.

Also, age requirement, what? Human audio receptors can hear the different perfectly the more young they are. IF they actually care, that’s another reason.

Pono will be nice if it goes mainstream, since it will provoke hipsters to go and enjoy music much better before physical listening degradation starts kicking in. But it’s like a drowning man’s attempt to save something that can’t be saved. Music listening will go to cellphones, period.

Just start licensing the technology to cellphones. There’s your iPhone killer idea, Young (Old) Neil.

Go do some reseach on sound and human hearing.

Although I wouldn’t buy a Pono Player because it doesn’t make phone calls I simply can’t grasp the argument that my money is wasted because my hearing is not what it used to be. I know I can’t hear above 10KHz now yet I can easily discern the quality difference between the file formats on my gear. I cannot listen to MP3 files. Way to fatiguing, even on my iPhone with very good IEMs.

I actually read this obviously competitor inspired POS article/posting, which is fraught with incorrect assumptions and approaches. very sad indeed, since many recording studios today are compressing, stemming and limiting the quality they produce to fit with greatest common denominator for average listeners today– MP3. we have a very extensive testing lab here which is used for optimizing hardware, software and various devices. Not only can headphone based test systems starting at about $3K and speaker based test systems begnning at about $5K reveal differences between most MP3’s and FLAC, but we have also measured substantial diffferences in physiological responces (brain wave patterns, GV skin responce, hormonal output and other measured factors). However, there are a few critical requirements that AndyD towards the end of these comments touched on. First, you obviously need to start with music that is not already adultarated in terms of dynamic range, equalization profile and such. Sadly, this is getting harder and harder to do, due to the factors mentioned in some comments below. You cannot begin with MP3 as the author of the article suggested. Next, you need to have a system capable of revealing the differences. Third, just as with wine tasting, gourmet food tasting and other things that develop over time, you need to either have a trained ear, or hopefully have people with actual regular experience listening to live music. Many people are so accustomed to listening to compressed MP3 and related music that it is like trying to take a person who is accustomed to a regular diet of McDonalds and Boone’s Farm and trying to get them to compare fine Chilean, Californian and French wines. Surely there is a place for the entire spectrum of tastes (including fast foods, etc), but just a a chef has to null his palate periodically, the ear develops over time. However, similar to the example with wine, the subtle, or not so subtle differences begin to show differences in fatigue factors (i.e. diminishing enjoyment) as a factor of prolonged consumption. We are finding that this is exactly what we and others are seeing with audio– i.e. that even those with limited experience show physiological reaction differences to different music, and about 5-20% of listeners in general are able to hear differences, depending on source and playback factors. As some very astute commenters stated, why not let people choose for themselves, as you may find that just as the case with most everything else from food and clothes, to cars and media, there are many definable, intangible and subjective factors that draw people to the available options, and just as we shouldn’t say, for example, that one does not need, or cannot appreciate the differences inherent to a Corvette, since most any decent car can get you from point A to B in about the same way.

http://WWW.PONOSUCKS.COM

and this is coming from the same guy who has a horrible design of a site, horrible name of a distribution service called routenote, horrible technology that isn’t revolutionary, and horrible service all together. yeah! i’d definitely trust my sources about pono from this guy! anybody else take this guy seriously?! lol

says the guy regularly using it

That doesn’t negate the fact that what he said was true.

When I first saw a photo of the player my first reaction was “what the hell is this”? In an age where smart phones and mp3 players are touting “thinness” and portability this is exactly the opposite, reminiscent of the old Nomad jukebox MP3 players.

Maybe audiophiles don’t care about design and portability. I don’t know.

As was explained on the KickStarter page, the design was done to allow for larger, higher-quality components and battery, spaced far enough apart to avoid interference.

Whether or not that is true, it is stated quite clearly on the page.

if you researched pono a little more before slagging it off you’d realise they went with this shape to fit the components needed for the player inside.Rather have something unique than another rectangular slab of junk.

How stupid can you guys possibly be? Maybe consider the fact this isn’t designed to be a portable player, its designed to be a digital hi res music player. The portability is a bonus. And you know why it’s shaped the way it is? Because instead of using a $2.00 off-the-shelf DAC chip the size of an ant to play music, it uses DISCRETE ANALOG CIRCUITRY that requires PHYSICAL space.

I seriously hate people like you, who think you are so clever and just use the internet to spew your uninformed bullshit. How hard is it to do 10 minutes of research before lying about shit on the internet?

it’s not true what he says Steve finch wouldn’t know anything about mp3s if he sat on one. he wish he could raise money on kickstarter. sorry but no one uses his service or take him seriously. this is the same guy who claim he has a revolutionary service when he doesn’t yet bash pono for not be revolutionary? plz steve know that ditto music is better than routenote.

I’m not sure what testing the guy has done concerning the sound quality of a hi res FLAC file from the master tape compared to and MP3 file even one sampled at 320. There is a huge difference in the sound which a deaf person could hear. That’s like comparing two tin cans connected by a string to a telephone. Dude should look into a different line of work.

Steven Finch always seems to demonstrate his lack of the music industry numerous times. Now he just demonstrated his lack of music/audio production? It seems to me that Steven only cares about bashing his competitors and other people that seems to have better success in this industry than him.

How can he say these things about Pono when he has a service like RouteNote? While I do applaud Steven for making a response, even though its clearly a “PR stunt” for RouteNote, he needs to do some serious R&D regarding the industry before he make noise and state claims like this. This isn’t how a real CEO should behave. What he has demonstrated is sheer arrogance and ignorance.

I congratulate Neil Young on a extremely successful Kickstarter campaign and I look forward to see Pono in action.

Kevin Rivers CEO, Venzo Digital http://www.venzodigital.com

I am young, had a lot of ear training and I’m doing a massive research article on CD quality.

mp3 is shit. Well, most files I have in .wav converted into .mp3 mostly shows a dramatic cut around 16-17kHz and its pretty obvious in the sound… If any of you had basic lossless compression lessons would know that there is quite a big compromise to mp3. If i converted any of my CDs, it goes into .aac which is a lot more advance and doesn’t add a stupid high pass filter.

Still, go read articles by John Watkinson, one of the kings of digital audio and Chris Montgomery, the creator of the ogg formats. What you see nowadays that make people think they need higher formats is

1. Shitty playback systems. Use a nice old JVC DAC (rupert neve’s choice) with a nice amp and some nice speakers, they will help A LOT.

2. Too many amateur mixing engineers. We are looking at a generation where using an LA-3A means opening up a plugin. The quality of engineers are going down because of how easy it is to own and open up Logic or Live and just make shitty mixes.

So… I mean if you wanna get a nice player like an Astell and Kerns with a nice pair of triple driver IEMs and you are good to go.

I personally use my Black Lion ADDA into a pair of Adam A7Xs. It sounds great with proper acoustic treatment.

And Neil Young is just an opportunist and liar. He said vinyls sound better and that higher sample rates and bit depth make it sound more vinyl like. That is bullshit. After the crazy amount of filters and elliptical filters and of course the restrictions of dynamics and stereo image makes Neil Young look like a schmuck.

I mostly agree with your sentiments but to demonize Neil Young for getting caught up in this merchandising/marketing campaign is unfortunate. I totally get his interest in trying to push people (mass market) away from settling for substandard audio THAT THEY ARE PAYING FOR — all the commercial music download services give you highly compressed versions of the music you shell out for — I think it’s a noble sentiment, but unfortunately this particular venture looks like an ill-conceived one and probably will flop. Maybe it will make some general market consumers curious about how good audio *could* sound.

Good job I couldn’t agree more,sounds like sour grapes to me too.

It’s the Monster Cables/ Transparent Cables marketing scheme for the psychology of wealthy audiophiles.

— Glenn

http://www.reverbnation.com/GlennGalen

too many unqualified comments on here, how can any one say caviar sucks, if they have never tasted it???

I have to disagree with those thinking this is a ploy for taking their cash. I have been involved in high quality audio for over 30 years and recently (2 yrs. ago) began utilizing digitized files (FLAC) for much of my ACTIVE listening. There is a huge difference in the “naturalness” of the large files vs mp3′s. That being said, in order for a person to hear the difference it requires several things;

A. a system capable of high resolution reproduction (not necessarily high cost) most people listen through consumer grade junk systems, and yes, they won’t be able to hear a significant difference. B. active listening; that means sitting in the sweet spot and paying attention to the music not just having it on as background noise. C. developing ones ears is not unlike developing a wine pallet, you have to train it over time. I liken hi res audio to wine in that you can give a wonderful bottle of wine to a wino, and it is just wine. Same for great sounding audio, one must know what to listen for in order to appreciate it. If you have never heard it before you have no point of reference. There is a magical moment that occurs for those with the interest in learning to “listen” and who are willing to learn a little about audio and stop throwing away money on the overly priced junk audio that is sold to the masses. With good gear, well recorded tracks, and full files, the speakers and the room simply disappear. In other words; you have created an auditory hologram just in front of you. The music is not restricted to single points left and right in front of you; it now comes from positions throughout the room, stage front to back, side to side, and up and down. With one’s eyes closed, the effect is simply amazing! Almost spooky because there are sounds coming from places that your mind says “that can’t be” but it is, and unfortunately 99% percent of music listeners never hear this at home.

You will begin to hear things in songs you know well and discover things on the recording that you had no idea were there in the first place. Finally, this analogy should sum it up for many; take a small digital photo sized for email and blow it up to 24 x 36 print, what you have left is a pixilated photograph that looks much worse than it did on the email, you can now see all the “jaggies” every where. Same for the audio files, you can hear the “pixilation” or “Jaggies” if you will on a high res system. Once you train your ears and mind for hi res audio, you will have little tolerance for the crap everyone listens too! Just like nails on a chalk board!

The only comment post worth reading.

Your comparison to a “pixelated” photograph is interesting. You are correct, in that “blowing up” a low-res photo looks terrible (“Jaggies”). But this is not what is happening here. I like to think of myself as an pragmatic audiophile. I don’t believe in “audio grade power cables”, mpingo discs, or the vast majority of BS products that some audiophiles are enraptured with. They are not designed for audio quality…they are designed to extract money from your pocket. Pono is the same. I will give you that most low quality MP3’s sound a bit off. Where I draw the line is at CD quality… 44k/16bit. Anything beyond that, certainly, you are not hearing anything better. Pono and their backers are insisting that you will, and thus the money extraction begins. There are no audible “jaggies” at 44k/16bit, if you think there are I’d like to know how you hear them. Your “hi res system” (and I have a few of those too!) is as good as it’s source content, true. But, your ears and brain have a limit as well and you won’t (and can’t) hear what isn’t there (or miss because it’s “lost”)

I get your point and notice I clarified “not high priced” I delight from finding the gian killers out there, by no means is it needed to have boutique cables etc. to have great sound. If you have not listened to Patricia Barber’s”Smash” Sample rate(s): 192kHz/24bit & 96kHz/24bit found on the free HD Tracks sampler you can download, you should, everyone should. It is simply “STUNNING” I listened to it from my MAC into a dedicated outboard DAC and then fed into my 5 watt SET tube amp. I thought my system sounded great until then. I was simply blown away by the quality and detail from this file. Try it, I guarantee you will be amazed. Cheers

Nice track, for sure. If you can run blind test, where there are several recordings at different bitrates, and actually pick out the 44K one from the 96 or 192 ones as at all different, you should try it.

I tried it with some tracks other than this one, and I could not tell. I bet you could not, either. I do think you would be able to find the 64 or 128 (maybe 256?) MP3 versions though. 🙂

So tubes, yes you can hear what is not their…it is called glare and it is caused because data is missing, again, if you have not experienced it, how would you know?….same thing happened to me, before I started studying and listening on the “next level” I thought “surely a DAC cant make much of a diffrence” boy was I wrong!

Same as the self awareness deal, “we don’t know that we don’t know” That does not mean that others can’t know.

I have no doubt you think you hear something “better”. Or with “less glare”. Your ears don’t really hear…it’s your brain. I’m sure you will agree that it’s easy to fool your brain. How many systems have you had over the years? I’ve had several…and they all sound “different”. But “better”? Hard to say. What is more accurate? What sounds most like real music? Or the room? Or more natural? Very very subjective. You will hear what you want to hear unless you are not biased in the first place. How do you explain how the data has gone missing? The waveform can be properly reconstructed completely as long as the bandwidth is limited (as I’m sure you know). If you think the 44/16 samples are missing stuff (because they got the math wrong somehow) what makes you think the higher rates get it right? It’s the same math!

Regardless of what you think other people can hear or not hear, don’t you want to have the choice?

You assume people can’t tell the difference, but let people find out for themselves. If in that process some people believe they hear a difference when in fact they cannot, so be it.

I did a very simple (blind) test with a CD (not HR). I made several copies. One without any form of compression and three with lossy compression.

I could tell the difference between the uncompressed and compressed music every time. I will certainly try the same thing between CD quality and HR quality. What was interesting was that the people who helped me with this test beforehand told me that it was ‘impossible’ to tell the difference. (I’m a sucker for these tests, I did the same thing with diet-soda’s, I could taste artificial sweeteners every time.)

I’m a practical person. I will continue to use lossy compression, but I will also buy some albums in HR quality and others in CD quality.

Oh dear. I am amazed that there are so many experts here. Music should be enjoyed, not fought over. If you like listening to MP3’s and are happy with that, good for you. I can’t actually believe people pay money for them, but their choice is fine with me. Some people here have made very accurate statements about audio and it’s reproduction, but most haven’t. The answer is that you should decide for yourself based on what you can afford and what you perceive. Don’t be angry at others for wanting to listen to music the way they like to. Show some love.

Very good explanation. Since the advent of MP3, Most people have been listening to the musical equivalent of cheap port in a Dixie cup and have no idea how good (Like a fine bottle of wine) music can really be. The sad result is that even the master quality has been deliberately degraded, (Why bother with high resolution recording when it’s all going to be reduced for consumption.) The music industry will provide what the consumer wants and unfortunately, the consumer wanted cheap and fast and quality took a huge beating. But, just like every innovation, when quality can be delivered cheap and fast, it will be in demand. Power to PONO for pushing in the right direction!!

Thanks Mitch, it is sad that an entire generation has no idea how good home reproduction can be.

The main point is missed completely. If you begin with an MP3 or compressed file it is absolutely impossible to improve the quality of that recoding by converting to any other file. You have to begin with a large file like FLAC. This means if you don’t already have a FLAC file of your music you will need to purchase one. Yes, you will need to repurchase your entire catalogue AGAIN. That’s not going to happen.

I am a serious collector with over 5,000 titles in cd and vinyl. Maybe 10,000 audio files. I haven’t purchased a cd in 3 years. I do still buy vinyl and convert which is the ONLY reason I still use iTunes. Most of my listening is streaming with 20 million songs or through dj software Serato using quality files.

Pono will probably fail. Only the wealthy can afford to purchase a triangular device separate from a convenient smart phone. As a hardcore listener I don’t use my smartphone for high fidelity. I’m a parent and use a smartphone musically to exercise or travel.

I love Neil Young. It just feels like this time he wasn’t listening to the consumer….I think the same about Jimmy Iovine and Beats…

Nathan makes a great point, all your mp3 files are junk and you must renew the titles in large files. The first thing I tell friends when they ask me about getting into true HIFI is ” stop downloading MP3’s” The old addage “junk in junk out” totally apples here. No matter how good or expensive your equipment is, a poor quality recording sounds worse on good gear.

‘Only the wealthy can afford to purchase a triangular device separate from a convenient smart phone.’

Wait, what?!?! So you happily spunk $£$£ up the wall each month on a ‘smart’phone (ie. another moron surfing Facebook 24/7) but you won’t pay $300 on a dedicated device to play your much-loved music??

How quickly the marketing men have captured the minds and souls of the populace.

I despair.

Quote from Nathan: “Yes, you will need to repurchase your entire catalogue AGAIN. That’s not going to happen.” Speaking only for myself, I have gone from 33 1/3 and 45 rpm vinyl to 8 track tape to cassette tape to CD’s and recently digital downloads. Obviously I have not purchased every track in every platform. Never say never Nathan.

Good post Ray. I believe It’s a resonance thing! You either feel it or you don’t. A kick ass system is key but we’re also talking subtle feelings here.

Best and most lucid comment on this thread – thanks.

I agree this is a great post and the only one worth reading thus far. Yes, the Ponos player is not going to immediately reel in the “better-fitter-happier-ADHD” crowd but what it *may* just do is turn people on to stopping and *listening to the music, reading linear notes and lyrics, *valuing it as they did before.

How many people do this? I don’t disagree with you in theory. I love my vinyls and my stereo system, but I find that most younger people are listening to music in their standard car speakers or through their iPhone earbuds.

The Pono system doesn’t seem like a sustainable model. It’s for audiophiles — so narrow.

If the current trend in music-tech. continues, people will keep moving toward convenience, access to larger libraries, ability to use a variety of devices, etc. I just don’t see a sustainable market for this product.

Prove me wrong.

To Steven Music is for the ear. What the pono player looks like is irrelevant. Neil Young is right, much is lost in encoding. But even an 96.000 hz analog file has to be converted to sound. Much is lost there. What happened to the super-cd?

Nowadays engineers compress and filter bass tones out. Compression hurts my ears, 3 minutes is all I can take.

the super CD faded because the actual improvement with regards to a standard cd is negligible or even academic only. If it was such an improvement as stated, it would have survived or even have become the standard for (High end) music lovers.

Try listening to a Mobile Fidelity Audio Lab original master recording SACD with good equipment and, most importantly, GOOD speakers. Closest thing I’ve heard yet to the sound of a high quality vinyl record the FIRST time it’s played. I no longer listed to CDs at home, only in the car. I can’t listen to horribly compressed digital radio when FM sounds so much better. And even that is no better than the lowly CD. It was from listening to a few of my SACDs last night (a christmas carol night was on the radio) that got me reading (all day) these sites about HD digital because their is no way I would ever listen to MP3.

Agreed. Tonight on Amazon, I read a 1-5 star reviews of a book that isn’t even published yet. I hear people pontificate about how a movie is going to be sight unseen based entirely on the trailers and hype. And now we have “an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals” bashing something they’ve probably not heard unless they were in Marin County or SXSW. Look, it’s not about the technology. Neil and Company have said repeatedly it’s about putting the emotion back into the listening experience. It’s not often I get to experience that and if I can get “sexual chocolate” in a Toblerone-shaped box I’m in. I’ll wait and reserve judgement until I have one in hand with a decent pair of cans and I have some good music queued up. I don’t know, maybe Klaatu? 😉

I used to sell audio equipment, and cables are very much worth spending a bit of your budget on. Not digital cables, just speaker and rca cables. Go buy a short length of thicker gauge speaker cable, and run it to your left speaker. Use cheap wire on the right speaker. Use your balance knob to compare the 2 speakers’ sound. I set this up to show customers how big a difference speaker cables can make. Every customer looking for good sound heard the difference immediately, and was sold. I have not seen nearly any differences between Digital signal cables.

While I agree that most users cannot discern between lossless and lossy forma, this sentence makes me suspect that Mr. Finch may have no clue what he is talking about:

There is very little difference if you use a studio master and then transform it into flac format, compared to starting with an mp3 file and then transforming it into flac format. Flac is a much better audio standard that WAV or MP3, but it still has limitations (size of files).

Sorry, should read “formats”, not “forma”.

True, that was excruciating to read. For the record, converting an MP3 to FLAC will do nothing to improve it – the lost information won’t magically reappear. FLAC is a lossless compression format for PCM audio so a WAV file encoded to FLAC will sound identical when decoded.

So he’s been doing ‘a lot of testing’ expecting to hear a difference between identical waveforms. Anyone wanting to do a proper test should create a 16bit / 44.1kHz WAV file (properly dithered) from the studio master to test against CD quality, along with MP3 files at various bitrates, and compare the files using a DAC capable of converting hi-res audio without downsampling and equipment down the chain to the ears capable of reproducing hi-res audio.

I’m not even that knowledgeable on audio formats but that was an excruciating sentence to read.

The problem I have with Pono’s marketing scheme is that they are touting 196kHz files as being “highest quality”. They aren’t. It’s a marketing tool that will be used to get people to pay extra for something that can actually sound worse in a lot of cases than what are perceived as lower quality files (such as 96kHz audio).

Read Lavry’s Sampling Theory For Digital Audio: http://lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling-theory.pdf

Complain all you f*cking want but this will generate upwards of 4.5m or more from Kickstarter alone. Maybe even 10m. That literally means a lot of people want this product, whether you think its dumb or not.

How can a publication like this, which constantly banters about how no one feeds the music industry anymore, be upset that a product is so successful in less than two full days? This is literally creating a new type of market for music that unfortunately HDTracks couldn’t make.

Let’s see if it’s successful BEYOND Kickstarter. There’s quite a few Kickstarter projects who retail sales ability have been very questionable to say the least.

There is a market for this music and player. I have a lot invested in AV equipment so that I can watch movies, concert bluray/dvd’s and listen to music at concert levels. With quality gear, differences in source resolution are audible and measurable. if you want your music on your phone great … I don’t

PONO ordered and can’t wait to get it.

I’ve seen two articles about Pono on this site.

This article was obviously hastily written and the author apparently knows very little–or has not thought much–about anything he wrote. The author of the other article feels obligated to marginalize Neil Young by pointing out his advanced age and his “earthy” feel, and calls it “cocky” to try to compete with the almighty Apple. The implication of both articles seems to be “How Dare Pono try to get business away from my beloved Apple!”

It is interesting to me that, when anyone makes any attempt to compete with Apple’s near monopoly–which I think is largely the result of Apple’s having come crying to congress, afraid that Microsoft was getting a monoply–Apple disciples become indignant.

” The implication of both articles seems to be “How Dare Pono try to get business away from my beloved Apple!”

Really? That was your whole take on the articles. You didn’t see anything else there, huh?

I saw something else. Is that your best defense, hoodgrown?

I saw something else? Why do you think that’s all I saw? Is that all you’ve got, Hoodgrown?

Well, I wrote more. Why is that all you think I saw?

You’re a fuckin’ moron.

Read the FAQ: HOW MUCH WILL PONOMUSIC COST? The record companies set their own digital music prices, label by label. High-resolution digital albums at Ponomusic.com are expected to cost between $14.99 -$24.99, and there may be exceptions. For this price you get the best quality digital music available anywhere, you own these albums forever – they don’t live only in the cloud, but also on your computer and backup disc, and you can play them anytime you wish on your PonoPlayer or other compatible devices.

The French Qobuz streaming service offers unlimited FLAC for $20 a month.

Wow. Someone obviously doesn’t “get” It. Surprise, surprise.

And coming from a guy who runs a digital service whose website serves up text via jpeg. lmao. A dropdown to change the language, but the main marketing message is a static jpeg. Talking trash about a Pentagram designed marking campaign. lol.

Really don’t see a justification for posting this rant except that it’s just a part of the mid march snark ritual of sxsw.

Extensive tests in our office? What, on a pair of computer speakers? Dick head, the difference from lossy to lossless is very much audible. Don’t let your shit speakers and headphones drag the rest of us down.

Nothing wrong w/ pointing out it’s flaws, but It’s the first draft of the pono. Give the guy a break.

Is that a Ponoplayer in your pocket or are you just…oh never mind.

Shows your level of ignorance, Steve. Players like this will SAVE digital format players for those who have an appreciation of real music and not the junk formats most call music. MP3 is the 8-track in guess what, an increasingly HiFi digital world where peoples eyes and ears are opening up to what they have been missing.

true statements…. I have to disagree with those thinking this is a ploy for taking their cash. I have been involved in high quality audio for over 30 years and recently (2 yrs. ago) began utilizing digitized files (FLAC) for much of my ACTIVE listening. There is a huge difference in the “naturalness” of the large files vs mp3′s. That being said, in order for a person to hear the difference it requires several things;

You aced it, fellow audiophile!

Thank you PRO AUDIO DESIGNER, you know how many thousands of hours of active listening it takes to develop our auditory pallet, i find it amazing that people who have only listend to files on earbuds or crappy consumer junk, think they know better…it takes years of listening, reading and comparing at live performances in order to develop one’s auditory pallet.

I believe “palate” is the word you’re looking for.

I’ve been in the audio business for just over 50 years. I still sell high end components. I find that if you play superbly reproduced music on any car speakers, table radios, etc. it sounds far better than an ordinary recording. You absolutely do not need expensive gear to go to a special place in your head; you nned good media. I sold cheap “systems” in college using direct-to-disc LP’s, sometimes on $78.00 folding (!) stereos and made the sale every time. Cheap earbuds or no, we all benefit from low distortion, uncompressed music. As products like the Pono elevate the market’s awareness, better formats will be created; look how far digital has come, from an irritating chore to listen to, to a damn good sound approaching the best analog. Comparing 320 to uncompressed music is an eye (ear?) opener. Even now, I can easily hear the difference between compressed and uncompressed and it has very little to do with the 17kHz cutoff. Those who deny the difference are merely Luddites who never actually had the experience; they simply guess and spout opinions to validate their point of view. Finally, every damn time I offered up an audition of a multi-kilobuck AC chord, the dealer said, “WOW” and bought it. I cannot hear much difference these days (I’m almost 70) but my customers can and so can an informed consumer. It’s subtle but I made more money on AC chords than many people earn in a year. No dealer ever told me he could not appreciate the difference if he actually listened with an open mind. To a great extent, much of this is priorities. Want better sound? Open you mind and your ears. You just might smile.

Mr. Finch:

Some of your points are salient (albeit poorly elucidated), particularly about the form factor of the Pono device. I’ve no idea why the manufacturers think a triangle is a good idea. If they needed more room in the product for advanced electronics, why not just make it a deeper rectangular shape? The triangle is indeed awkward, much like your comments across the course of the remainder of your “article”.

Next, you claim that there is little difference between converting an MP3 file to FLAC and converting a studio tape to FLAC. That might be the weirdest statement I’ve heard yet, unless your definition of ‘little’ is quite different from most people. If the root of a FLAC file is an already lossy file, it cannot provide as much true data as an uncompressed studio tape or file, which is the workflow of Pono music files, I believe. You don’t need much math to understand that much quantification.

But the fact that the files will likely cost 1.5 to 2.5 what iTunes files cost is a big concern. This puts the software in a price column with HD Tracks, and eliminates a lot of the market. I’m not sure why you couldn’t make that a key part of your thesis.

The volume of the device is not important to the market at all. The Pono is being sold to motivated music buyers on issues of quality, not amount of storage. If the limit is, say, 100 albums, I think that will be more than fine. Most people with 32GB iPhones never fill that space, and if they do, it’s a rare person that can play all of that music before they re-sync the device, likely swapping playlists at that time. Your apparent obsession with storage limits makes me think you enjoy the sound of a drive spinning up more than you enjoy music.

“Most people can’t tell the difference between FLAC and MP3.” What research are you basing this on again? Tests “around the office?” How big and diverse is this ‘office’ you speak of? The staff you allude to wouldn’t happen to be just you and an obese house cat, would it?

Considering your point more seriously, different people have different ears has been a time-worn slogan for audiophiles. I’m not a physiologist, so I don’t know how to back that statement up. But I do know that people very keen on music and hi-fi sound have a different sensitivity to sound quality, and can certainly tell the difference between MP3 files (which have a variable quality, and are therefore an undependable part of the algebra) and 24 bit FLAC. If you can’t, I am sorry to hear it. That could be because your ears are not as sensitive across the spectrum, as happens to most people as they age. But it’s more likely because of a generally closed-mind and a folded-arm, “I was here first”, pouty, tech-before-art attitude generated by the fact that you couldn’t get a girl to look at you cross-eyed in high school.

Setting your pathetic personal history aside for a moment, it’s the last part of your list that really baffles me: “This a PR stunt.” For WHO, exactly? For Neil Young? I’d wager there’s nothing about any of the Pono project that will generate any extra income for Neil via record sales or concert appearances. His audience has been set in stone for decades, and his outside interests – whether it’s Pono or model trains – have no real bearing on the audience’s perception of him. The vast majority of his listeners don’t give a damn about his spare time, and are wise to have made that choice. And if it’s a PR stunt for Pono, then isn’t that kind of an odd circular logic with no possible reward? Of course, the makers of Pono want to promote the product, but arguing that the product itself is the PR gimmick doesn’t lead to any result at all. And if you are trying (and failing) to say that the Kickstarter program is a way of swindling the consumer for millions, then you really don’t understand Kickstarter. No Kickstarter supporter is charged for their pledge until the reward is sent to them. Having said that, Neil has a history of unfinished and abandoned projects, and I wouldn’t go into business with him if he were one of the two last people alive and held the last drop of water on the planet. But that’s one reason why the Kickstarter model is in good use here, since it forces Neil and his partners to make delivery.

I’m not sold on Pono either, especially since I have already invested in a couple of DACs for home listening. And as much as I enjoy portable music, it’s really rarely a quiet enough experience to enjoy music in full quality – so why make a major investment in it?

But I am far more convinced of Neil Young’s intentions than I am of your ability to communicate on your own behalf. Your points are extremely poorly presented, and your observations about the nature of the topic are bizarre, suspicious, and filled with a kind of immature ‘howl’ that identifies you as a crank and likely candidate for intense therapy, if not commitment.

In fact, I think you lack credibility to such a grand extent, that I think you would be wise (and your readers relieved) if you would simply stop writing, shutter your website, and devote yourself to something that might actually help someone lead a better life. Considering your aptitude, I’d be happy to negotiate an arrangement with you for the cleaning of my gutters or shoveling of my sidewalks.

Thanks so much!

Well said/written as well great chuckle factor! (Seriously… House cat = funny!) Side note – I dove in for the Pearl Jam limited edition. Pono has me jazzed for this service… It will kick open the doors for distributors (i.e record labels) to FINALLY make a mass move to giving a crap about better quality – even if it’s on a smaller level a la respect (read – profit) of the vinyl resurgence. It’s a means to a better end.

I agree, There has been a huge disconnect with music since the advent of the first digital formats. This is for people that want qaulity. They understand music, the idea was to get it as good as you can in the studio and then render to 16 bit mastering, and then have sent out to the world in MP3. Just easy stuff to carry around. All the artist knew this cutting these records to except less then what they hear in 24 bit audio, which is huge.

Great unbiased article there from Steven Finch, CEO of digital distributor RouteNote who would of course- as an MP3 salesman, have no conflict of interest to the Pono whatsoever.

Design is terrible: probably needed to be to do what it does. If it does what it says I don’t care.

The Technology Isn’t Revolutionary: Saying that a FLAC taken from a studio master has little difference to a FLAC taken from an MP3 is exactly the same as saying that a Blu-ray taken from a studio master is little different from one taken from an AVI file. This comment is both bogus and ridiculous.

The Pono Player Can’t Hold Much Music: First ipod was only 40gb. It’ll improve. It’s certainly enough to get going.

The Average person can’t tell the difference between and MP3 Audio File and a FLAC Audio File: AHHHHHH. BUT we are NOT talking about the average person. We are TALKING about dedicated music fans. And they MOST CERTAINLY CAN tell the difference, more than you can seemingly even recognise. And reaching their kickstart balance on DAY 1 shows that there are a lot of audio fans REALLY EXCITED about portable sound quality. And if APPLE and everyone else were too damn stupid to realise that people aren’t idiots well to hell with them. If I didn’t know any better, I would at least go with the musicians opinion of sound quality. Not the business mans. Mr CEO. Pfffft.

BOOM. take it, Steve. you’re input is a joke. this is really bad PR for Route Note……. not sure why you’re commenting on the PR for Neil’s Pono.

ps. CD Baby is better.

What difference will it make how true to the original source material Pono is if people still listen to it using crappy earbuds?

Judging by the numerous comments about headphones on the website, those driving the funding are very much concerned about coupling the device with the best quality-for-price headphones possible, which in itself may drive headphone makers towards competing for the Pono market.

Oh heaven forbid, you can only put about 93 hours of music on it. I can only listen for just shy of four days non-stop before I have to listen to the same song again?

Really it only holds 1800 songs and it won.t fit in your pocket.Oh my god what is the world coming to. Children ,just keep on crying while the rest of us who were weaned on analogue enjoy the music the way it should sound.Mp3 file can never do justice to Pink Floyd and a lot of other classic bands

E2 PhD pretty much summed it up-great post btw-but let me add that obviously Steve Finch fundamentally misunderstands and quite possibly has never experienced high end audio reproduction. If you are listening to music through your computer speakers while working, or with earbuds while working out or even in your car during your daily commute, sound quality may not be a major issue. If on the other hand, you are listening to music, the difference between Mp3 and lossless is the difference between watching Gladiator on your iphone and watching it on your home theater. It becomes aimmediately apparent how much music you are missing. As someone who appreciates music and sold millions of dollars of hi-fi in the component stereo age, I can easily hear the difference between an MP3 and CD in a car and even on the am radio range frequency response of my laptop speakers. Its that obviously different, and yes I’ve done it double blind (picked which was which) many times with different source material. As an earlier poster noted, its why Sirius/XM sounds so awful (quality)-compression. For that Steve you lose all credibility, but your issue with the storage capacity and the shape further underscores your ignorance of the intended use. People don’t need Flac files to play through their nexus pad or while they’re jogging. They want them to actually sit and listen to through high end headphones or a multi-thousand dollar stereo system. Assuming one never listened to the same track twice the capacity is plenty adequate and (DUH) you can swap out the microSD card. Unless you plan on a more than 90 hour music marathon.

Finally, again I realize you probably don’t even own a real dedicated audio system of any quality, but if you did, you’d understand that the shape is designed so that it can stand up on a shelf or surface and the digital readout can be viewed. This is pretty obvious, but you didn’t get the SD card thing so…

Young is a GOD! If Young says it’s good, it’s good.

FREEBIRD!!!!!!l lol! lynerd skinird….what a joke! YES Young STILL Shreds!!!!

They’ll just happen will they?

1. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re talking about form factor, “There is a reason why every iPod and iPhone has been a flat device”. 2. Then you go on about the audio quality having a little difference. The difference is huge! Go into a Hi-Fi (a legit one) shop with a decent hi-fi system and listen to a LP, yes vinyl record. It smokes MP3 and CD quality. Neil Young is doing most the demos in his car. Check out this video of these artist and their unfiltered response after listening to the music at this resolution. They compare it to what they hear in the studio from the master recording. Compressed recordings step on the music, period. This video should change everyones mind. It puts a smile on my face to see how happy they are to hear the quality of the music and the emotion that is conveyed in the recordings. https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/projects/884493/video-355903-h264_high.mp4 3. “Can’t hold much music” Again, not getting the point. Sure 100-150 albums or about 1800 song in much less than an iPod but the sound sucks. More to the point… 4. “Average person can’t hear the difference” BS

You’re in the wrong business reviewing musical equipment and the rating the quality of the music reproduction. The point to the PONO music player and resolution is quality and have it be delivered to the music lover in a way that allow them to listen to it the way the artist intended. If someone wants more music files stuffed into an iPod for 99cents a track that is great, but don’t hate of a great format that delivers better quality that has the artists behind it.

AJ, good job.

Not only can average listeners not tell the difference between HD audio and 16/44.1 CD audio, trained professionals in anechoic chambers with the most expensive equipment cannot tell the difference in doubleblind tests.

44.1 kHz is enough for any DAC produced since the late ’90s to reconstruct smooth curves that are just as good as those produced from a 96 kHz source (with analog reconstruction 96 kHz is better, but this isn’t 1985, and we have software that can do the necessary oversampling). And you can’t hear ultrasonics, which is why they’re called ultrasonics. As for high bit depth audio, maybe if you have a speaker the size of a 747 engine and want to be able to contrast the sound of a pin drop and the sound of an exploding grenade, there might be a point. For the playback of music that has already been properly mastered, it’s completely pointless; 16 bits per sample already give you way more dynamic range than vinyl is capable of. What we need are mastering engineers who care about this and stop brickwalling everything. I’ll take my 16/44.1 Steely Dan over your 24/192 Lady Gaga any day. (No insult to Lady Gaga intended; she’s very talented.)

Oh, and modern lossy codecs are also very good. You can claim you can hear the difference between a 256kbps iTunes AAC and FLAC audio from the same source master all you want, but until you submit to ABX testing, I don’t believe you. Most people can’t even tell the difference with 128kbps AACs on good equipment. FLACs are still fantastic for archival purposes and to avoid generation loss, but there’s nothing wrong with lossy compression at the regular consumer level.

FLAC is not a higher res file than .Wav Modern digital recording is created as .wav files, maybe do a bit of fact checking.

Check out this link about the artist perspective on how they feel about the sound quality. Very compelling video with some of the greats discussing the sound. Steven Finch really has his head up his ass! I kind of agree with his point #1 but this is only the first player to be released. He is missing the point, the point is the access to the music from the source and Neil Young has been evangelizing that.

https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/projects/884493/video-355903-h264_high.mp4

“There is very little difference if you use a studio master and then transform it into FLAC format, compared to starting with an MP3 file and then transforming it into FLAC format.”

that has got to be the most uninformed/misinformed bullshit statement i’ve read in awhile. get your facts straight buddy. do you have experience working in a music studio? do you own a pro audio sound system that can handle 192K 32bit audio? have you heard that depth of detail in audio recordings/productions?

or do you have a consumer grade speaker setup? or consumer grade headphones that are really only designed for listening to music from an ipod that plays super compressed audio files (aka mp3s), where the true quality of sound is sacrificed for the sake of a smaller file size (3mb @ 128kbps. or 10mb @ 320kbps).

FLAC is lossless. if you’re making a FLAC version of a studio master that was recorded and bounced in 32-bit audio at 192K… the FLAC file will be representative of the depth of detail in 32-bit audio at 192K.

if you bounce that studio master down to MP3, you’re converting it to 16-bit audio at 44.1K. if you make a FLAC version of that same MP3, the FLAC file will be representative of 16-bit audio at 44.1K.

there is a VERY big difference in sound quality between a FLAC version of a studio master/vinyl recording and an MP3. don’t be an idiot. your whole attitude in that article is bullshit, because for the most part you don’t actually know what you’re talking about.

“We have done extensive tests here in our office to hear if the average person can hear the difference between an average MP3 audio file and a FLAC audio file, and surprisingly they CAN’T tell the difference!”

^^ yeah, pass those generic Earcandy headphones around the room. the ones that Florance brought in to listen to her iPod on the bus-ride to and from work. hook those bad boys up to your computer’s sound card and compare a “Justin Bieber – Baby” MP3 to a FLAC version of the same song (converted from an MP3). i guess your extensive tests were pretty extensive. you used the right gear, and you knew enough about the technology behind the file formats to come a proper and logical decision, based on your findings. good work.

the only good points you brought up were about the bulky design and the price of Pono.com songs (but anyone with a brain has already come to those conclusions). other than that, you’re proven to be a tool. not a useful one.. just a useless tool. that’s the worst kind of tool, because it does nothing.

Yo Bitches love me, nice job! I guess this guy thought that the only people reading this would be people that talk ou of their *ss. I hope he learns a little before he goes on his next foray into hi res audio!!!!

if they only knew????

Selling files in a streaming world is like asking me to give up my Tesla for a bicycle. A bigger bicycle that doesn’t exist that you want me to pay for on spec.

Can everybody stop begging? Crowdfunding is so two years ago. Know anybody with a Pebble watch? What a disappointment. Oh, they keep on improving the product, but the early adopters, the ones who pledged on Kickstarter, they got screwed, and Samsung’s product is superior, and also recently upgraded, so if you want me to lay my money down so you can get the support no VC will give you, I’ll pass.

There are no unsigned bands who got screwed by the major label system. That was the fallacy that was supposed to be eradicated by the Internet. You know, a plethora of badasses who the major labels just couldn’t understand were gonna rise like a phoenix and revolutionize not only the business, but our ears. But it turns out Lorde was signed before adolescence and Jason Flom flew to New Zealand for American rights and if you don’t think the majors are scouring the world for anything good, and signing it up if it has commercial potential, you don’t have an Internet connection and believe everybody deserves a chance.

So here we’ve got alta-kacher Neil Young wanting us to believe he’s a tech king. I’m not sure WME and CAA can figure out tech investment, but artist Young has got it mainlined. Why does everybody think they can do everything? What next, is Neil Young gonna join the NBA? Are sixty year olds gonna dominate at Wimbledon? Face it, you’re lucky if you can be world-class at one thing.

And now I’ve got a single device that lets me play music, surf the web, talk, text, stream music and files…and Neil says I’ve got it all wrong, I’ve got to go back ten years and get a single player, that looks chunky in the pics, so I can get higher quality audio. Why don’t you just lobby for a faster Internet connection, so I can get hi-res streams? Isn’t Google Fiber gonna wipe you out? Do you really want me to go back in time fifteen years when MP3s were cool? What next, a return to BlackBerry, because it had a keyboard and it was such a good e-mail device?

But you can’t even show me a finished product. And even though you’re a rich rock star (aren’t they all?) you can’t pay for it, I have to. And that means very few people will, and I’ll end up with a paperweight.

No thanks.

But every media outlet in the world is covering this story, as if it has meaning. But it doesn’t.

Oh, they’ll review Neil Young’s new record too, but no one will buy that either. Oh, a few might stream it, but then move on, because he hasn’t made memorable music since “Greendale,” and that’s cutting him a break.

Do I want high quality music on the run?

Of course!

But portable turntables never broke through.

And neither will Pono.

“There is very little difference if you use a studio master and then transform it into FLAC format, compared to starting with an MP3 file and then transforming it into FLAC format.”

Just confirming that this is amongst the dumbest things I’ve read in quite awhile. Mr. Finch is either clueless or has agenda of some sort.

“(plus the CEO didn’t want to answer the question at SXSW about how much cut they would take on each sale!).”

OMG! :rolleyes:

After reading that Mr. Finch has his own internet music business I understand his ridiculous post. He’s afraid of Pono. Neil Young has been touting Pono as some revolutionary new machine and that is silly. It’s a Flac player. His store will be like HDtracks. Personally, I’m not paying 20 bucks or more to download one album that I already own as a well mastered cd, but it’s nice to see that someone is trying to lure the latest generation away from crappy sounding mp3’s. That can’t be a bad thing.

“Do I want high quality music on the run?

Of course!

But portable turntables never broke through.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! I don’t know if this is a real Bob article or a joke, I haven’t read him in in years. If this is parody, it’s great. Thanks!!

– must have a broken amp/speakers or be listening through one dollar earbuds.

I have to disagree with those thinking this is a ploy for taking their cash. I have been involved in high quality audio for over 30 years and recently (2 yrs. ago) began utilizing digitized files (FLAC) for much of my ACTIVE listening. There is a huge difference in the “naturalness” of the large files vs mp3’s. That being said, in order for a person to hear the difference it requires several things;

Neil thanks everyone for the buzz.

I think Pono is a great initiative, same as all other projects / services where there is an attempt of delivering higher audio quality to the end consumer.

That being said it may face the same issues as existing initiatives are facing at the moment:

1. This is a niche market. Only audiophiles really care about audio quality, and as we can see by reading the above post, most people don’t give a f*!+$ about sound quality and do not even know the difference between a highly compressed codec like mp3 and a lossless codec like FLAC… And yes most people listen to music with shit earbuds, computer speakers or in their car, surrounded by traffic and engine noise. This is sad but true, but they’re probably not the type of consumers targeted by Pono. Ok so the niche consumer base here consists in audiophiles, musicians, geeks or purists, or a mix of these. Now how do you make these people buy digital music? That is the challenge here. The targeted consumers (the ones who like high-end audio quality) mostly still buy records, CDs if not vinyl, and are equipped with expensive equipment for listening to music at home (tube amps, high-end A/D converters…etc.). So far all online services selling superior quality audio files either failed or more or less survive since they’re backed up by investors (who are starting to be impatient to finally see concrete results). As you know I was working in a major record label, and the sales figures of existing services offering “high quality” digital files are depressing, really close to nothing. So Pono will need serious marketing efforts if they want to succeed somehow here, so far they seem to be doing well with the success of their Kickstarter campaign and the buzz they created, also when I hear a band I like saying the sound is great, as a consumer it makes me want to try it.

2. Most master recordings ARE NOT available in “high quality” (24 bits / 96 kHz or 24 bits / 192 kHz) Older recordings, on tapes, have not all been digitized, and if they were, it was often converted into standard CD quality (16 bits / 44.1 kHz), simply because the technology allowing higher bit depth and samplerate is “recent”. In all labels, big or small, there are initiatives for digitizing or re-digitizing in a higher quality the tape recordings, but this process requires time and investment. Also remember major record labels are giant companies, and the case is very frequent where nobody really knows where the master is archived (at least it takes an insane amount of time to locate these).

Then there is the problem of all recordings made in the 80s / early 90s (before the rise of computer-based DAW), where audio engineers and studios where discovering digital recording equipment (you remember, the digital recorders with integrated small capacity hard-drives?). A lot of recordings at that time were made directly in digital format, only with the standard 16/44.1 quality. So these masters will never exist in 24/96 or 192. Well I can mention some initiatives to work around this issue, where some duplicitous record studios rip off clueless record labels by creating so called 24/96 masters by just upsampling the 16/44 ones. Technically these are 24/96 files, but if you run a spectrum analysis on it, you see these are fake 24/96 files. This is happening very frequently when submitting files to digital services offering superior samplerates to their consumers, 1/3 of the audio files submitted are rejected since these services test the content before making it available for sale. So the Pono guys will have to deal with these issues as well.

That is to say, good luck to Pono, keeping in mind they’ll have to face serious challenges and succeed where others have failed so far.

Jeremie Varengo – CEO JTV Digital

“1. This is a niche market.”

Then why has it raised $3.1 million USD in just two days? It is set to break crowdfunding records. Reality doesn’t seem to back you up there, buddy.

Because of the hype and the good marketing campaign they did. It’s been years they are on it and Neil Young has been promoting this intensively. “Niche market”: if you saw the sales figures of existing “HD audio” online retailers vs. mainstream ones with standard quality like iTunes, Amazon, Spotify…etc., you could see it’s (less than) peanuts.

YES

The problem I have with Pono’s marketing scheme is that they are touting 192kHz files as being “highest quality”. They aren’t. It’s a marketing tool that will be used to get people to pay extra for something that can actually sound worse in a lot of cases than what are perceived as lower quality files (such as 96kHz audio).

Read Lavry’s Sampling Theory For Digital Audio: http://lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling-theory.pdf

JTVDigital. Great comment. A lot of already said in this discussion. Just a few sentences. I really whish luck for Pono. Great idea. Just to mention Pono is not made to replace apple or any other device. Its made to be a part of digital playes world. And of course made for smaller amount of people that really enjoy music and enjoy when its played gooood. If you walk on the street and notice 10 people listening to music. I gurantee 9 of them are using phone plus shitty headphones. 1 of 10 will use good headphones such as sennheizer, denon etc. I would say Pono is made for those small amount that keep lookin for beauty of sound in music. Looking forward to have it on hands

A quick thought about the shape.

Before we criticize the Pono as a non-pocketable device, consider when and where it will be used. Its shape lets it stand on its own. It lends itself to a desk at work or a bedside table rather than a pocket on a crowded train.

Sure it’s not a device you can shove in your pocket, but maybe the designers feel the same should be true about the music.

Whoaaaa…obvious bad information being posted here. A studio matter converted to a flac file skins obviously better than an mp3 converted into a flac. Flac is a lossless format. Converting a thin tinny sounding mp3 into a flac Will not help it. You lost me after that.

“Most people can’ t tell the difference in a real blonde or a fake” it applies to a lot of things . If my memorory severes me correctly people/ critics hated the design of the original IPod . Young put his money and soul out there to change the nature of the beast ,open up the discussion on why we we have sold ourselves out when it comes to the listening devices and what we hear. The argument is mute do I see any other artist putting themselves on the line concerning how there music is conceived to the public in the end ? If this gentlemen doesn’t like Pono come up with something better the people who care will find for now there is no argument , Young has made his statement let’s see how it sounds.

The catalogs of the three majors HAVE, for the most part, been archived to 24/192 PCM. 16/44.1 was never considered an archival format.

If you say so. As far as I’m aware most archives are in DDP 2.0, and basically 16/44.1. Recent masters have higher samplerates, but it is globally very diverse, you can find some 16/44.1, other files in 24/44.1, 16/48, 24/48…Etc. It’s quite a mess really.

Welcome to Zune 2.0

HD Tracks and LiveDownloads.com, to mention just two long-running services, sell 24/96 and 24/192 files, at similar prices. Downloads Now! sells DSD files for this price range and higher. The market shows there are music lovers who want higher-quality digital files and are willing to pay for them.

+1. Very well said!

Thanks Johnny, I just don’t understand how people can form an opinion on something they have never experienced? Like a cluless person…”if I don’t know it, it must not be!”

Agree with this wholeheartedly.

At a bare minimum, you really don’t have to spend that much on a digital-to-analog converter & a decent pair of headphones to experience an astronomical difference.

true JW, the DAC is critical and they keep getting better and cheaper. The .50 cent DACs that most people listen to on their devices, i.e. headphone output of Ipod, Zun or whatever mobile device, is one of the single most limiting factors in extracting the full sonic and spacial cues from the recording. In part, it is these cues that make a tremendous diffrence in the “realness” of the sound. I tell people that it is like listening to your favorite song/band as if you were watching them perform live just a few feet from you 6-15′, and hearing only their acoustic instruments or their personal amps …very diffrent than sitting back 20 rows in a large stadium and hearing them through the house system….that usually sucks! check out commonsenseaudio.com also look for the Trends TA -10 digital amp….excellent stuff on a budget and way better than bells and whistles systems costing 10 times what this gear costs. Audiogon.com is another great spot too.

Agreed. The used/vintage market also goes a long way in making great sounding audio affordable, too. I recently picked up a pair of old DCM TF700 speakers in near perfect condition for $150, & they’ve totally changed how I hear music. And that stuff lasts… I expect them to last another 30 years or so. Which you can’t say about a lot of stuff you buy these days.

ray: “Same for the audio files, you can hear the “pixilation” or “Jaggies” if you will on a high res system.”

Total BS. There is absolutely no “jaggies” in digital audio. None! If you think there is, you have no slightest idea on how digital audio works.

Jape I get what you are saying, Jaggies is just a word of many that can be used to describe “digital artifacts” it is not used literally, sorry I forget that many people don’t understand the audiophile vernacular.

all of this is pretty much irrelevant anyway, as nearly all music on iTunes, recently at least, has been uploaded and archived using 24 bit masters. these will, down the track, be converted to a higher quality/close-to-lossless format that will be used in their store, streamed etc…

the digital world doesn’t shrink sound quality and possibilities, it expands them.

Oz, I have to disagree, many of the built in DACs and outborad DACs upsample and that makes a big diffrence.

Pretty crappy article if you ask me.

I love Neil Young. It just feels like this time he wasn’t listening to the consumer….I think the same about Jimmy Iovine and Beats…

I’ve never seen a published review contain only negative comments. There is a certain vitriol component to this all insinuating or literally accusing Neil Young of fraud.I never heard of Mr. Finch, but the tone of this article almost seems desperate. Apparently Mr. French’s own business enterprises would suffer if this fledgling format is adopted which should require more disclosure and editorial oversight.

Mick Mick and The Big Dawg Patriots

Actually, not such a fledgling format – FLAC was released July 20, 2001 and is supported by a lot of smartphones, car audio, consumer audio and professional products, even if not listed on the specification sheets. Proprietary codec creators, like Fraunhofer’s licencees have the money and litigation team to bully and intimidate manufacturers out of using any open-source codecs (two LARGE manufacturers have told me this, one even in writing), but some are brave enough to add them anyway and just not list them on the spec sheets.

Agreed – especially about the fidelity issue. Will people hear a difference big enough to sacrifice 20k tunes for 1800 and a device that makes them look like Derek Smalls trying to get through the airport?

This guy is an ignorant pleb. I agree that most people can’t tell the difference, but if you ask your average musician, I bet they can. Some people just don’t care about sound quality, and I’d say this author fits into that category. For those of us who do our options are currently pretty limited, anything that increases the availability of good quality audio is definitely a good thing.

Keep listening to your Miley ahole.

Good post Will, reminds of a good friend who has been a venerated music reviewer for a very well know major city weekend newspaper column. This guy writes about these artist yet listens to garbage size files on a crappy consumer grade system…he never hears all that is there. It is not about audiophile snobbery, it is about education. Discovering high quality audio at bargain/budget prices. It exists on many levels, people just think that “it is too expensive and too much trouble for the slight diffrence” it is not to be sure. That is why 99% of listeners cannot distinguis between a good and a bad recording, they have no point of refference. One canspend as little as $300 to $400 dollars on the right stuff and it will just blow away box store junk costing many times that amount. Educating oneself about this is key, if you just go in and hand the sales man money and say give me a good sysytem, you are buy what they think is good and most of them don’t have “a point of reffrence”

Next time, try to make a coherent case, if you can (“FLAC is a much better audio standard than WAV or MP3,” “no one can tell the difference between FLAC and an mp3.”) If you think the difference between an mp3 and a flac file isn’t discernible you need to find a good ear, nose and throat doctor, or better yet a psychologist so you can get some help with your envy-management issues. There’s a testimonial video with about 30 actual musicians who heard the system played inside Neil Young’s car and came away blown away by the difference. Perhaps you should ACTUALLY LISTEN TO THE DEVICE BEFORE YOU REVIEW IT. You’re an idiot.

(In my David Spade voice) I remember the first time I heard about Pono, when it was called hdtracks

Is Steven Finch a complete idiot? Is his entire staff incompetent?

There are know proven limitations in mp3 formats, even at the highest bitrates, that have been demonstrated to be noticeable by listeners.

Maybe shit for brains encoded shit audio into FLAC and was surprised that it still sounded like shit?!

And, Captain Obvious is so helpful in pointing out that a lossess format takes up more space than a format that discards information. Good job.

This post screams PR stunt and not a clever one. I have to wonder if this guy will still be a) in business and b) disavowing lossless music a few years from now. Surely the days of lossy audio are almost behind us now.

I should say lossy music downloads. Lossy audio will be with us for a while where bandwidth is an issue but why would anyone pay for lossy music given the choice?

More China,more landfill,more in debt,more marketing,more pirating,more copycats,more hype,more everything

and I still play my 30-40 year old vinyl made in USA (Mostly) on tired dies and regrind vinyl AND I GUARANTEE

my Advents (1994) willblowthis PONO thing away.Include me out.

MP3? No,not me.Not designed for music-speech,OK.Books,OK.Music NFW.

Hey! Anyone who has done extensive testing in his office sure has my attention.

Your, unscientific mumbo jumbo reeks of industry jealousy. Pono will do what your ’30 years’ hasn;t done. It will reach and educate the masses about quality high rez music.

It is aimed at the mainstream and is getting there with coverage from mainstream magazines, tv, sxsw and other sources.

you are an IDIOT !!!!!!! lol … writing to get reactions, eh? loser

allow me to summarize the story of Neil Young’s Pono project ;

Neil Young and co. will launch a player that can play flac 24/192 and other formats in late 2014

more than 20 exist on the market today…..

they will eventually also sell tracks and albums in flac 24/192

30-40 or more sell such tracks today….

they have made the most hopeless player which is triangular as a Toblerone , nobody else have done that 😉

you can not change the battery as you can in, eg. mobile phones and since it is a weak part of this kind of equipment, it is not so smart to say the least

so the only ” news ” is that they got 2 mio USD from a lot of people who think it’s a novelty, aided by a lot of journalists who quite uncritically brings the same ” news ” and helps to hype it

thats no news either but just another example of how no-news spread through the media, social media etc

and almost everybody jump in with both feet , hmm…..

karsten madsen

I agree, Neil Young isn’t listening to the consumer. He doesn’t have to. He’s trying to create a portable music system for audiophiles. Based on how well high quality audio gear sells vs. budget systems, I’d estimate as being perhaps 5% of the market. If Pono succeeds, it will be with this 5% of the market.

Here’s why I think it may succeed.

CD replaced vinyl for most of the market a long time ago. But the files are too large for inexpensive miniature storage. The cost of storage and transmission bandwidth are moving lower and lower over time. It won’t be long before it will be inexpensive to store large music files for an entire listening library on a portable device, or to download the large file. The convenience of buying a high quality audio source online could have a very large impact on music buying for audiophiles. Maybe Pono will fail as a product, yet succeed in creating a market for large, high quality music files and equipment to store and play them.

If he’s not listening to that “5%” (and I have no data to say whether it’s 5%, 10% or 0.5%) of the market, he’ll fail. Pono’s success or failure will depend on whether it connects with the portable music wants of the real target market. The success of large file, high quality audio won’t depend on Pono. It will depend on the cost and availability of storage and transmission bandwidth.

This is possibly THE WORST REVIEW of anything ever. It’s certainly the worst review I have ever read of an audio player. Steven Finch– Why is this BOTHERING you so much? Along with 2-3 other negative reviews (and of course, a review of a product that does not yet exist is always SO accurate), you just seem to really have your panties in a twist over this. I have a smartphone that I stream “incidental” music to, and listen to crappy sounding MP3s on; it’s suitable for when when I work out, on mass transit, when I want a “background” to barely listen to. At home I listen to vinyl. Because I LOVE music and the aesthetic experience is paramount; convenience means less than nothing to me when I listen to music with full attention. And, No, I am not a bitter baby boomer bemoaning “the good old days”; I am 41 and thought digital was garbage from day ONE. You just don’t UNDERSTAND the Pono; it’s audio performance is the ONLY thing I care about, and for the $200 early-buy-in price I got on Kickstarter I am MORE than happy to give this a shot. If it disappoints, I can sell it for what I paid for it. You seem to think the Pono is trying to COMPETE with the McMusic devices streaming 64-128 Kbps slag; it isn’t. This is a specialty product for a target market. This market has spoken loudly to the tune of FOUR MILLION DOLLARS in mere days; that sunds like a success and the most confident vote possible; voting with ones hard earned dollars for a music device that is likely to be at least very good and possibly Phenomenal. If you are good with yer iPod or streaming to your phone, that’s great! Good for you. I choose Pono. I pay $25 to $40 for new HG vinyl LPs and use a $750 phono cartridge.. in a Vacuum Tube-based (McIntosh) audio system. The Pono may or may not deliver, but you must relax a it and stop pissing all over an alternative to ALL current music players, which I reject entirely as “quality” or even “listenable” TERRIBLE review.

Wow, the first amendment is just scary…free speech is terrific, but this takes the cake. First, who is this guy and what the hell does he know about a high resolution digital music player? It is fine to have an opinion, but it isn’t to use a big stage like DMN to display ignorance. I have never replied on a message board like this, but this one just demanded a thoughtful, factual response. For the most part, the comments here put this guy in his place – which is as far away from anything music or tech as we can get him. He isn’t dangerous to anyone to knows even a little about how all this works, and what the idea. He is dangerous to those who might want to know, and might believe him, just because he has a pen in his hand and a complete lack of understanding about what PonoMusic is, which, if you read their Kickstarter site or watch the videos with the artists or the CEO, it isn’t hard to understand. 1) He doesn’t like the design. Pono describes the design as being optimized for audio quality, not to compete with a phone or an iPod. Charlie Hansen, from Ayre, is widely acknowledged to be one of the smartest guys on the face of the earth about digital audio, and his product, the QB-9, is generally regarded as a world class audio DAC. The design allows the Player to sit upright on a desk, or sit horizontal on a surface and allow the screen to be visible. Has this guy every actually seen this in person? Held it? I know he hasn’t heard it. Has he ever seen the A&K 120, or the HiFi Man player or any other high res portable? They don’t look like phones or iPods because they aren’t. They are portable audio components. Just a ridiculous comment. 2) This comment is so idiotic it is laughable. Garbage in, garbage out. He wants to make a FLAC file from an mp3. That is preposterous. This comment is where he really showed his utter ignorance of audio technology. 3) At least he can do basic math, almost. If I take him at face value, and 1,875 High Res FLAC files fit on a PonoPlayer, that sounds pretty good. He just so doesn’t get it that the PonoPlayer is not competing with mp3 files on the basis of capacity. Of course there can’t be as many FLAC files on a PonoPlayer than there could mp3s. I’m not sure what point he is trying to make here, except that he really doesn’t understand what the PonoPlayer is. 4) I don’t know what data this guy has to make this assertion, but he is again, just fucking wrong. What is the average guy? Can the “average” guy tell the difference between lousy wine and great wine? Lousy food and great food? a lousy photograph and a stunning one? It is categorically NOT TRUE that most people can’t tell this difference, and it is often dramatic.

It is actually embarrassing that DNM allowed this clown to write something like this – mostly wrong, completely disrespectful of Neil Young and his commitment to give consumers a choice in the quality of their digital music. Obviously, this guy won’t buy one, and I’m guessing Neil wouldn’t sell him one if he had the chance.

The bell shaped curve is alive and well, and this guy is in the far left quadrant of the “smarts” curve. It is amazing he can make a living in the music business, or maybe he can’t.

He is so wrong about Pono, on so many fronts, he should have his pen taken away and never allowed to write for DMN again. He just, as they say, “does not get it”.

Although I agree that Pono is mind-blowingly preposterous, this article does a poor job at conveying why.

1) Yes, the shape is awkward. You definitely can’t put that in your pocket. 2) Point 2 makes zero sense. I’m getting confused just thinking about what you were trying to say. 3) This is totally true. These files will be huge. 4) Point 4 is truly the only point that matters. The reason why Pono is insane is:

YOUR EARS PHYSICALLY CANNOT HEAR THE EXTRA INFORMATION IN A 192/24 RECORDING.

First, regarding bit-depth, there is no perceptible difference between 16 and 24 bits. Bit depth indicates what potential dynamic range you can digitally encode. While all depths, 8 bit, 16 bit, 24 bit, etc, can encode equally loud loud parts, they differ in how they encode quieter passages. Basically, as bit depth increases, it becomes possible to encode ever more microscopically quiet parts. However, by the time you get to 16 bits you already have the capability to encode such quiet sounds that you’d have to crank the hell out of your stereo to hear them at all. In making those quiet sounds audible, however, the loud parts would get brought up too and be so loud that they’d damage your ears and speakers. Thus, while 24 bits does mean a larger dynamic range, this isn’t usable since the dynamic range at 16 bit is literally more than enough as it is.

What this means is that the only relevant aspect of a “high resolution” 24/192 audio files is the sampling rate: 192kHz. This cannot be over emphasized. Ignore the 24. The argument for Pono audio literally comes down to the question, does 192 kHz music sound better?

Well, understand that as a human being, you are 100% deaf above 22Khz. This is a scientific fact. A CD sampling rate of 44.1 kHz means that frequencies above 22kHz are eliminated from the recording. This is perfectly fine because you would not be able to hear them anyway. A 192kHz “Pono” record on the other hand, retains frequencies approaching 100kHz, meaning that 75% of the sound is COMPLETELY INAUDIBLE. Are you a beluga whale? Are you a bottle-nosed dolphin? No, and your human ears absolutely, positively, cannot hear frequencies remotely this high. I don’t see how someone can honestly argue against this. Furthermore, the assertion that tiny, brittle, hyper sonic frequencies pinging around the room make the music “warm and analogue” or gives back it’s “soul” as the Kickstart indicates just baffles me.

Couple this with the fact that most audio equipment CANT EVEN PRODUCE THESE FREQUENCIES and you’ve got something out of the Twilight Zone brewing. First you buy a Pono, then you replace your records with new expensive versions 75% comprised of inaudible sounds, then you buy a new expensive sound system that will produce these sounds that you can’t hear, all so you can sit back and say “finally I’m HEARING what I’ve been missing!”. Maybe eat a big bowl of delicious invisible popcorn while you listen.

I find it ironic that Neil Young constantly affirms that Pono is “real music”. I do alot of mixing, and when I find myself AB-ing dozens of mixes to see which minute EQ changes I prefer, or changing the volume of an instrument by .05dB, I often chide myself for losing sight of what really matters. The production of a record is important, but tiny little details like those will never prevent a song from connecting with people. And to me, the mindset that recordings are unacceptable because they don’t contain ultrasonic frequencies that only a bat could hear is definitely NOT true to the spirit of music.

Superficially, Neil’s heart is in the right place, I understand that he wants music to sound “the best” it can, but this whole thing is ridiculous. The things that the parade of celebrity guests claim to hear are literally impossible. Warmer, like a vinyl, like a forest of sound. One guy says it sounds wider with EXTENSION ON THE BOTTOM. How? How does that make any sense? You are adding inaudible treble and it boosts the bass? Maybe these people just sense the frequencies zinging around their heads, or maybe this is plain and simple, an audio placebo. Neil Young shows up and tells them they’re about to listen to the highest quality audio they’ve ever heard, they’re being filmed, most of them aren’t producers and know nothing about sampling rates and bit depth. They hop into his Cadillac which has an undoubtedly amazing system, and then they listen to God-knows-what (you never find out what they were listening to) then get asked to talk about it. In that situation, who’s going to say anything disparaging?

There’s a Candid Camera where a waiter offers patrons garden hose water, telling them it’s something fancy, and he brings it out to their delight in a crystal glass. They all remark how much better than regular water it is. I don’t mean to say Pono is hose water exactly. But to me this is a situation of two indistinguishable formats, one of which is more expensive, gets celebrity endorsement, and takes up more space. Once the idea that something is better has been planted, your brain will start imagining things to suit that notion, and you have the price tag, hype, and size to reassure you that what you hear is real.

Come to a high-end audio festival with REAL speakers, amplifiers and resolution. Bring your MP3 toy with you as a source and compare it against a FLAC. Let your own ears show you the error of your ways 😉

There’s no question that mp3’s and everything you can buy on iTunes are inferior. This is about the assertion that 192/24 recordings sound so much better than a CD that it’s like you’re bursting out from beneath a deep, dark ocean. READ THIS ARTICLE:

http://www.trustmeimascientist.com/2013/02/04/the-science-of-sample-rates-when-higher-is-better-and-when-it-isnt/

Every aspect of the science, from the biology of your ears to the math of digital audio REFUTE ANY POSSIBILITY of 192/24 sounding “better”. So why do so many people with great musical sense claim otherwise?

Consider homeopathic medicine, which revolves around preparations of active ingredients diluted in water. A common preparation for the flu, Oscillococinium, involves diluted duck liver, diluted so much, in fact, that it would be virtually impossible for the final product to contain even a single molecule of duck liver. People buy this remedy, take it, and SWEAR it works. Read these testimonials:

http://www.oscillo.com/testimonials/consumers/ testimonials

It is LITERALLY impossible that this remedy does anything, due to the hilarious fact that there’s not even A SINGLE MOLECULE of the active ingredient in the final product. Yet people believe it. Instead of accepting the facts, they offer explanations such as “water has a memory”. And as I’ve said, even when presented with all the facts about digital audio, people will still claim that 192 sounds better; it’s called the placebo effect.

All I’m saying is do the research before replacing your cd collection with more expensive duplicates.

Anyway, my problem isn’t with Pono itself. Really it’s just a portable CD-quality player with high quality hardware, and if I had the money I might buy one. My problem is that the marketing campaign focuses on “high res” audio and makes it seem like listening to a track in 192/24 resolution will make you fall to the ground and weep. Wouldn’t it be enough to get people to stop listening to mp3s and back to listening to CD-quality music on good quality systems? How many people do you think are going to buy a Pono and some 192/24 albums, plug their shitty ear buds into and and go omg it’s magnificent!

Finally someone who knows what they are talking about… Some further reading on why any further quality over 44.1Khz/16 bit is not humanly perceivable – http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html http://lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling-theory.pdf

wouldn’t it be just enough to add codecs to our smartphones to let them play whatever format, inluding waves 441/24 bits?

re: just using smartphones? Nope. The PONO is designed the way it is for a reason. I saw pictures of the inside and it’s using real parts like in real hi-fi equipment, notably power supply parts but even in general. Two points. One, using microminiaturized parts cuts down on the analog side of playback. Yeah, the FLAC bits can be put into the converter either in a big device or a thing the size of your fingernail, but you still can’t turn that into analog voltage as well, and people making the smartphones aren’t looking to get the final audio performance out, they’re looking for pocket size and battery life. Hell, you might want to put the analog circuitry physically away from the cell phone part, and how are you gonna do that with a phone? Second, half of the point here is you sit the thing on a table and shut up and listen. Jog later. Part of the whole smartphone/iPod ‘revolution’ is that you’re supposed to take music with you as you do everything BUT listening to it. Stands to reason mp3s work well for this as there’s nothing to be gained by trying to critically or emotively listen to them. With Pono, you’re not supposed to treat it as background noise. And saying it’s a horrible form factor because it fits in your pocket LESS WELL than an iPod? Man, you never tried to lug around turntables, tube amplifiers or record collections. Move ten linear feet of vinyl records just from one room to another and then tell me how inconvenient Pono is. I want one.

DACs in smartphones suck, dedicated DAPs sound way better, if u have good headphone with it.

>>>> 2) Point 2 makes zero sense. I’m getting confused just thinking about what you were trying to say. >>>>>

I think it means that it would be enough to add decoders to your current device to let them play whatever file in whatever format. nothing new there. At least, that’s what I understand.

>>>>>>> 4) YOUR EARS PHYSICALLY CANNOT HEAR THE EXTRA INFORMATION IN A 192/24 RECORDING. >>>>>>>

In fact, high resolution allows to mix better, more subtleties in levels of instruments relative to one each other, eqs are more precise etc. It should be hearable on the end result which should be closer to what the makers wanted to do, than mixing the same track at 44.1/16 bits which is a pain in the bottom.

>>>>> 1) Yes, the shape is awkward. You definitely can’t put that in your pocket. >>>>>

no but you can slip it in your bathing suit next to your smarthphone and comb. Contrary to the latter, the former shape factor can simulate an appendice of yours, or attract attention. Isn’t that the real value of this device?

Well, no DAW that I’ve used is set up to properly deal with 192kHz audio. Native and vst spectrums only ever go up to 22K, same thing with EQ’s, multiband compressors, etc. You couldn’t actually change a thing about the supersonic frequencies, although you wouldn’t be able to hear them even if you could. The only sensible argument I’ve heard is that a higher sampling rate reduces aliasing, but I’ve also heard that higher sample rates introduce intermodulation distortion. Anyway the most compelling cases I’ve heard are for 44.1 and 48. I’ve done informal AxB tests and heard nothing, maybe I’ll look into it again.

I will say that I looked at the player specs and they seem legit. The video harps so much on 24/192 that I never even considered that the hardware itself could be a real source of noticeable sound improvement. Also, it wouldn’t surprise me if the tests they did in the cadillac involved playing an actual CD from a cd player followed by playing something from the Pono unit. The difference in amps, DAC’s etc could account for an audible difference and given the context, I think any audible difference in the Pono track would lead people to label it superior.

Why are people so quick to trash something they have not tried? I for one would like to try it when it comes out so I can have an informed opinion. At the moment no one on this thread can say if it sounds good or bad because none of us have heard it.

I find it amazing how people will argue and fight about something, which has not even been released yet.

Because they are young Millenial hipsters who know better than anybody over 30 lol! it is all the same “bit perfect no matter what” such a shame because what is available is simply stunning. But hey, if they want to beleive in the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause, who are we to argue???? lmao!!! p.s. don’t forget the cookies and milk

I was going to comment, but then I realized this – er, rant? – had already gotten all of them. All of the comments are right here. Mr. Finch managed to get tons of attention, and most likely pageviews, from a vacuous – albeit polarizing – post. Well done, everyone. We just gave him all the reason he needs to keep doing it. SMH

You think the author would be that twisted? Nah, he’s probably a nice guy, an idiot but a nice guy.

1/ yes, you can hear the difference between CD and 192/24 (try snare drum etc.) but only with decent gear and recordings so get ready to spend at least the same amount on headphones (assuming the amp in the pono can handle them!) 2/ Rick -loudness- Rubin praising the sound quality of the Pono is an insult

In the past a major annoyance with the DMN site was how your reply section moved to the right with each reply until unreadable but you’ve outdone yourself this time by making them completely illegible with the arrows or quotation marks blotting the out. What is the point of allowing replies if you blot them out? There is absolutely no point in returning to this site again.

You might have an older browser.. I saw the same thing with my work computer which uses IE.. I installed chrome and it looked fine.. Oddly enough I use IE all the time at home and DMN looks fine, so I have to assume its the older IE thats the problem..

what is the reference/brand of the DAC/chips used in this ? this can make a difference: it may render all speeches useless, or the contrary. If they want to reach audiophiles, they need to release component information. If not, then it is not for audiophiles.

Part 1 or your 2nd paragraph made me stop reading anything else you have to say on this subject. Inform yourself.

Now I see, you are running RouteNote:

“…so that more music can be provided to more people through more outlets.”

The problem here is the triple ‘MORE’ in your statement. The only thing we need more of is time, time to dedicate to listening to music, unless you prefer to listen to junk anyway, the stuff that slaps you in the face with catchiness, nonstop. NY’s Initiative is certainly not directed towards the huge masses, however, it can help to raise an awareness of what music actually is, or can be. Pono’s motto ‘rescuing an art form’ sums it up so well.

Yeah this guy’s head is up his rear. bet he’s sitting in front of an HD display with an HD screen on his phone and a 20 megapixel camera snapping shots of his baby. clueless.

Anyone invested or associated with the mp3 business, the oggvorbis business, the ipod accesory business, or the streaming audio business… are trying to tell you that you’re ears can’t perceive what you know they can. walk outside — that’s called unlimited resolution. go to a live music show: unlimited resolution.

being alive is infinity bits and infinity frequency range that is sensed by your whole body (ears, skin, hair, chest, toes, etc).

there are no “audio experts” working in the computer industry. audio experts run music studios and are in the rock and roll hall of fame. none of them mess with mp3 or 16/44. there’s your experts.

Digital Music News should know that audio is not digital, digital is just the transport mechanism.

also – garbage in, garbage out means the fastest way to improve every single person’s playback system is to give them better source material. spending on amps or speakers is still not necessary – everything will sound better playing pono.

People born after a certain year, lets say, 1990, had access but didn’t get into the habit of acquiring music in analog formats….”we have done extensive tests in our office…” with who? 20 year-old interns? I’d bet they have never even heard a vinyl record before, let a lone a FLAC in a blind test…..so of course they won’t be able to tell the difference…we audiophiles need better products than the “masses” will settle for….whether PONO works or not is irrelevant, I’d say at least this is a single step in the right direction…REMEMBER: not everybody thinks about profits when wishing people could have better listening experiences.

Paragraph 2 says it all.

If you want to experience what Pono will provide, buy a blu-ray audio disc or a blu-Ray video of a live concert Like Alchemy Live from dire Straits and Patricia Barber mentioned before. Play these on an OPPO player and a good enough hifi system. You don’t need a 50k$ system. Probably a 5-10k$ system will be good enough. I guarantee you will be blown away! 24/192 is better than vinyl, and I am a big fan, and will give you decades of listening pleasure without cleaning, surface noise and wear and tear. The Pono Player will give you a chance to transport this quality to a friend’s place or on a plane using a good pair of earphones like Focal, Grad or Senheiser to name a few. And yes I agree the form factor, the colours are probably not that practical or sexy, but it will trigger other designs, and who knows, May Jonathan I’ve will be forced to upgrade the iPod to iPono…lol More on this on my blog: http://www.frenchvintagehifi.com

This article is a piece of shit! Though it does look like shit.

2. Shock horror in marketing team blowing the hyperbole button to get people interested. your article, if it can be called such, needs to look at the wealth of real evidence present in this field rather than your frankly ridiculous opinions.

3. Do we actually need to carry around the entire collection of music the work has produced to date, i think not. Whats wrong with getting into albums and really getting what the artist had to say?

4. Our “extensive tests” probably short hand for asking the person next to you whether they thought it was better or not. There are alot of things we can’t perceive directly that we should encourage to be better quality you fucknut, food etc.

Come at me bro @tomofthejungle

Someone else may have commented on this already but did you notice that the author is a ceo of of a music distribution company. It’s very possible this article is completely BIASED since pono could cut directly into Steve’s pockets if it succeeds.

If you think the average listener can’t here the compression artifacts in an MP3, then you’re fucking retarded. STFU

LOL As far as the average person not hearing the difference between mp3′ and real audio they must be deaf..

‘Average person’ meaning some clueless twenty-five year old who has no idea what musical quality means? The sheer hostility of this article reveals the author for what he is- an antiquated mossback who longs for the golden age of mp3 players. come on, anciano! afraid of a little progress?

‘only holds’ close to two thousand tracks. reveallng that so much of this mp3 thing is about acquisition, not quality or appreciation. And I love the defensiveness of mp3 quality- oh, it;ll get better.. someday.. not that it MATTERS…someone is heavily invested in current technology and doesnt like the feel of the ground shifting under their feet. And the stuff about ‘now much of a cut they will get’= priceless. From someone who apparently believes musicians dont need to be paid at all. Very revealing.

great comment, i would much rather have a few good tunes in big files format than a zillion mp3, once the ear is educated, that shit sound like nail on a chalkboard!!! it is painful…puts me in a bad mood. I had to go to Vegas for business recently, I seldome go because I don’t care for it. We stayed at the Mandalay Bay hotel/casino and as I walked through the miles long lobbies/casinos I was constanlty bombarded with mp3 crap being played through junk equipment, i guess they think one needs to be “entertained” as they walk, holy crap! It just gave me headach and put me in a badass mood, I could not wait to get back to the refuge of my room. Seriously…open your mind and educate your ears…you will be glad you did, doing so even enhances live performances because you will become more attentive to the sounds. You know guys, this is kind of fun, the “good against the bad” it is funny that we try to share something wondeful in reproduction but hey! if they “don’t know it, it must not be” Well if we just spark an intrest and that gets you to explore quality audio, then it was not a waste of time…:)

The Finch who stole the magic of music.

You really are a twat who feels they are smart, sassy, on the ball and so on , but really like most you have succumbed to the new world where any shit can be sold to most idiots whether its good and does the job of capturing music as the performers intended it to sound ; no you are more concerned that your so called free stepford wives friends will think its ‘uncool’ because major advertising has told them thus. Finch carry on listening to you socially lemming accepted flat . easy to put in pocket and carrier of tens of thousands of 32kps masterpieces as they clearly suit your shallow brain.

Job done

There are plenty of flat hi-res audio players already, the fiio x3, fiio x5, hisoundaudio studio v, ibasso dx100, and the astell&kerr ak100 all come to mind. This is nothing new so I dont understand why people act like this is a revolution.

Es un timo. Si la mayoría de la gente no puede distinguir en un test ABX entre un MP3 bien hecho y el original Lossless ¿qué nos está vendiendo este señor?. Una basura a precio elevado para audiófilos que quieran tener una actitud snob diciendo que recuperan la pureza del sonido de la grabación original. Para hacer esos trucos y esas basuras tienes cualquier reproductor y utilizas el equalizador o efectos DSP, pero es no es más que proceso digital de sonido. Si la mayoría de la gente no distingue entre MP3 o AAC y el Wave o el Flac original , ¿de qué estamos hablando?. De Marketing y propaganada para sacar dinero.

Love and respect Neil Young..but correct….who needs it!

Lots of interesting comments. As for me, it will be years until I “buy” into any new type of format. I still prefer vinyl over anything, but I play CDs because of convenience. I have a boat-load of cassettes, and was really close to acquiring a DAT player back in the day (because of higher quality), but legal issues in the industry held that up. Then suddenly, CD came on the market. I got my first CD player back in 2000, after how long on the market? I do not own any MP3, or iPAD, or whatever player. Never had a use for them. They might be worthwhile if I were jogging in the woods somewhere, but I quit doing that when I left the Army. Yes, I can hear the difference in the quality of playback. I learned decades ago when I was doing reel-to-reel recording to record at the fastest speed. This is also the same reasons that FLAC is probably the current better format. I only state this of what I read, not from first hand experience. The less compression (or none at all), the better. But as for today’s teenager with ear-buds sticking out of his head, he could care less. He probably never heard the difference in sound quality unless he still has a Grandpa to educate him.

In my previous comment, replace “iPAD” with “iPOD”. I do not even know what some of these things are! Does anyone have a transistor radio laying around that they are not using anymore? Ahhh, the good ol’ days…

Aside from the back and forth bickering of sound quality and wether or not ponos is a scam, one thing this kickstarter campaign has proven is that there’s lots of people willing to pay for higher quality music. Developers and companies developing music services / products should take note. There’s clearly lots of room to expand on ponos execution (or lack thereof) of bringing HQ music to the market. One thing that can’t be debated is that millions of dollars have been invested into an idea that ATTEMPTS TO PUSH HIGH QUALITY MUSIC.

There’s something to be said about this.

Wow…I did not have time to make it through all these comments but I get excited about any technology that will bring music reproduction closer to “the truth”. I still buy vinyl because it “breathes” and I don’t hear the shrill, digital sound that became tiring to me. I bought the first Sony cd player back in the 80’s and I was blown away by its sound until I realized that what I was really reacting to was the signal to noise ratio, the “quiet floor”. Good records and good record players have that now. So hats off to Neil. I don’t think this is about “extracting money”, he doesn’t need any more. I think he believes in it. Whether or not it is a commercial success, is another story. Ever listened to “HD Tracks” downloads?

A couple of points: I believe the Ponos developer’s stated goal is 2-3% of the audio market, simular to the vinyl market. They are not looking to replace the Mp3 anymore than Ruth’s Chris is looking to replace McDonalds. Different food for different palettes and different wallets.

My approach to kickstarter campaigns is that I am simply putting my money where my hopes lie. They may not succeed, but I will support them with a little money. They aren’t ebay where you are buying a product. I support film projects, music projects and things I am pretty sure will fail, but all the power in the world should not lie with bankers and venture capitalists, It is just a little bit of economic democracy.

Finally, as a budding audiophile, you learn that you are only as good as your weakest link. Whether that is your amps, your speakers, your set up and configuration or your source material. Improving your components improves your outcome. -most of all enjoy

WHY ROUTENOTE is the Worst Music Distribution Network I have NEVER seen……..

I can’t imagine that too many artists are going to want to be associated with this Steve Finch guy, but hey what do I know ?

I honestly don’t see how this article , in this form, benefits anyone, least of all RouteNote. If I were one of his investors we would be having a frank talk.

I heard Monster’s GO-DJ also plays high resolution audio and does WAY more. Call me bias Neil Young but I’m going to side with Swizz Beatz & Monster here. My money goes much further with GO-DJ versus Pono Player.

A separate micro card is great. Sure 64+64 isn’t huge, but I can have a lot of cards. This thing is worth a look. Streaming music is nearly is not usable for me for more than a few minutes. It just is not smooth sounding, and there is no way I can stream what I really want to hear. I have over 100k audio files. Much of it not available on any stupid streaming service. Much of it I still rebought already to improve the MP3 quality, The 192/24 purchase would undoubtedly be the last. I like that. 320k is ok for a lot of music, and I cannot tell the difference between it and 192/24 for a lot of things. But over a couple of hours, there is a big difference between gritty MP3s on an Ipod/Iphone and FLACs on a real player. This Pono thing is actually reasonably priced if it is a decent player comparable to an AK100, DX50, or X5.

The problem with this article is defined in its title. I don’t care if the author thinks this is the “worst audio player he has ever seen,” I only care about how it sounds. If he had listened to it and said it was the “worst audio player he had ever heard,” I would be concerned.

Methinks Steve doth protest too much. He is like all the other doubting Thomas’s who haven’t heard the PonoMusic solution yet but are willing to tell us it will fail. It’s your prerogative if you want to pay for inferior sound.

Yet another uneducated post on all the digital music news that doesn’t matter …

Arounds 2 thousand songs is more than enough for a media player and I cannot stand ipods or mp3 players, I am not a music snob (well maybe actually), but a 12 year old can tell the difference between mp3 and flac. Once I switched to flac, I started to enjoy music a lot more and would rather not go back to mp3’s. Plus ipod’s and itunes are the death of music, so anything to not support apple’s overpriced inferior products (including macs) are just a plus.

Its sound is very nice.

Want to listen this song in this player.

http://faadmp3.com/mp3-0/pitbull-hotel-room-service-2012-lrfanaieu.html#.U0RNM9xmiFw (World’s #1 songs website) I will be super rocking 🙂 xD

The author may not like the player form factor or online delivery service but cannot in good faith call into question the fidelity of the device given it’s price point.

Devices with pre’s and dacs this good cost minimum 3x-4x more than pono so it’s actually a great deal for a high fidelity all in one player.

Reviews by audio pro’s will ultimately tell the tale but I’m guessing you can hook this up to a high end analog system and get imaging, separation and stage depth way beyond anything in the mp3 player market and comparable to dedicated DAC’s costing much more.. Plus e-tree and archive.org are a trove of live FLAC goodness for free all sanctioned by the artists..

“‘The digital-to-analog converter, or DAC, chip that Ayre created for the PonoPlayer is about 1/20th the size of the one featured in its standard unit. While the DAC chip is key to maintaining the integrity of a music signal, Ayre also incorporated technology from its $30,000 pre-amplifier into the player.

“We spent three straight weeks just hard-core working on this because they had a deadline to get this done,” Hefley said. “This PonoPlayer is by far the best sounding portable player that will ever touch the market.””

Read more: Boulder’s Ayre Acoustics develops chip for Neil Young’s PonoPlayer – The Denver Post

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_25322942/boulders-ayre-acoustics-develops-chip-neil-youngs-ponoplayer#ixzz2yKwGopQ2

“the worst audio player I have ever seen”

You obviously haven’t seen Apple’s Gaypods

Companies have been making hi-res daps for a long time, this is nothing new. It definitely makes a difference if you have a good set up, but I would take the fiio x5 over the pono anyday.

Whoever wrote this article is a major idiot!!! I highly doubt that these big record labels would sign with, and that the artists themselves would support this new music experience of it weren’t real… And the storage has to do with the quality. Take VHS tapes vs. HD BlueRay Films for example. Stick to what you know. Which is obviously not a lot about music quality.

hahahaha sorry man, your an idiot!!!! whens the last time you saw a list of music legends the size of your arm say they where blown away by the quality, and not just money hungry celebrities, im talking veterans of the industry like Dave Grohl or Rick Rubin and Jack White, these are the people who spend there time with high quality sound, maybe the average joe wont notice the differance, so what!!! for people who are passioate about music and want the warmth and clarity back in there music then im glad this device is finally here,

Mr Steven Finch, judging the pono from the perspective of a happy smart phone user looking for practicality rather than sound performance is missing the point of the pono.

Instead of coming to a quick conclusion of why the pono screams “pr stunt”, you should start by asking the right questions and determine wether or not the pono has delivered its promise.

“1. Devise design is TERRIBLE” The pono’s first goal is to deliver an audibly better sound experience than that of a smart phone can provide. It’s your right not to like the pono’s form factor but maybe you could do a little research and find out why it requires more internal volume than the typical smart phone.

“2. The Technology isn’t revolutionary!” If you are talking about “format”, nothing new, sure. But your argument is full of flaws and demonstrate how ignorant you really are on that subject. Hi-res (maybe not audible but superior in terms of data) >>> Lossless CD quality = FLAC = WAV > 320 kbps (best MP3) > 256 kbps (average) = Apple itunes M4A/AAC > 128 kbps (poor)

“3. The pono player can’t hold much music” It has 64 GB of internal memory (as much as most smart phones) + the ability to add 64 GB cards. That’s 128 GB plus you can carry another handful of them if you wish to bring your entire library. What’s the big deal? Nitpicking…

“4. The average person can’t tell the difference between MP3 (compressed) and FLAC (lossless)” When the comparison is done on an average smart phone, differences are not audible simply because it is an “average player”. Compare on a more competent player/DAC and most can tell the difference. Compare on top tier audio equipment and the difference is OBVIOUS. While the hardware technology can still improve a little on MP3 players, it can only go so far as to match the file’s compression and color it at best (it cannot create what is not there). That is the whole point of the pono: better inner electronics + more information within the file. Now, this will not make a classical duet sound like an Orchestra but the duet will sound like it is performing more 3D realistic than on a flat screen (depth, separation, imaging… will be audibly improved) and so in a portable devise.

Your p.s. “…saying it has an amazing sound, but with no other information that means anything!” is just another clue of your incompetence to do the proper research before reviewing this product. Your opinion is flawed, biased, and incompetent. You should revise it.

This is the most ridiculous unprofessional review I’ve see in a while.

Unbelievably ignorant article!

So presumably people can’t tell the difference between vinyl and mp3?

What a ridiculous set of nonsense on stilts. People misunderstand what the Nyquist frequency means. Any one with any kind of an ear will embrace this massive leap.

Silly billy! How on earth dud this clown get to be writing for you!

OK, this isn’t like pithy or anything, but still… Pono – just one “r” short of a good time! 😉

This is a terrible article.

The worst design you have ever seen. Since they have not been produced yet for the public those are pretty stupid words. It’s easy to tell mp3 from flac from hi-res-flac. Open your fucking wears.

you probably think Dre Beats sound amazing. You come off as such a completely ignorant tool, even to someone who is not an audiophile

It can ONLY hold 1800 songs is what you expect to hear from a 12 year old kid. Who is this Steven Finch guy ?

I agree the Pono is over-stated as a breakthrough since there are several portable music players that do FLAC. Most of the kids just want to listen to their low quality bootlegged Rhianna tunes on their counterfeit BEATS as they check out the opposite/same sex.

It is true that only a small amount of the population is capable of critical listening for accuracy.

Use of the word “seen” in the headline rather than “heard” is a dead giveaway here.

But never heard, so what the hell do you know anyway, sheesh

I’m late to the thread, and much dust has settled, but my view?: 1- Why is it so hard for so many to accept that since “A” can be better than “B” it is at least possible that higher sampling rates are better than lower, or not? 2- Is the difference between recording quality / sampling rate versus file format / container SO hard to understand? 3- Why is it so hard to understand that Ponos (or Astell & Kern, or FiiO or…) are not aimed at people who just use music for noise to drown out reality? 4- Why do we accept that once a track is recorded it is no harder for the company to encode it as 16 x 48k or 24 x 192k, nor harder to distribute (on the Web) yet the price difference is vast! Linn sell albums at £18! But when some commentators say things like “you don’t need to spend $50k on your hi-fi system, $5-10k is enough…” I guess they’re shooting fish in a barrel… 5- Why no comparative tests? 6- Most of all, who let the writer of the original article near a keyboard?

AS one of those “Amateur” engineers. I spend a lot of time correcting the mixes to play decent on crappy systems. I’m somewhat old school using a lot of out board processing to get a great mix on good studio monitors. In my day we took pride in our stereo and actually sat and listened to music. Today people just use it as background noise and only pay attention to music that is “loud” which means compressed to death. So we engineers have to destroy all the dynamics in the music to get it to stay as loud as possible on cheesy players. Put a modern album on a good stereo, even one of the good stereos from the 70’s and you’ll hear what I mean. All youn hear is a roar and the compressors breathing, no dynamics, and a huge loss in clarity. Hear a good live band and then listen to a “Processed recording” and it won’t even sound like the same song, unless it is the techno-rap-pop garbage. I applaud Neils point but if he uses the same sources (CD’s) the problem is as much the production today as the players.

The average person can very well tell the difference between MP3 and even YouTube high-def quality audio. That is why I quit subscribing to MP3 streaming services, because the sound quality on YouTube was so much better. This assertion of the author is blatant bald-faced in-your-face bullshit and is a foundational premise for the whole article. Without it, this article falls over and disintegrates into the pile of crap it is.

No defense of the PONO player here, but you are making one terribly misguided statement here. First, to qualify myself, I’ve been an professional audio engineer for 40 years, the past 21 years as a mastering engineer. The statement that I take exception to is that “The Average person can’t tell the difference between and MP3 Audio File and a FLAC Audio File”. Two problems here. First of all, if you convert an mp3 to a FLAC file, there will be absolutely no difference is sound between the original mp3 and the FLAC. That’s the whole idea, FLAC is lossless, meaning it will not change the sound at all. No one who has any knowledge of audio has claimed that FLAC will somehow improve sound quality over the audio file it was created from. But the main issue I have is your premise that the “average listener” cannot hear the difference between an mp3 and say a 96k/24 bit FALC (or WAV or AIF, whatever). I will tell you from my own experience that the human ear is like a muscle – the more you use it, the better it gets. The more the human ear is exposed to high quality sound in a good listening environment, the more discerning it gets. Yes, take the average Joe off the street, sit him in front of an audiophile-grade system and play the same song switching been an mp3 and a high-resoluto8n audio file, and he more than likely will not be able to hear a difference. Take the same guy and have him listen to high-resolution audio on a good system for several months, and what do you know? He suddenly can hear the difference! Because he has been exposed to the subtleties that high-resolution reveals in music, his ear has gotten used to that, and the absence of it will obvious to him. In other words, his ear has become “trained”. The problem with PONO, other than the horrible design, is that it is a portable player. Which rather implies that you will be using it in less-than-ideal listening environments and all of the noise that comes with them. Even though I’m a snobby mastering engineer, I have no problem listening to iTunes+ AAC’s on my earbudes while riding the train into work, or in the car, or as background music while reading or working around the house, for parties etc. In my opinion the mp3/AAC is ideal for that type of casual listening. Where then difference will be heard is when you sit down in front of your audio system, turn off the phone, ignore the doorbell, and listen deep into your music. That is where the difference between data-compressed formats and HD-Audio will be noticeable, if your ear has learned what to listen for. An just a note on the ‘soul’ being taken out of music. What is taking the soul out of music is not the mp3 or the mp3 player, the damage is being done by the idiotic insistence on the music being mastered with extreme hyper-compression and limiting to make it loud, louder and loudest. THAT is where the revolution needs to take place – we need to allow music to breath again and have dynamics. The dynamics (difference between loud and soft) in music terminology is called “expression”, and the dynamics do exactly that – they express emotion. Music compressed to the point of having little or no dynamics, has little or no emotion.

This is the worst review I’ve ever read… you don’t know what are you talking about…

MusicComposer,

I 2nd that!

What i don’t understand is that this subject is treated as revolutionair. High res players are available (and have been for a while) in abundance. At home i use a Cambridge stream magic 6 (but there are many more comparable) that streams flacs in a resolution upto 192 kHz/24 bit. The only difference with a pono player is that isn’t mobile, but then the shape of the pono doesn’t really invite it to be carried with me either. For mobile music (holidays, and outside use) I use a very old Creative Zen Xtra. This plays flacs, even at its old age. High res music is “better” in a theoretical manner only. Yours ears quit noting the extra quality achieved in the extended frequency range (20.000 is the theoretical limit, my ears “quit” above 15 kHz), so imo it is a waste of money and (storage) space to use these 192 kHz formats.

The average flac file is 70mb my ass! I have 3000 flacs and its bearly over 60gb. People like you spreading false information like this about lossless music is the reason why the horribly outdated mp3 format is still alive and music fidelity is dead, shame.

I am a big music fan and I enjoy both Cd & Vinyl. I have spent a lot of time,investment & as much as I could afford on reply equipment to make sure I can hear music as clear as possible. I had an MP3 player , it was handy for commuting on trains etc but the sound quality was compressed & treble was not as good as a cassette Walkman with a chrome tape taped from my home system using good headphones. I stopped using it . Hi Res portable format like Pono has appeal.

I have nothing against streaming/downloading/digital only that has killed a lot of record shops but what is more important is to obtain music physical or digital period with proper dynamics non brick walled .

I have a few Neil Young recordings on cd & vinyl & he records very well . It is with that reputation that Neil Young has got my interest. The main thing is despite the statistics stated by Mr Finch we can only judge the Pono by listening to it. Nothing else matters until then. Incidentally I am old enough to remember when Cd first came out. It’s lack of clicks,pops,scratches was superb but it sounded brittle compared to a turntable. Fortunately both formats have improved since then (let’s be honest how good was your turntable back in 1983?) Let’s keep an open mind & if it is sonically poor or excellent Neil Young will get a slating/praise he deserves.

The only “PR Stunt” here is the Author of this article. Sites like these scream only for “Internet Streaming of Musak”, and since they’re NOT ready to stream 24/192k then of course it can not possibly be any good? Just cause the authors ears are stunted to listening to radio-a-Gaga, doesn’t mean the rest of the Music-listening world is. Due you’re just another failed DJ.

Terrible article.

Good points on the shape – not ideal.

Good points on the disk space – it will only hold around 150 albums in lossless.

Well, the kind of people who will buy this, are the kind of people who realise how stupid it is to convert MP3 to FLAC and then offer a double blind test through your apple earbuds to Jimbob the receptionist.

Would you get your mum to review a Bugatti Veyron? No? Because she would have no idea if it was any good or not, in its class. That’s how pointless your office tests were.

People who care about lossless don’t mind having “only” 150 albums available……

1. Device design is TERRIBLE!

No its not. It fits most pocets just fine. the angle is handy for use on the table unlike a flat slippery iPhone or other flat devices.

2. The Technology Isn’t Revolutionary!

No it´s not. Its only BETTER.

3.The Pono Player Can’t Hold Much Music

If 2000 songs isn´t enough, your just to lazy to rotate your music from the computer.

4 The Average person can’t tell the difference between and MP3 Audio File and a FLAC Audio File

PONO is not for the “average person” such as you.

This all just screams PR STUNT!

Well you dear sir, scream ignorance.

Perhaps the average person listening in their car (horrid acoustics) or while jogging won’t notice a difference between 128kbit mp3s and CDs, let alone 96kHz/24Bit FLACs, however the 10% of us who can may want a portable option. Even if your phone can play tracks from HDTracks, many phones have bottom basement audio DACs/drivers which leave something to be desired. If Pono truly uses higher end chips and allows more listeners enjoy higher quality files while on the go, free of clipping and reduced dynamic range, then we should applaud the effort. Heck, maybe it’s products like this and the rebirth of the LP that will end the loudness wars and even casual listeners will be able to enjoy better music on their cheap mp3 players.

I look forward to this player. I have a small collection of SACDs and DVD-As and the improvement of the sound over red book CDs is apparent on my $1500 audio system. I am clumsy so vinyl is out but I remember the days of turntables and silver faced Pioneer Receivers. Fans cared about the quality back then.

The problem with the two Hi Def digital formats I mentioned is that the selection of classic rock recordings was/is quite nil. Perhaps Neil can light a fire under his contemporaries (at least the ones that are still alive) to put their catalogs on the FLAC format.

“There is very little difference if you use a studio master and then transform it into FLAC format, compared to starting with an MP3 file and then transforming it into FLAC format.”

Ahhhh no. Sorry. Had to stop reading after that, the stupidity was just too overwhelming.

Sadly I did keep reading, and the authors utter idiocy was confirmed.

“As technology improves, so will the audio quality on standard MP3 players and smartphones .” (sic)

Seriously, do you have *the slightest* idea what you are talking about? I agree PONO seems like a gimmick, but you are just spouting incoherent, ignorant gibberish. Dear author, sir, you have proven to anyone that knows anything about audio codecs that you are a complete and utter ignoramus. Well done.

Steven Finch “There is very little difference if you use a studio master and then transform it into FLAC format, compared to starting with an MP3 file and then transforming it into FLAC format”

My god and you are a “CEO” ok I help you a bit, FLAC is just a lossless compression format meaning from a CD 44.1Khz 16bit to a Flac file NOTHING changes FLAC is like a zip file. From CD to mp3 you compress = you lose even at 320kb/sec mp3 is like a JPEG Any Sound engineer will tell you that recording/listening at higher rates 88.2/96/192 gets you closer to analog sound. Why don’t we still work on old Digital Audio Tape at 44.1 16bit for mixing? do you think Why Sony and Philips did work on the 1bit DSD 2 822 400Hz , just for bucks? No it sounds better. One point is that any album that has a master at 44.1kHz 16bit might not sound better if you blow it to 192/24 but for all old analog master tape on 1/2inch at 30ips or 1/4inch at 15ips 192/24 will sound a lot closer. What you are doing is levelling all of this on the bottom for file size reason… Poor you An average sound engineer

Blah blah blah, no one cares.

Pono will fail because no KID in his or her right mind would be caught dead with such a stupid looking player. And believe it or not, rock and pop music is for KIDS and depends on them “liking” things.

Neil drives everywhere, as do his well heeled buddies. They do not walk around with iPods. Neil doesn’t even understand how iPods work or how you don’t have to use the stock earbuds….that you can….uh….buy other ones that sounds better.

Dude, do you really think Neil doesn’t know how to change ear/headphones/buds, or are you just being sarcastic?

i disagree with all the points. 1. i don’t mind the shape 2. the tech isn’t revolutionary? whats your point? for my purposes, i don’t agree with that being a relevant reason. 3. not much songs? 1800 (90-180 albums) sounds good to me. (if you have an organized library and ui, switching music when u get bored isnt hard), also i like little interchangable solid state hard drives, tho i dont mind it being bigger to accommodate a larger SD, say 128gb or 256gb, that way you wont switch them as often and thus wont wear out as fast, as well as more space. 4. cant tell the difference between mp3 and flac? i believe we train our selves to do anything.

what i really want in a portable music device, is: 1. STURDY headphone connections that DONT wear out 2. a connection that can handle lossless, i.e. 1/4″ or those RCA or coaxial cable things (or what ever there called), if 1/8″ can than i guess im mistaken. 3. an amp, and dac, and replaceable, rechargeable battery 4. fast light weight touchscreen UI, and fast cpu or what ever is need for 3rd party software (apps), like a simple dj program. 5. some minimal native software to play with the music, i.e the ability to slow or speed up your songs, to play 2 at once or reverse, and recording(with option of on-board and or mic at the same time). also: note pad, calculator, online or offline gps and google map, 6. internet capabilities, download music, watch videos, social 7. phone(high quality mic), and high quality video camera / camera 8. open source, no required programs like iTunes. 9. the ability to edit song names, delete or move songs, make playlists.

Dude, what you’re looking for is a cell phone.

The whole basis of this article is nonsense. You haven’t seen it. You haven’t held it. You haven’t listened to it. Its just a load of baseless conjecture.

you people don’t have a phucking clue and i feel sorry for you even if you don’t deserve it.

Neil Young doesn’t do anything PR, ever. Mp3s are crap. Whether or not the people in your office can tell is irrelevant and most people don’t care that they get robbed of liner notes and pay for downloading crud without middlemen when downloading a movie or song therefore should be pennies as they rob us. However FLAC or WAV I store on a netbook and use that in my car. Id prefer a cube brain in some kind of new player as big as it needs to be that can sit under my car seat and play away WAVs or FLACs and BROADCAST to a new mp3 player AND OR one could upload sections of the that block/brain that houses all the music and take their 100 or so lossless song on the go, delete and upload a different section or like I said keep it all under their car seat. The new gen doesn’t care about fidelity, they don’t even care if they get tunes by Jerry Lee labeled Elvis. The new gen likes it cheap and crappy, they are wrong. You can be cheap and find a better way, PONO isn’t it though

Okay, I’m way late to this party. But what the heck … I’ll wade right in. All of the comments in favor of high end audio, whatever the source, assume: 1. People really sit, in the perfect position in their room, and listen to their audio. I absolutely agree that doing so will provide a superior audio experience … but really? What percent of the audio listening public does this? I love great music but I generally listen to it while reading a good book (what’s a book?!). 2. People have ears that can discern excellent audio from merely adequate. I have many friends that have no ability to do so, and quite frankly, if you ask them, really don’t care. 3. People listen to music that has the instrumentation that one would want to hear. I know that I’ll get beaten up severely for this next comment, but seriously, have you listened to much of what passes for music these days? Does it really bear listening to with a really upscale music system vice a run-of-the-mill system? I’m not really totally dissing today’s music, but what would you gain from something that Pono claims to provide? Jazz, classical, and music that has a wide range of instrumentation (thinking something like Paul Simon, some of Queen, etc.). 4. In your vehicle – now there is a place that I can sit and listen for hours while taking a road trip. I would most definitely pay for a really good audio system in this venue.

Just buy vinyl (next step down in quality from master tapes) and then digitize them @ 24bits and load em up on any modern player that can play lossless files. Eazy and cheap. I think Neil is just a bored guy (with lots of dough) with good intentions misinformed.

spelling matters

All people that don’t get Pono are lowbred fuckwits

There is very little in the Steven Finch review that I agree with, especially his take on MP3 vs. FLAC. However, there is no arguing with his statement on the physical design itself. In terms of practical use, and aesthetics, it’s a non-starter. Without a radical re-design, the Pono player is doomed to commercial failure.

Well, nice that Pono is getting started now, but way too pricy. I own a Fiio X3 (200€), very nice stereo separation, before that I used my soft/hard-modded Iriver H120 Flac player for years (before this and other PR took place).

I can understand that many people won’t hear big differences in 320kbit mp3 compared to FLAC, for me its not a big thing to divide it. It clearly depends on Headphones/Speakers AND what your Ears/Brains/guts whatsoever are trained. A very good example is all drum related material, especially cymbals. Another exaample is listening too rather Jazzy material with double bass, it looses in dynamics in mp3. But the worst thing in mp3 is the stereo separation which is really lousy .

I’m afraid that this venture may not succeed, and I am a fan of Neil Young. The merchandising of music is going to have to go through a structural change, not just a change in format and delivery, and certainly the hardware isn’t selling itself to me.

On the bright side Pono is getting it right in challenging the highly compressed audio we are getting served up by most online services (iTunes, Amazon) — why the hell don’t I get a gig of uncompressed music for my 10-15 bucks? Is data so friggin precious nowadays? Obviously some people have limited space on their mobile players, but just offer me options when I download, but what you get is substandard, not nearly what I would choose ripping my own music. I’m a music lover and musician with some mixing experience and plenty of listening experience, and I hear a real difference between compressed and uncompressed files, and between levels of compression. I think our general consumers need to directly experience this — THEY WOULD HEAR THE DIFFERENCE — and probably get addicted to high Q audio.

Furthermore, the author of this article is a cynic who undervalues people’s ability to appreciate music, and is appealing to his own LCD demographic. Good luck with that. ;p

MP3s are like almost mono.

Wow. Stephen Finch is really afraid that the junk data that he peddles from his website will soon be recognized as the worthless junk that it is. Nice preemptive strike there Finch, you weasel. Neil Young is in it for the right reasons, you on the other hand are a self-interested prick.

Bravo!

This guy Finch is spectacularly adept at missing the point. I’m an audio engineer who just heard his first mp3 file compared to a standard “redbook” CD. The difference is breathtaking. Read about it here. http://www.brainspank.org/2014/10/the-space-between/

Point 1: That’s an opinion (and you know what they say about those).

Point 2: Even you don’t believe that so how do you expect us to.

Point 3: It’s not about quantity, it’s about “quality”.

Point 4: Now I know you’re full of crap. Let me qualify the full of crap thing. I’ll give you there is absolutely no difference between a MP3 file and a converted FLAC file from the same MP3. Any moron would know this. The audible difference between a FLAC from a master file and the same track converted to MP3 at any bit rate is staggering. If you can’t hear the difference between the two, you’ve been to way too many Van Halen concerts.

EVERYBODY can tell the difference between Mp3’s and Lossless files, not always in the duration of one song but If you listen to an ALBUM of Mp3s you’re ears will be fatigued, if you listen to lossless audio you can potentially listen all day if you wanted to without your ears getting tired.

The Pono will not be for everyone. This is not a juiced up iPod shuffle. The Pono is for those of us who can tell the difference between mp3 and FLAC. Simple thing really, if you don’t want one, don’t buy it. This is for music audiophiles who love music. I have one on the way and look forward to it arriving.

Well said Philip

The Kickstarter PONOs are arriving now. We received ours a couple of days ago, and I have to say that the sound is fantastic with good earphones, through the car audio, or through our home hi-fi system. I highly recommend it.

As to the points in the original article:

1. The device feels very stable in the hands. It’s not too big for a pocket. If you want a flat device, there are some available for several hundred dollars/pounds more than the PONO. I saw one the other night for about £2000, and another one for £900. There are probably cheaper ones out there. Personally, I like the way the PONO feels in the hand, and it fits perfectly into a small pocket in my handbag.

2. “there is very little difference if you use a studio master and then transform it into FLAC format, compared to starting with an MP3 file and then transforming it into FLAC format. ”

That was a joke, right? Because it’s funny as all hell.

There’s a major difference IF your device is high res enough to let you hear the difference. Maybe you should try a PONO or any other good high-res player before you make such statements.

3. The thing about SD cards is that they have this great new quality of being “REMOVABLE”. The PONO can take SD cards with up to 128GB on them. When that one gets full, you can start putting files onto another CD card, and so on, and so on. You can have as much music as you want for the PONO. But you knew that, didn’t you? It just didn’t make as good a copy as screaming that PONO storage is too limited.

4. If you’re transferring MP3s to FLAC, then yep, there probably isn’t a difference, because the FLAC won’t be any better resolution than the original file. Tell ya what; first, get a decent hi-res player. Next, listen to any song at FLAC 192/24, then listen to it on MP3 on the same player. If you can’t tell the difference, get a refund on the player. You won’t be needing a refund if that player is a PONO player.

(Obviously “you can start putting files onto another CD card” should read “you can start putting files onto another SD card.”)

Try one, the sound is amazing!!!! We love our Pono! 🙂

Let’s go through it point by point: 1. The PONO is a great design, it feels great in your hand and there is no need to have a flat device. We can’t all be sheep. 2. If you can’t tell the difference between an MP3 and Studio quality FLAC then you are obviously in the wrong business. 3. You can actually fit a 128GB SD card in the PONO to make a total of 192GB. The point is that this device is not in competition with a iXxx. This is comparing a Mercedes (PONO) with a Hyundai(ixxx). Comparing High Resolution Audio with digitised soup. A Professionally taken photograph at the right resolution to an out of focus box camera. Get the point? 4. If you can’t hear the difference then luckily a PONO is not for you. MP3 quality will not improve because Philistines like you want quantity not quality.

The sound from my PONO is like being in the studio, opening the music and hearing tones I’ve never heard before.

Don’t forget your day job.

Robert

Spot on, Robert, Karen & aspendew, Pono is rocking our world, too! I applaud the return of warmth and depth to *portable* music scene (disclaimer: I detest eMPty3 files). The Pono handset feels good in hand and fits comfortably in pocket. The triangular shape gives stability when not in hand and allows one to view the screen without having to pick it up. Lots of pissing and moaning by those who have not experienced the *aural-painting* from a hi-res file through a quality DAC or by those with opposing agenda. Thank you, Neil and company, Pono has soul and is truly righteous.

yep. I agree with love above. i have been listening to my Pono for a week now. I rarely have music on in the background and preferring to ‘Actively Listen’, to use a term above. For years, I have not had that enjoyment of listening, where the sounds make you FEEL good, keeps you interested like it is a good story, and directly connects with the brain… the things that LIVE music always does. I am so glad that I got the PONO player…. the warmth, the fullness of the sound is remarkable. If you are not blown away when you first hear it, try it with better equipment…. you will hear what we are talking about…. i gotta go do some more listening now…. lol

Clearly biased article. Bad reporting. He hasn’t even listened through a Pono player, and seemingly will do so with a bad attitude.

Horrible article. Clearly you are biased and victim to prejudice.

“Device design is TERRIBLE!”

Subjective. They needed to fit all the necessary parts into a small device. This is not an iPod. HQ audio needs HQ components. Also, (have you even been in contact with a Pono?) the shape works perfectly as it can lay on either side perfectly.

“The Technology Isn’t Revolutionary!” Show me another portable small media player like this. Exactly.

“The Pono Player Can’t Hold Much Music” 1,872 tracks at approx. 12 songs an album = 156 albums. Plenty for me. Next.

“The Average person can’t tell the difference between and MP3 Audio File and a FLAC Audio File” Doubt it, but maybe. All I know is that I and anyone I have shown the ponomusic sample track files to have clearly heard a difference.

Go back to journalism school.

I think your reasons are without merit. Although, I do agree that there isn’t enough storage space. For years, everyone tells me that there is no difference between 128kbps and 192kbps (even though there honestly is) and 192kbps and 320kbps….. but still, there is DEFINITELY a difference between high-res files and those that are 256kbps 16-bit audio. It’s time we got out of what was state of the art in the 80’s. 44.1kHz at 16-bit is far too low for audio which is all that iPods seem to be able to play (although they can do 48kHz also)

Responding to: “A 192kHz “Pono” record on the other hand, retains frequencies approaching 100kHz, meaning that 75% of the sound is COMPLETELY INAUDIBLE.”

You experience music with your entire body, not just your ears. Playing 192kHHz music through high-quality audio components and speakers enables you to feel the music in a way that is not possible with compressed MP3s or even CDs.

I just got my Ponoplayer, and I must say it is a real nice acquaintance. It holds enough music for me, and the sound quality is excellent, much better than I have previously experience. The design is “futuristic retro”, which is appealing to me.

The technology is not revolutionary, agreed, but the fact that it is easier to make HD music sound better has been known for a long time, and there are solid reasons why.

Bulshit Steve, biased opiniated bullshit – wait and see the outcome before knocking what for you is clearly an experience outside your capacity…

I’m reluctant to believe this device will be anything more than a flash in the pan from a marketing perspective.

I understand the PONO system expects users to pay around $10 / track? Even if the bandwidth is noticeably broader than a low compression .mp3 or Apple’s AAC format, most mainstream music listeners will cringe at such a high price per song.

But PONO isn’t exactly targeting the typical ear-budded public transit commuter, are they? And serious audiophiles do their serious listening next to their expensive turntables connected to equipment with gold-plated connection ports. So who’s left?

Pseudo eccentric hipsters dying for their buddies to inquire of them, “Hey man! What’s that bulge in your pocket?”

“Wild! Can you play porno music on that PONO?” (laughter ensues)

Ridiculous that you can write an article critiquing something you haven’t heard. I just got my Pono player a week ago. Compared to an ipod the Pono sounds slightly better – when I download cds rather than use MP3 quality recordings already on my PC. When I purchase higher resolution music the Pono is absolutely stunning.

WORST ARTICLE EVER ! dont even bother reading this

wow.what an insightful rant.have you actually tested the player?Go stick with your 128kbps mp3’s on your ipod/phone.

This article is so uneducated and reeks of bias. The difference between hi and low res audio files is clearly audible to anyone if played on a suitable device. What I think you mean is that some people aren’t bothered by the difference. For those of us who are bothered, the Pono player is a significant step into making a better sound more attainable. If we go back a year, Astel and Kern were the only manufacturer producing widely available and comparable devices (in the UK at least). Their players started at £600 for a particularly unremarkable ‘entry level’ device and jumped drastically to more impressive versions; one at just over £1000 and another at just over £2000. The Pono player purchased on Kickstarter was $315USD; that’s about £200, plus import duty depending on your location. Whilst the tech may not be new; it’s newly available to the masses. Storage isn’t immense but its ample. You did get one thing right. The player isn’t flat and wont easily fit into your jeans pocket. Very astute.

Anybody know of a portable music player that plays albums and not just tracks

For a laugh http://www.cbc.ca/22minutes/videos/clips/neil-young-pono-player

1) It isn’t flat. So I won’t be jogging with it, but just because things can be made so smal they aren’t pocket safe any more, doesn’t mean they should. This thing is 400 and hi fi, so I will be using it on my desk, where it sits up and can be more easily read, when triangular, and I like the strong case.

2) I doubt this is going to be another Apple, but face it, there were a ton of other players out before IPod took over. People aren’t getting the fact that this is about getting audiophile opinion out there so people will see the benefit to buying FLAC. 1.75 million isn’t going to get all the recordings remastered, this stuff will mostly be sold by Apple, which is in the best position to profit. But they need something to take the Flac so to speak, and create the demand. Enter Neil Young who is widely regarded as totally honest, and an audio freak. Perfect.

3) It doesn’t hold much, well it can run anything you want. I guess for folks who used to get only 12 songs before we had to switch, a baseline of 2000 sounds OK. The first iPhone didn’t come with a camera, too bad, it could have been big. There will be other models of this thing also.

4) It’s true most people can’t tell the difference. That is the point, they need a tool that will push them back in the right direction. The I’m smarter about what file is best word wars, miss the point. People will use this opportunity to get more into their music, why the files are what size sorta misses the point. Some people will hear better versions of songs that were squashed onto CDs. What works is a song by song, or album by album issue. Other people will continue to jog with the sound of their joints almost drowning out the music.

I got my pono player a few days ago. I absolutely love it. The guy who wrote this article is a hater and should pull his head out of his ass.

Finch,

It is such a shame that your article gets so much attention from Google’s search algorithm.

I brought one of the first Pono Players. As a sponsor of the Kickstarter project my player came with a Neil Young track pre loaded. Whilst I have a nice pretty picture of the track nothing else works.

The support team for this company is totally SHIT They send you a support ticket and then follow it up with an meal saying case resolved. I live in the ~UK and suffer from ~Multiple Sclerosis so quite frankly I don’t need the stress as it makes my illness worse. Being several thousand miles away from the company I can’t even attach it to a brick and throw it through the company window. I paid $315 including American Tax and a further £48 ? £49 ? ish ~UK tax which makes for one expensive pice of crap that does not work and no support.

DEC 19 2014 I just listened to a Pono player….best thing next to a studio playback. This guy has a dog in the fight. …1800 songs not enough? Really?….maybe for someone with ADD. Why do you think that artists and music lovers are gravitating back to vinyl master recordings? IPODS make all music sound like you are in a tin can….worse than early 60’s AM. It is why so much of new music is crap….kids have never heard music properly. One look at the scale comparisons showing how much you are actually hearing via the various formats tells you all you have to know.

GOTTA BUY ALL THIS MUSIC AGAIN …STARTED WITH VIYNL / 8 TRACK / CASSETTE / CD / BACK TO VIYNL / NOW PONO= NOW I AM RETIRED I CAN NOT AFFORD IT …

This so-called “review” is nonsense. QUALITY always trumps quantity. Hooray for Neil Young and PONO.

1-the triangle design is a great concept. I like to plug it into my home stereo system and be able to see what is playing from cross the room. The design is also small enough to fit into my pants pocket. . 2-Revolutionary? Yes and no. The FLAC format has been available to audiofiles for many years. The pono is the first portable device that supports this kind of HD format..

3-That’s right…content storage is limited in comparison mp3, wav, or apple devises. So what? you get more information through your ears and into your mind with the pono player,

4. The “average person can’t tell the difference”… Maybe the “average person” is not interested in (or have the attention for) deeper listening. Is it possible that the “extensive tests” of this study were done by an Average Person?

“There is very little difference if you use a studio master and then transform it into FLAC format, compared to starting with an MP3 file and then transforming it into FLAC format.”

Why would you convert an MP3 to FLAC? Nothing is gained in the process. You cannot recover the data lost in creating the MP3 in the first place.

There is certainly a data difference between MP3 and FLAC. MP3 is lossy, FLAC is lossless.

Erm, I guess I won’t be using Routenote to distribute my own music anytime soon. I just played songs off my Pono player two days ago to a friend who’s now used to listening to MP3s, and he was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by the sound quality upon first listen. He then proceeded to describe how he felt it sounded much better than even CDs, in pretty much exactly the terminology I would have used: more roundness to the music, more real, and (in words I might not have used) “Only the sharp instruments sound sharp (aka loud and edgy, such as trumpets or harmonicas), everything else doesn’t sound sharp… on a CD, everything sounds sharp (again, loud and edgy).

Mr. Finch, did you even LISTEN to a Pono player? Atop that, the 1,872 files of high audio quality you mention as being a “limit” come up to over 150 albums on that machine, if one averages an album as being 10 to 12 songs long. Seriously, this article smells like one big PR STUNT to keep people buying MP3 files through RouteNote. Keep selling your MP3 files which compress 95% of the sound out of the music. I’ll be buying my high-resolution FLAC and WAV files elsewhere.

One obvious point that I have not seen anyone make: The reason that people in blind tests can not hear the difference between an mp3 and a CD, is that most of the music chosen for the test is taken from the charts. Most of that music has already been compressed, saturated, transient shaped, brickwall limited and compressed again until the resolution is worse than a cheap compact cassette tape. If you want to hear the difference, you need to listen to older recordings from back when people bought high end audio components, or anything new that has been made by people who won’t be influenced by what the “music business” says they should be doing: One obvious point that I have not seen anyone make: The reason that people in blind tests can not hear the difference between an mp3 and a CD, is that most of the music chosen for the test is taken from the charts. Most of that music has already been compressed, saturated, transient shaped, brickwall limited and compressed again until the resolution is worse than a cheap compact cassette tape. If you want to hear the difference, you need to listen to older recordings from back when people bought high end audio components, or anything new that isn’t connected to big business: Jazz, Steve Albini recordings, Balkan folk, Klezmer bands, classical music, french arthouse, german cabaret, arthouse cinema scores, etc. I really have the feeling that the genres most influenced by the loudness wars are the ones that aspire to an American ideal. the genres that aren’t heard in the US seem to be doing what they have always done, record and perform with the music lover in mind. Am I wrong?

Ok, I don’t know what the hell happened to my above comment. Apologies for the clutter

There is only one question we have to ask us: Who paid Steven Finch for that ? (Steve you’re nothing but a dumb idiot !)

I have played this Pono player for my entire family including grand parents. I also played the same music from my iPod and everyone was blown away at the difference. they all could tell that there is a massive sonic and more importantly an emotional difference in the impact of the music that the sound quality provides. this is best thing to happen to my music listening in decades.

Agree that this is tech that has existed before. And also I will be streaming cause I like the ability to get whatever I want whenever I want. Being a producer and having attended the Neil Young induction into the Grammy Producer and Engineers wing for lifetime achievements I was so impressed with his humility and real concern for the quality of recorded music. I totally get this device and think that its necessary. But I think its niche and thats fine with me – I hope peeps buy it and all the work in the studio we do to get stuff to sound great is heard…BUT…that doesn’t affect sales (or streams) in much of any way. People listen to great songs that affect them emotionally and whether its 44 or 22 or whatever sampling rate it doesn’t affect the popularity. I know that cause this is what I do. And frankly it sucks cause its made the producing business less important from the audiophile side of things and more just about songs – thats why no one uses tape. Didn’t matter. No one uses great studios anymore…doesn’t matter. The audiophiles will now have an outlet for their demand. The author of this piece is so angry that I am surprised these guys printed the article – its obviously a personal attack.

This article is offensively stupid writing.

I hear the difference. It is not subtle. That means this thing does exactly what it set out to do. No complaints.

Pono with balanced output to the HD650 is a thing of beauty for a very reasonable price. I think this is pretty revolutionary. If you don’t care about superior sound or wasting money on some other high end portable player, they this guy is spot on. I guess opinions are like A-holes, everybody’s got one..

Given all of the great responses, I can only emphasize the important aspects of what has been written, in order to help ensure people ignore your obviously uninformed, severely biased post. First, as explained, the device is built on form following function paradigm in order to optimize playback quality, and having handled and used one for several days I can say that it fits in my front pocket just fine– actually better than my wallet, and about the same as my iPhone. Second, it is actually a benefit that it is not “revolutionary” bleeding-edge in terms of format and related technology, but rather uses encoding technology and resulting format that can be writen to/read from using numerous free or commercial software and hardware options. Most people want and need interoperability based on proven standards, rather than trying to work with technologies that have significantly less support. As far as the hardware, it provides solid support for the playback of that format, which is in fact, its obvious purpose. In fact, the Pono is at a very good place in terms of its supporting technologies adoption curves, as it is neither early adoption, nor aging/old technology, as it is on the rapidly accerating portion of its associated adoption curves. The popularity of it as shown by its unprecidented investor, `customer and subscription rates further illustrates that you should likely rethink your posiyion related to popularity and customer desire/need. Third, the memory is expandable via cheap, readily available, easily swappable SD-micro cards. This not only provides unlimited expandability, but also allows you to organize by durable, easily transported cards. This also facilitates quick inter-device transfer using either a roughly $10 card reader plugged into a USB port of a computer or other device, or the built-in card slot in many devices. Finally, as far as the ability to hear the difference, many will not hear the difference between, for example, 320Kbps AAC and FLAC, but based on the mounting research being done, it appears that about 10% of people are able to with good equipment and source material Also, much of the HD audio being produced is given more care and often leverages higher quality source material than the typical dynamically-compressed, frequency-limited, levels-compounded audio that is typically used to source MP3. However, most can hear the difference between the typical MP3 files in use/being sold today and FLAC based on high quality source material, and the fact that you talk about transcoding a FLAC from an MP3 for comparative testing purposes shows that you have a huge fundemental gap in your understanding of this technology in general, and as such, you are far from being someone who should be listened to or otherwise followed for your knowledge.

This player is doomed, and none of the reasons have to do with the quality. I’ll even say the Pono player is great, and there is a huge sound difference in quality, and like the celebrities say, “You feel it, see it” whatever. So my statements are on the assumption that the Pono player is say, one hundred times better in sound. My point being, we don’t need to talk about the validity of the device.

So here’s why it will fail:

1) Historically we have had other electronic products on the market which were far superior to the popular product. A good example of this is Beta versus VHS. Beta failed because the VHS format was in the public domain, which meant other manufacturers could make machines, which of course meant that 90% of the machines were VHS, so of course, VHS was cheaper.

2) MiniDisc music. Far supperior to cassette, completely digital, skip free music on a tiny player with insane battery times. But MiniDisc was very expensive, lets say $499, and a cassette recording boom box was $100, so of course people used cassette, (absolute shit quality) and so MiniDisc failed.

The point being with these two examples, that the public will most always go with the cheaper priced product over the more expensive one. (McDonalds is the largest restaurant chain in the world, yet it’s food is unhealthy to eat). The public always want’s a deal.

The MP3 player dominates the market, and for everyone that has already purchased these albums on MP3 are not going to buy them again for Pono.

The other problem is that the MP3 player is falling out of favor as most mobile phones play MP3’s now.

So you have Pono entering a market where it has one advantage over the MP3 players – the promise of better sound quality. A tough sell to people listening on cheap headphones riding in subways who view music players as something they would never buy when their phone can play their music.

There is a market for Pono, but it is a very limited market. If that market can support the Pono system, then it will stick around. They are going to have to really be aggressive promoting it, and breaking into a market dominated by cell phone companies flush with cash will be difficult.

I hope the Pono survives, so that people who are frustrated with MP3 an CD can have music the way they want it.

True, it’ll be hard to convince people to buy their music again but just as high quality food and high quality cars, etc. are for people who appreciate this quality, the pono player will be there for the ones who appreciate great sound. Thankfully it’s available. I’m sick of the crap sound from my iPod.

Rod – I think the main problem Pono will have is that a lot of the people who may have bought it got fed up waiting and bought a Colorfly or Fiio etc. (such as me). The people who won’t buy it because they are happy listening on their phone wouldn’t have bought it either. They’d have either bought a dirt cheap one or a ‘good’ one which is advertised everywhere and is ‘cool’.

I think MP3 killed the minidisc, personally. If we were still using discs/tapes etc. to listen to music on the move I think minidiscs would have beaten tapes long ago. As it is, people don’t need to carry a bag full of objects around with them now, so they don’t.

Play a low resolution video to a low resolution monitor. Play a low resolution video to a high resolution monitor. Play a high resolution video to a low resolution monitor. Play a high resolution video to a high resolution monitor.

…and see the difference!

A high quality audio can only be utilized using high quality audio player.

A terrible article. Upscaling MP3 back to FLAC? What nonsense. The FLAC files you could not tell the difference with, were they these, by any chance? I *have* tested the same tracks on MP3, CD, and Hi-Res FLAC and WAV a number of times. The FLAC and WAV sound indistinguishable to me, the CD is distinct and so is the MP3. Some things could be ‘subjective’ and caused by fooling yourself, however, when there are details which aren’t even present on the lossy MP3 files, that can’t be subjective. I listen on my phone (with the same FLAC files ripped as FLAC from CDs) when my real music player (Fiio X3) is out of battery life. I *can* tell the difference, and that’s with exactly the same music files. I’m sure most people are happy with MP3s. Good for them. They can fit loads on their phones and download them from anywhere while hearing a much reduced facsimile, missing lots of detail, on the music they like. Most people are also happy to snap away with the camera built in to their phones. That doesn’t mean that cameras in phones produce anything like as good photos as dedicated cameras. Also, on the storage capacity, the thing about SD cards is that the storage is limitless. You can carry as many around with you as you like and swap them over. Different genres on different cards. That’s if you need to. I have almost my entire CD collection, as FLACs, on a 64 GB card. The player only has 8GB (shock, horror!) of internal storage, none of which I use.

So kids, when all your pubic hairs are grown in, mom and pop will buy you a Pono for your birthday. Until then, you’ll just have to listen to your I-pod and your mp3s.

I think many post have missed out on one very important fact. Pono goes the master tapes and records at 192khz 24bit. Over the recent years many have up sample to these specs but its nowhere near the same as having the higher spec to start with. Good for Neil, if this fails who else will record from the masters at such a superior spec?

I think many post have missed out on one very important fact. Pono goes the master tapes and records at 192 kHz 24 bit. Over the recent years many have up sample to these specs but it’s nowhere near the same as having the higher spec to start with. Good for Neil, if this fails who else will record from the masters at such a superior spec?

Saying that the average person can’t tell the difference between an mp3 and a flac tells me you don’t know how to do A/B tests. You lost all credibility with that one. Yes, I am an Old School Linn guy.

Reading this article was the biggest waste of time of my day.

CEO of a company who sell MP3 talkshitting about FLAC … and yes, if you use Skull Candy earphone, you probably won’t see the difference.

You’re talking about how Pono should be backed up by fact, but your text is not only empty of fact, it’s full of urban legends …

Note to myself : Never support Routenote.

for the sake of relativity, let’s agreeFLAC is the 100% perfect audio file. Though it varies , what % of perfect are MP3s?

There are many of you bashing Apple ipods & phones because of the audio format it plays… FYI they also play Apple Lossless wich is a Flac format and they do play this file format. Again Apple Lossless and Flac are bot Lossless and Apple Ipod & iPhone play it.

Apple uses ALAC, the rest of the world uses FLAC. FLAC = Open Source and ALAC = Licensed. Both are lossless formats and should sound have same sound signature, but ALAC is NOT the same file format as FLAC. The encoding process is different between the two. Furthermore, Apple products don’t support FLAC. You need a third party app or software for FLAC playback to work on Apple devices. The Apple bashing is justified.

It’s irritating when companies like Sony, Apple, Samsung, etc. try to develop their own standards when one already exists, so that people who buy their products are stuck buying the overpriced proprietary crap. It’s a flat out cash grab, and many users are too blind to see or don’t educate themselves on the products before buying.

The Toblerone bar…. ahem… I mean Pono won’t last long. Why buy a Pono when you can buy a similarly spec’d hi-res player with a sleeker design for less? i.e. FiiO X5, iBasso DX90, Hidizs AP100.

Do you really mean all that you wrote? You say a lot of things that doesnt make any sense to me. When the CD was introduced 30 years ago they lied to the consumers saying that the audio was better than LP. The PONO player is an affordable to build up a decent music library again. I don’t care how much money Neil Young is making with this move, I cannot take out my wallet fast enough anyway to buy all my beloved records. I prefer to have 1000 songs in my pocket than 10 000 shitty files. The design is awesome, the player lays down neatly on the top of any receiver while you scroll for music. If you have a black receiver you pick yellow and if you gave a silver one you pick a blue PONO and that’s it. Perfect combined.

Anyone that claims that Mp3 is good enough…. doesn’t own an HD Player.

All the people saying “those files take too much space!” remember: 15 years ago 10Gb Hard Drive used to cost a fortune. Now you can get an MicroSD x300 for 90bucks.

Just about two years ago I didn’t believe in this HD music stuff until a friend did in front of me an A:B comparison.

I was digging more and more. I got the PONO player and although the service is not great, music is not available internationally and most of the record labels are releasing stuff in no more than CD quality, every time I find music recorded in 192Kz (not just an up-sample) is great.

Oh wow.

After this I feel the need to sell my AK100ii, Tralucent Ref1’s, GoVibe PortaTube and V200/V800 and LCD2’s. I have been doing it wrong.

iPod classic @ $500, iBuds and MP3’s are clearly the way to go.

Personally will I buy a Pono? No. But I don’t have the need for one. Do I love that Pono/Young is trying to open people’s eyes to the land of Hi-Fidelity audio in an age of Mp3’s and streaming. Absolutely. In much the same way Hi-Res streaming is making its way onto the scene.

As someone above so aptly put, there are 8 year old scotches and there are 30 year old scotches. Not everyone is going to appreciate the 30 year old. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t better for those equipped to appreciate it. Will CD/CD+ quality audio sound better than MP3 on your iBuds, MAYBE. JUST… Will CD/CD+ quality audio sound better than MP3 on your dedicated audio setup/Quality speakers/Headphones. ABSOLUTELY, in fact MP3 will sound worse on these than iBuds.

But with all of this in mind, it means nothing if the audio is poorly recorded/compressed when produced. It all starts here.

If a person can’t hear a difference between 96kHz/24bit FLACs and mp3s then the person must be a deaf. Or got a really lousy headphones. Maybe mp3 generation’s ears are used to this compressed blur sound, don’t know…

Anyways listen music Live and play Dead!!!!

I have been through a few portable digital players

At present i use an Ibasso DX 100 , which can drive my MG 6 pros quite nicely , but for a boost i added a RSA amp . Its also a balanced amp .i know Lisa etc also make more powerful amps

My Dx100 has plenty of out options as well

What i cant suss here is how good is the amp section of this device ? And what are the out connectivity options , esp. compared to a Lisa / Ibasso etc

Can i add my own amp to this setup ?

i ve loved Neil for over 40 years , but that doesnt mean ill auto purchase everything he lends his name to

How does this compare to my setup , and other setups that easily eclipse my setup ?

Is the amp section adequate to power full sized cans ? ( my hd 800s are admittedly underpowered on my dx100 and even on my 71 B , but it s quite respectable as the hd s are 300 ohm ) .

Are the files used on Pono a format exclusive to Pono ? Which would likely mean my patricia Barber 24 bit or Agalloch 16 bit could nt be played on Pono ?

This sounds like a device somewhere between but above Ipods but way less than other options out there ?

If this helps folks open their ears to true a audiophile experience im all for it , but this device has been all over the news like its a huge break through in portable hi end audio .

Which it s not , devices as good , and better have been available for a long time

I read the title for this article and laughed because the Pono was brought up in my Music Industry class last semester. The majority of the class agreed that this was not a product that many people of this generation would buy. After reading that it only holds 64gb I really don’t see the Pono hanging around the market too long. I love audio quality as much as any other musician but at a $300 price point I think Neil lost a considerable amount of customers. Although this first model is definitely not the perfect device, I look forward to seeing if they come out with a Pono.2 with more memory and a better design.

All the matters here is the sound quality. Obviously the thing isn’t designed to compete with smartphones, etc on an aesthetics basis So let’s talk about that….

I tested mine with a wide variety of song in multiple formats. I fancy myself a massive music fan with a decent set of ears. What I think needs to be considered here is the source material. Basically, music in general since the late 80s has been recorded digitally. In my opinion everything before that (analog tape) had a huge warmth to it versus digital. The result is that many people may have difficulty discerning a noticeable difference on say…the latest Justen Bieber album, but comparing high quality mp3 versus Pono for say Dark Side if the Moon yields significant improvements. As good as vinyl on a great system.

The main problem that I am finding is that the damn thing doesn’t connect to my car via a usb port. Was told by pono customer service that since my car stereo doesn’t have a 3.5 mm aux port( jeez, it’s 2015) I could hook it up to an run used radio frequency like the old days with an iPod. But, the audio quality would suffer!!!! Really? What a disappointment!!

This Article Is the Worst Audio Player Review I Have EVER Read…For the reasons previous commenters have made abundantly clear. You would expect something better from a site called Digital Music News.

Well this looks like a Pono Basher!!!!

I dont have a Pono…and as this page is more or less on lines of Pono…I can tell you from my own experience that Hi-Res is the truth…And is simply amazing!!! I have a Hi-Res player from a Japanese Company…before this I had an MP3 play from the same Japanese company…The audio quality is far superior with the Hi-Res player….I am not talking about Hi-Res source…just a normal music file (320 kbps)…The music is far superior than the MP3’s..Phones dont stand a chance…With this player…same bit rate…same source…song on iPod or any player pales…

FLACS…I dont have to Say…They have always sounded great! Its foolish for any one to comment about how great FLACs sound…

Hi-Res…I have some of those…They are the new benchmarks…I have heard them on the Hi-Res device; and then heard them on my PC and other MP3 player….Huge difference..

Bottom Line!!! I feel its worth the money I have spent…Others should not have an issue with the feeling one gets when they have bought something expensive and they think its worth every dime…..Trying to say that this technology does not work or is a Sham is trying to spread your version of “new found morality”..whih itself can easily be deemed s immoral…

Out of the house, I travel and commute with a 128 GB iPod Classic that will hold slightly more than 4,000 +/- 4:00 long tracks in ALAC form, converted with no loss or compression from FLAC. When the Classic dies, as all hard drives eventually do, I’ll replace with the Pono. I listen with HiFiMan RE-400 aluminum buds that are probably the best bargain out there. For a portable speaker, I use the Denon Envaya. I once thought 256 kbps MP3s were pretty good for portable music.

a 640 mb CD of 10 songs (at 44k), if converted by “lossy compression” becomes 30-40mB. There is something like 90% information loss in this conversion. Similarly, I think the early A-D conversions from analog vinyl to CD format sampled at around something like 2 discrete samples/Hz. Smoothing routines and resampling can only do so much. Similarly, filters and what not, when applied to modern amplifiers that contain Op amps can only do so much compared to amps styled with heavier transformers that drive speakers better.

There are very few stereo stores around these days that allow A/B testing of equipment and what not (sort of like the optometrist (is this better or this?). People contemplating sound quality need to run an MP3 versus a CD through a decent stereo to hear the difference. My kids have chosen the CD or Vinyl sound quality compared to the MP 3 since they were 10 year olds, but still like their MP3 ipods for the convenience.

“The Average person can’t tell the difference between and MP3 Audio File and a FLAC Audio File.”

The “Average person” is only a good guide if you yourself wish to be average.

Whether the product is great or not, it’s timing isn’t one that I see lasting forever. Neil is very pro Vinyl and I think his intention was to create a player to be a mobile vinyl player (without the fun of a vinyl to carry around) but consumers won’t care or go out of their way in my opinion when they can just get the music on their phones and at least get higher quality headphones by Audeze or something like that.

At least he got on Fallon to promote it which is one of the first times in a while i’ve seen a music player or device be featured prominently but …. meh….

-Jorge Brea http://www.symdistro.com

At least he got on Fallon to promote it which is one of the first times in a while i’ve seen a music player or device be featured prominently but …. meh….

-Jorge Brea http://www.symdistro.com

Which is larger? The number of comments on this year-old thread, or the number of exclamation points in the original article?

After listening to the pono, there is no better portable player out there. I just whish I could afford it.

This has to be by far the worst article ever written on digital music. You should be ashamed Steven.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a more misinformed and biased article as this. You should be ashamed Steven.

I have had a Pono for nearly 3 months now – Stunning sound that just keeps getting better – I have had Colorfly’s, Fiio X5 & X1 as well as a Shozy Alien – the Pono crushes them all especially when paired with my Sennheiser ie800’s – this article is full of shit, obviously written by a low grade moron with cloth ears; that being said a good 16 bit CD rip is almost as good as Neil Youngs much touted 24bit 192K source material

Terrible article, if anything screams it is the giant fonts and poor grammar. “Doesn’t hold much music”!!! The article reads as if written by an incompetent and technologically blowhard.

That should be “technologically challenged blowhard”.

But High-Resolution music player is not for an average person who cannot differentiate nor appreciate sound quality, but for an audiophile.

Please do not spam the internet.

Point 4 of the article is moot in an article such as this. Clearly, if someone doesn’t find an MP3 lacking, they’re not going to be interested in what Pono has to offer. If someone is happy with 128 or 160k mp3s on their phone with ear buds, then Pono is not for them. It was in no way ever meant for them, and those people aren’t going to be reading this article in the first place. Most people can’t tell the difference? Well there is a difference. Some people can hear it. I know I can.

Quality vs quantity. Why such a backlash to this concept?

I have an IPod and I’ve been quite happy with it for years now. I bought a Pono and it is a far superior player as far as the sound is concerned. With audiophile quality headphones and a well recorded song/album, the Pono sounds much better than the IPod. I have to qualify my comments as to the quality of the sound. Firstly, the only reason for the Ponos’ awkward shape is that it has a DAC (digital to analogue convertor) in the player. The DAC and other upgraded parts would not fit in a flat design like the IPod. I also would say that function over form is more important when it comes to sound. With your publication’s name, “Digital Music News”, it doesn’t surprise me that you wouldn’t like a player that converts the digital signal to an analogue signal. I think there is a group of people who would waste their money if they bought a Pono. Then, there is a smaller group who should rush out and buy a Pono immediately. This is how I would suggest you make your decision. 1. If you use average ear buds or headphones like the “Beats” brand, don’t buy a Pono. If you think “Beats” are good or even reasonable quality headphones, don’t buy a Pono. That is because you either don’t care what the music sounds like…or…you wouldn’t hear the difference between low quality and high quality recordings if it smacked you right in the face. Also, if you listen primarily to rap or pop music. (Examples: Little Wayne to Fallout Boy where 98% of this music is recorded so poorly that no player could make it sound good.) Actually, a band like Fallout Boy is recorded so that the signal looks like a red brick when put on an equalizer. It is recorded LOUD with all of the levels beyond its maximum capability, it distorts or a channel may cut in and out. The Pono might actually make such horribly recorded music sound just as bad. No player can correct bad recording/sound engineering. Rap and most pop music on the radio sounds best on a car stereo. If you like this sort of music, crank it up and enjoy it – but the Pono is not for you. 2. If you listen to classic rock, jazz, classical and some of the older country music, the Pono may be for you. A good example would be listening to a band like Steely Dan. If you listen to Steely Dan on an IPod or a Pono with crap headphones like “Beats”, you will not hear a difference between the IPod and the Pono. However, if you have invested in a pair of Grado or most Sennheiser headphones, you will hear a big difference with the Pono making the IPod look bad. Then again the headphones I listen to my music with are way north of $300.00 a pair. I’ve done a blind sound test where the listener does not know whether he is listening to the IPod or the Pono. I have used my Grado headphones for the experiment. I had 12 people listen to Leonard Cohen’s song “Dance Me To The End Of Love” and Steely Dan’s “Josie”. Both songs have a good range of lows and highs. 10 out of 12 said the Pono was “better” to “much better” as far as the sound is concerned. One person liked the IPod better. The last person said they heard no difference between the two players. The 10 who liked the Pono better were between the ages of 16 and 41. The one person who liked the IPod better was 68 years old. The last person who said they heard no difference was 72 years old. If I could do it again scientifically, I would do it with people with whom I could administer a hearing test to. Also, I would not pick people of any age who don’t listen to much music. If the people in your test don’t know what to listen for when comparing the same song on two different playback systems, the results could be skewed. Everyone in my test owned IPods and were self declared “music lovers”. I did this test about 3 months ago when I first got my Pono. At least 2 of the 12 people who did my test purchased a Pono for themselves. It could be more, but only two have told me they purchased one. They both said they bought the Pono because they were so impressed with the sound quality. 6 out of the 12 said they would consider buying a Pono and put their IPod out to pasture. Another 3 people said they would consider purchasing a Pono if their IPod were to break. That’s some pretty strong results for a blind listening test. Especially since people such as the people from ‘Digital Audio News’ said the player didn’t sound better and was basically a piece of crap. I would be interested in knowing what music and headphones were used when they and the people around the office listened to the Pono. I just know they were ear buds or some crap headphones. Otherwise, I think it is impossible to get those results. Perhaps they made it all up? Where did they get the Pono from? Since they thought it was so ugly and couldn’t possibly live up to the hype, why would they actually purchase one? I challenge them to listen again with quality recordings and quality headphones. P.S. – I don’t mean to be so hard on “Beats” headphones, but they are manufactured with inferior quality electronics. Then they are sold through an impressive marketing campaign at a premium headphone price point. The selling of “Beats” headphones is for profit only. The sound quality of even the most expensive “Beats” products are below mediocre at best. People buy them because of their advertising. It may be trendy and cool to own a pair of “Beats”, but not because they sound good.

I find the Pono player’s sound to be “darker”, more low end than the FiIO player. The Triangle shape is fine because I use it with my stereo and it stands nicely where the iPod required a dock, etc.

I don’t like to listen at high volumes so the high end is lost (for my ears). With no eq I can’t boost the high end a bit. I’ve got very good headphones.

YES I can hear the difference between the iPod classic (now discontinued) and the Pono, and the FiIO. The main advatage with Pono is their ecosystem software – it’s not great, but neither was iTunes version 1.0. The FiIO comes with no software, which means you have to drag stuff to the desktop which in some cases is not very User Friendly.

In the 70’s, HiFi was a relatively affordable game for those wanting decent quality sound. We all waited for the next great record to come out. Dark Side of the Moon, Crime of the Century, etc. Now, HiFi (I prefer that phrase than the word audiophile which seems to imply some weird peversion) is very expensive. One thing I can say with some certainty is that the average (repeat, average) audible quality of recordings has gone down continuously since the late 1950’s. You can hear that even on YT through the PC and some cheap active monitors. I think the real thing to look at is how can we genuinely get increased quality out of our audio systems. The market demand for PONO illustrates that. One of the problems with the comparisons is that people are switching between systems with a switch box to try to hear a difference. Whilst that may appear to be a logical approach, it ain’t. The easiest way to compare systems is to play a passage of music on one system, and then after say 5 seconds of silence, play the exact same passage on the other systems, with the level matched. I am sure this suggestion will generate lots of flak. But just try it. Don’t argue against this suggestion with logic. Just try it. Then trust your ears. If after that, you can’t hear any difference, then any difference there is does n’t matter to you. Just as George Martin’s book was not titled “All you need is a null test”. If something really does sound better, people will hear it in the next room and come running in. What is definitely true to my ears is that the quality of recordings has gone down. Check out Columbia’s 1950’s records, Mercury Living Presence records, Ella Fitzgerald on original Verve, Link Wray’s Rumble or Rawhide, even in the 1960’s, Summer in the City from the Lovin Spoonful, recorded by Roy Halee at Columbia. Get the mono 45. Fabulous sound quality. Stuff I hear these days just does n’t have any bollocks. People will pay for it. People will even pay for the hope they can get that. I have not heard PONO. But I don’t have any expectations. And when you do your comparisons, use a piece of music that was well recorded, plenty of dynamics, and best still done when the recording technology was still pretty OK. Like the late 1950’s to mid 1860’s. Those tracks tend to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Music off TV shows where they played copy masters without vocals and then the singer would sing live against the track. I am just lobbing the suggestion out there of how I have done meaningful comparisons. Anyone tempted to respond without trying this approach and arguing from logic – you already know what the response would be. Try it. Just try it. It either works for you, or it does n’t. It would be interesting to see some more reports on the PONO compared in that way, and with a note of the recording you used, and the source of the file.

I’m an average music listener, never had the ear to be a soundman working the board and I’m technology challenged. I also was a kickstarter backer. I appreciate quality in sound and what the artist is trying to achieve. I plugged my pono into my car and could immediately hear the difference just through my regular old factory installed speakers. I’ve also played it to friends who are soundmen and they can hear it to. How many years did it take for The Beatles to release their catalog to iTunes? It’s already available for pono. Apparently many other artists can hear the quality of this little ole start up company

One issue I haven’t seen in the previous posts (tho’ I haven’t read all 1K+) — samping rates.

I love my iPod (I’ve had three), but I was VERY disappointed to discover that the 160 gB classic, which I bought a week before they discontinued it, won’t play/accept files with a sampling rate above 48kHz. The Apple site is curiously silent on this major shortcoming. You can only find this out by visiting user forums.

The PONO does seem like a niche product, but it has a passionate, sophisticated, and affluent target audience. The majority of consumers don’t really like music, hence the success of most current pop/rap stars and streaming. Ironically many of these folks pay a premium for Beats headphones, even though they could get much better headphones for the same amount of money.

Sorry, but the author missed the point of listening to high-res music files. Sure, the Pono has some limitations, I agree. Also, the average listener cannot discern between an mp3 or a flac, but then again the “average” IQ is 100. Just as I expect an “average” person to get a low grade in calculus unless they get a lot of help, I don’t expect the average listener to be able to understand the extra detail that a high-resolution audio file provides just by casually listening to high fidelity. It takes work to listen for detail. Whether I’m working on engineering a recording project, or listening at home through my favorite vacuum-tube powered audiophile stereo, my trained ears will pick up things that others simply cannot discern without a lot of coaching on my part. So, no the Pono isn’t for everyone. It’s for people like me. And to me, it’s a breakthrough product. Stop knocking something that will make a few persnickity listeners smile as they hear their audio in 3D as is possible with high fidelity. If you have not heard audio in 3D, it’s because you’ve either never heard a high-fidelity system, our lack the ears to appreciate it.

My IQ is almost 180, I have the highest end home stereo equipment, my hearing is 0’s across the sound spectrum, perfect. That said, the pono is not practical, way too expensive to re-buy all your favorite music at ridiculous prices, and the sound isn’t negligible better than an I-pod with great ear buds. You neil young groupies, and possibly plants, can rave all you like. I agree with the author 100%.

I’m willing to give pono a try cause my i-pod sounds like crap even on good headphones, plus I have many pockets I don’t sit on to carry it in so no issue there. I just want to feel some emotion when I listen to music not hurt my ears.

The guy who wrote this article is unfortunately a deaf moron. Sorry for him.

As a sound engineer I really had my doubts about this Pornoplayer 😉 , especially when they (Pono) compared it with lo quality! mp3’s ( in a car !). And then I saw the cheapo nickel audio connectors on it. For a, so called, high end audio device, you would expect at least gold, palladium or beryllium plated connectors ( which we use in pro audio equipment, like high quality patchbays, switches etc..). Pono Hypeware …. http://www.yahoo.com/tech/it-was-one-of-kickstarters-most-successful-109496883039.html and About the 24 bit – 16 bit difference – http://www.head-fi.org/t/415361/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded

I don’t know. As a woman, I think it’ll fit perfectly between the ladies.

I like the way you think!

I backed this player via Kickstarter thinking it might actually help us all re engage with the soul that is embedded within all genres of music. I thought it was a great concept, real hi-end audio on a small portable device. I thought it might be a small part in revitalising interest back into two channel audio (stereo). I thought it could be cool as it was not a mainstream slim shaped mp3 player, not it is not flat – it is different. I thought that the albums encoded in this new resolution would be well priced and I thought the software would be super easy to use – Yeah was I wrong!! Pono will disappear off the market before we know it. Sure the true Hi-res music sounds good, through a hi-end audio system it sounds pretty F’n amazing but so do my 30 year old vinyl analogue records. For the money Neil wants for his amazing hi res albums, I can order on line in some cases a vinyl record pressed from the original analogue studio master tape on either 180 or 200 gram vinyl and enjoy musical nirvana. I can kick back and look at the crazy cover art, read the lyrics and engage in a real musical experience either on my own or in the company of friends, its a blast. When I am out and about my old trusty ipod does just fine as I accept it for what it is. My signature signed metal PONO player will no doubt go the way of the Betamax VCR, Sony DAT, Philips DCC and become relics of the Consumer Electronics industry and end up being an exhibit on my mantle piece. RIP Pono (not so righteous)

If I audit your ft @ss — what chance will it be you paid me all you actually owe?

POS

“You know how every once in a while you buy the $40 bottle of wine instead of the $8 one, thinking you’re gonna have a special dinner or something?” Senior Reviews Editor Lee Hutchinson wrote over instant message. “And you get home, and you make the salmon or the pasta or whatever and you light the candles? And you pour the wine, swirl it like they do in Sideways so that it looks like you know what you’re doing… you bring it to your lips and after smelling it—it smells like wine—you have a sip? And it’s like… yeah, I guess this tastes good or something, but really it just tastes like wine?”

“The Pono Player is kinda like that, but for music.”

I find it amusing the people on here trying to support/foist this scam named Pono- I’m guessing they are either A) Cronic trolls / bitchers or B) Fools who have invested in this triangle-shaped T-U-R-D.

As a professional engineer and audiophile for over 45 years, I say if this device claims to play FLAC files then the only other information anyone needs to know is what is the quality of the internal DAC. The rest is physics.

There is a complete disconnect as far as accountability of scientific data for any modern day reproduction device, from the listener to the manufacturer to the reviewer.

Consider the condition of the ears to the reviewer who plays judge.

If one is thorough before either buying anything or doing anything they first do their due diligence and find out about that reviewer. Find out where the reviewer has been, as in how many concerts, clubs and/or studios they might have been to in their lifetime where the average SPL was greater than 120db. Then for how long did they subjected themselves to that level at any one given time. Not to mention the frequency range of each program.

It is true that one can maintain a reference in spite of this physical abuse but there needs to be some qualifying of who that person is.

Lets look at four or five elements:

A – the human educated or novice ears B – quality of a digital file C – the source and it’s DAC D – the method of analog reproduction E – Room acoustics or quality of headphone

In this instance we seem to be having a discussion regarding quality not quantity.

Bringing up the number of tracks this device can hold should disqualify anyone from taking part in this discussion. My advice to that person/s is to convert to 128kb on their iPod and load up all they can fit on it. Not to knock the iPod.

A couple of things that I failed to mention is the quality of the original recording and the sampling rate of the digital reproduction. FLAC does not necessarily define what is contained in it’s kernel

Pretty much nothing in this article was rational or well-informed except the complaint about the player’s shape.

I’ll add my opinion that this is a laughably amateur article. The author exhibits no knowledge of the subject and, seems to be shilling for his employer, a company with a vested interest in suppressing any HRA efforts. I do agree with point #2, “The Technology Isn’t Revolutionary,” but that isn’t worth more than a moment’s pause. In brief, the closing statement describes this posting perfectly: This…(posting)…just screams PR STUNT!

OMas || seneschal.net

Neil Young CEO, you have to be joking.

The author of this story I take it must be or more than likely is a plant from Apple and or just doesn’t get it when it comes to high quality audio sound reproduction and play back… but then again most people now a days settle for convenience over quality any day as has been proven by the ‘Frozen Food’ Industry and their selection of Microwave and eat selection and those willing to go that route as apposed to cooking fresh and eating quality… they too would rather settle for low sound quality for convenience.

I bought the Pono Music Player and the author of this story is so sadly mistaken… the internal memory is a set 64GB yes, but the removable memory slot for the Micro cards accepts the new #10 chips up to 128GB and the number of cards that you can own and swap out are limitless as it is only restricted by your ability to put the chip in and remove it… simple as that.

As for the sound quality; I played the exact same song on my Pono Music Player and then again on my iPod (which I am replacing it with the Pono) and there was a significant difference in sound… Many softer sounds, tones of instruments and voices in the background became clear and noticeable once again with the Pono Music Player… and while playing that same song on the iPod all of those background sounds were totally lost and unheard, leaving one with a totally different experience!

All of you are totally missing it. Music was meant to be recorded and played on wax cylinders. That’s why Thomas Edison created the medium. Anyone listening to this digital BS, whether it’s FLAC, WAV, MP3, or vinyl for that matter, are completely missing the warmth and dimension of the pure audio that is wax.

While there may be valid points in the article, for the author to say they tested it in his office and the average person could not tell the difference, either they are far below the “average ” person or he works in an office of deaf people. There is NO QUESTION about the quality difference of the Pono Player compared to MP3. Anyone who is non-biased, with human ears would easily tell the difference.

I have wasted $400 before but never before on Steve Young. After hours of charging and hooking up my PONO to my Apple all I have to show for it is one album, So bummed. CAn’t wait to blast my feelings on Amazon. What a total waste of time and money!

The biggest problems I have with the original article are 1) the reference to MP3 vs FLAC, which seems to suggest that FLAC can enhance audio files. It cannot, does not. You can rip a 64 bitrate audio file to FLAC, and it’ll still sound like a 64 bitrate audio file on the best audio systems. And 2) there’s no mention of bitrates and the ripping methods used for each. FLAC simply compresses the file for storage and decompresses it during playback. The advantage of FLAC is that you can store more files than WAV/SACD/HDCD files with the same playback quality. You can store even more lesser quality MP3s, which are compressed and stay compressed during playback, but you substitute quality. Anyone who can’t hear a difference between a 128 bitrate MP3 and WAV audio CDs, both played back through a quality sound system, needs their ears checked.

The problems I have with the Pono Player are 1) the price and 2) the fact that the audiophiles that I’ve learned to trust say that these HDVD and SACD files are </= to 5% difference in sound from regular audio CDs. I doubt that my 56 year old ears are good enough to hear a 5% difference.

I still haven't found anything better for portable digital music which is superior to the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra player with WAV files (particularly for use with my older Alpine car stereo – and before Alpine screwed up their head units with midrange controllers). I replace the existing (30/40/60GB) HDD with a properly formatted 160GB IDE HDD (only recommended for those who are tech savvy and have the right firmware installed). And they can be found for a fraction of the cost of a Pono Player (selling on eBay for average of $45, and I already own several IDE 160GB HDDs). And I've proven over and over to family and friends that iAnything with Apple's 192 bitrate MP3s or lossless formats are seriously inferior to the Creative Zen Xtra with WAV files ripped from regular audio CDs. But to each their own. 🙂

Why convert an MP3 to FLAC? That’s just doesn’t make any sense – the MP3 already has so much missing data – you can’t get it back by converting it to FLAC.

No wonder your office staff couldn’t tell the difference.

Love PONO. I have a USB turntable and just used it to make FLAC files of an early Hendrix album for my PONO player, side one and two. I also create original music and love to be able to export works in progress to PONO and review on walks so I can continue to improve the sound recordings throughout the song writing process. The other thing I like about the little SD card and the file system that PONO uses is that it’s interchangeable and shareable between (UNIX, OSX, Windows) and I can copy large video files on the SD card to move about machines for video production projects easily – most geeks have devices of all flavors. Love my PONO – I still have my iPod too…

Worst audio player I have ever “SEEN.” Ha ha! That “seen” is a give-away. And I don’t think the ad-hominem attacks on Neil Young go over so good with well-thinking people.

Why are people so bothered by the shape? I don’t really like flat players, personally. My iPhone lays flat on top of my amp and I can’t see it unless I cower over it. Besides when the phone rings, it’s complicated, when message notices com in, it interferes with the music… -ding!- please, a stand alone player is a great asset to us who like to focus on the music. Listen to On The Beach or Piano Concerto 23 (WAM) with a good amp and nice speakers and this player delivers well.

My stand-alone Pono player sits so nicely on a flat surface. I tilts so I can see what is playing. And as part of my real audio, decent amp and decent speakers, it sure sounds marvellous. The best audio file player I have heard. And it fits fine in my pocket, though I rarely bring it around because I like hearing my environment.

You can use Avdshare Video Downloader to Change audio bitrate and then convert FLAC to other audio formats, like to AAC, OGG, MP3, WAV, AIFF, M4A, AC3, etc.

Opinions are just like ass holes… everyone has one and they all stink.

Bill

The sound of well recorded high resolution (red book or better) music on the Pono player in balanced mode with planar magnetic headphones is amazing.

Several albums that I have downloaded from the site have later been released in higher resolution. The site provides a list of these upgrades and can cross reference them to albums you have already purchased. The higher resolution versions can then be downloaded from the site free of charge.

Overall, a very positive experience.

the format interferes with the recording made at the time, today the sound is mixed to mp3, formerly for LP , the musicians could do whatever they wanted without knowing anything , today the guy already know how to mix to a lower quality , and is limited , just put a song of the time in flac and a current music in mp3 .

http://WWW.PONOSUCKS.COM

Oops, my bad, no “r”.

Outstanding player, just heard it through KOSS balanced headphones upgraded by my friend Gary Mulder. Amazing. I have been waiting years to jump into digital music with both feet and I finally did because of this player. I will still keep my vinyl, tubes and Avalon Acoustics mixing monitors, but finally something portable compares. But the author blew it early on with his ignorant “technology” slam. The design of the balanced circuitry is second to none, from the founders of Ayre. Sorry author (not worth remembering your name) this player is not for you. An apple product should suit you just fine…..

The new balanced KOSS headphones complete the package, like nothing digital I have heard to date. So much so that KOSS heard on of Gary’s balanced prototypes and might get in the game. Hold on to your headphones, this is for real. I am also having Gary make me some balanced cables so I can use my pono as a preamp with my balanced Ayre V3 amplifier. Also modified by Gary when he worked there. Now that you know some of the back story, and future, you will understand why this little balanced set-up is so amazing. I have seen two people listen to Gary’s rig and put their money down. These are the only two people I have seen demo the rig.

While cleaning out my grandma’s attic last year, I discovered a wax cylinder player from the Edison company.

If you’ve never heard music on wax cylinder, you’ve never heard music. I compared a Miles Davis Blue wax cylinder to the PONO version, a vinyl version, and an MP3 version. Blind test, of course. The wax cylinder blew all other formats away. I’m going to initiate a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to start wax cylinder manufacture. I hope many of the posters here will contribute. More details to come. Also, make sure the next time you go to Best Buy to ask a representative for a listen on wax cylinder. They might hesitate, because there are so few out there that they tend to horde them for playback in the break room.

I am regular visitor, how are you everybody? This paragraph posted at this site is in fact nice.

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great intel you guys have at this point how everybody’s first thoughts on here web site in respect to click me

The name says it all. When this article was loading and I saw PONO come up, my mind inserted another letter right in the middle and I was like “wtf am I reading about and how did I get here???”

(Yes, I see I’m not the only one…)

1. Device design is TERRIBLE!2. The Technology Isn’t Revolutionary!3. The Pono Player Can’t Hold Much Music4. The Average person can’t tell the difference between and MP3 Audio File and a FLAC Audio FileThis all just screams PR STUNT!