PonoMusic - Neil Young

[troutman]

Neil Young Launches Digital Music Service/Player Pono, With Help From Arcade Fire, Beck, Jack White, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, More


http://pitchfork.com/news/54316-neil...ti-smith-more/

As promised, Neil Young launched the Kickstarter for his long-awaited high-quality digital music service and player today at SXSW. It's called PonoMusic (the players are called PonoPlayers), and it costs $399 and contains 128GB of memory. Watch the Kickstarter video, below, featuring testimonials from Arcade Fire, Beck, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Beastie Boys' Mike D., Jack White, My Morning Jacket, Dave Grohl, Elvis Costello, and many more. As of this posting, the campaign had raised $340,000 of its $800,000 goal. (It runs through April 15.)

Discounted players are available for those who pledge $300 (the $200 offers are already gone) as well as other prizes. A $5,000 pledge will earn you an individual VIP dinner and listening party with Young in California; it's available for 30 people. Other prizes include Artist Signature Series PonoPlayers, featuring a laser engraved signature with the designated artists' favorite two albums. Young, Arcade Fire, Beck, Patti Smith, Willie Nelson, Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, and more have Aritist Signature Series PonoPlayers available for a pledge of $400.

In the Kickstarter video, Young compares the experience of listening to MP3s to listening to music underwater. He makes the claim that the PonoPlayer allows for "visceral" listening, like breathing air. The Kickstarter page clarifies that Pono is not just a new audio file format. "It is a grassroots movement to keep the heart of music beating," the Kickstarter reads.

"PonoMusic aims to preserve the feeling, spirit, and emotion that the artists put in their original studio recordings." Young refers to it as "an artist-driven movement" to save sound.

"An MP3 has about five percent of the data that can be found in a PureTone master file."

[troutman]

Neil Young Reaches $800,000 Pono Kickstarter Goal in 1 Day

Veteran rocker achieves goal 34 days ahead of schedule

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/ne...1-day-20140312

The player, which has a suggested retail price of $399, will contain 128 gigabytes of memory and can store between 1,000 and 2,000 high-resolution songs, depending on the resolution and length of the recording. The device will also accept memory cards, which can hold more music and playlists.

[Ark2]

This will be a flop.

[northcrunk]

Phuck Neil Young

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Ark2

This will be a flop.

Want to bet?

[jammies]

Good idea, terrible name. I always read it as "PornoMusic" and expect to hear a lot of slap-bass.

[Looch City]

iRiver called, they want their mp3 player from 2004 back.

[troutman]

At least watch the video - cameos from many music industry legends.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by northcrunk

Phuck Neil Young

Careful son, that word got me an infraction.........

[getbak]

Neil Young is going to start doing soundtracks for pornos?

[Hack&Lube]

The success depends on how the ecosystem develops, the support of artists/labels, the cost of the songs/albums, and how they can convince people to carry another device.

This is basically just creating an ecosystem for selling FLAC.

If you don't want to pay $399 for a device + whatever fees/costs etc. PonoTunes (or whatever it will be called) charges for it's music, you can just download FLAC and put it on a current phone that supports that.

This all still really sucks unless you get high-end headphones or quality home audio which most people don't have anymore as that world kind of died in the 80s unless you are an audiophile.

Most people have an el-cheapo computer speaker system or low-end home theatre system/sound bar.'

The last problem is that of carrying yet another device around with you. They can't integrate it with current iPhones as Apple won't support the file format and the Apple lossless format itself is weaker than this.

[troutman]

"Success" might be hard to define in this case. For Neil it could be that is not about profit. He wants to bring people the best music experience.

Looks like something I will want in my car.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by troutman

"Success" might be hard to define in this case. For Neil it could be that is not about profit. He wants to bring people the best music experience.

Looks like something I will want in my car.

Success will mean that Neil Young can sustain this ecosystem and business model so he can serve FLAC to the masses which is what he really wants to do. I wonder if this will be another proprietary audio format with some kind of DRM? Do I want to buy the same songs I already have all over again and not be able to move them to other devices in the future as technology changes?

A device for in the car makes sense actually because the average car audio system is probably better than the one somebody has in their home these days and the acoustics of playing music in a sealed car actually help music out.

I don't drive anymore (became a latte-sipper) so that's not going to help me. Why is this thing triangular? I can't put that in my pocket!

The music ecosystem I really want is one that helps me find new music that I enjoy and no system I've tried out so far has done that for me.

[Ark2]

Originally Posted by troutman

Want to bet?

I think it's pretty safe to assume that this won't be a success financially. If you want to move the goal posts though and say its success should be measured on whether it brings people the "best music experience," then that might be more difficult to determine, although I still think that Pono would fall short of that.

Most people don't care about audio fidelity. It's why they listen to music on the crappy ear buds that their iPods came with. Those who are true audiophiles likely already have a better system than this. Once the gimmicks disappear, this thing will flounder and fail.

[woob]

Yeah, this just seems pointless to me. I mean, logic tells me he's not going to give the format away free to the recording studios. I assume he'll implement a licensing fee structure or something. And why would a recording studio do that when they can simply export to FLAC or what not for free? If Pono sees any kind of traction, what's keeping iTunes from offering a "premium" service where all your downloads are FLAC based and completely crushing Pono. I mean, I guess that may be the success he's looking for, in that lossless audio becomes the norm?

Just seems odd to me.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by woob

Yeah, this just seems pointless to me. I mean, logic tells me he's not going to give the format away free to the recording studios. I assume he'll implement a licensing fee structure or something. And why would a recording studio do that when they can simply export to FLAC or what not for free? If Pono sees any kind of traction, what's keeping iTunes from offering a "premium" service where all your downloads are FLAC based and completely crushing Pono. I mean, I guess that may be the success he's looking for, in that lossless audio becomes the norm?

Just seems odd to me.

Well the music publishers have been clamoring for years for a viable competitor to iTunes because of how much leverage Apple has over them. If Pono can provide them a different revenue model than iTunes, they will definitely sign up. It doesn't cost them anything to provide digital music.

Apple has their own lossless format (technically lower fidelity than FLAC but virtually unnoticeable to the average ear probably) but do not provide these on iTunes. Apple could start remastering their digital downloads in their own lossless format therefore taking away Pono's market.

Throughout the decades, the audiophile contingent has always been a tiny subset of music listening population and Pono won't really appeal to them unless it is convenient for them to get the music they want through this ecosystem.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by troutman

Want to bet?

Channeling your inner Puckluck2?

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by Iggy City

iRiver called, they want their mp3 player from 2004 back.

I still use a ten year old iRiver H140 to play back lossless music. I buy music in FLAC format so I'm interested to see how well the store does, but I have no use for this player. And I don't think most people will be either until it's available in phones.

I wish them luck.

[GreenLantern]

I hope that this succeeds, sadly I will not be able to support this in the young stages.. (haha GET IT?? HIS NAME IS NEIL YOUNG!).

If it takes off I will pick it up down the road.. I cringe at the idea of having to buy my albums that I already own in CD form on vinyl, mp3 and now this new enhanced format.. and then trying to fit all of these shapes into the proper holes.

Edit: Just watched the video, wow, staggering amount of celebrities and legends endorsing this, regardless of how much they stand to gain from it.. still impressive.

Favourite quote from Flea:

Ya you listen to the CD it's like listening to someone twinging on a *#@$ing rubber band compared to.. you know, the full scope of what music is.

Or Costello calling MP3's like looking at a xerox of the Mona Lisa.. hah. great stuff.

[icecube]

I long to hear music in the way these artists are describing it. Is there going to be a pono tunes store or something like that?