PonoMusic - Neil Young

[Ark2]

Originally Posted by 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?

You realize that you don't need Neil Young's latest pet project to do that, right? Your biggest obstacle to better sounding music is probably not which player you use, but rather, what headphones/speakers you are listening with. FLAC is pretty widely available if you know where to look.

[icecube]

Please tell me where to look and I will buy some killer headphones. Oh yeah, and can you also tell me what killer headphones to buy that aren't too expensive. That is what I will ask for on father's day.

[northcrunk]

Get some monitor headphone, either Long and Mcquid or axe music. Check out the headphone thread for some more in depth reviews

[opendoor]

I'm not sure the format itself will be the big deal (it just sounds like 24/192 FLACs) and it doesn't sound they're getting remasters done specifically for the service, so I assume the big thing will just be high resolution files through a really good DAC and filter, probably with a preamp designed to replicate analog sound.

It sounds like Ayre Acoustics is responsible for the technology, so it could just be a stripped down version of their higher end stuff. So this isn't going to be some great leap forward in technology, but it might be at that price point. Even modest digital recording studios often use AD/DA converters that are worth thousands of dollars and more professional ones will have converters worth tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars which stresses how important they can be in the overall sound.

That said, I'm not sure it makes a whole lot of sense as a portable player because the increase in quality is going to be pretty pointless with the type of gear most people would be using it with.

[Flames89]

I am sure there is something here that brings more money back to the artist

[Ark2]

Originally Posted by icecube

Please tell me where to look and I will buy some killer headphones. Oh yeah, and can you also tell me what killer headphones to buy that aren't too expensive. That is what I will ask for on father's day.

Check out Grado sr60i's. Great sound and not too expensive at all. Probably one of your best values dollarwise.

[MarchHare]

I could see this becoming a niche product for audiophiles, but it will never achieve mass-market success. For the vast majority of people, the audio quality on their smart phones is good enough that there's no justification to carry around a second device.

[Bobblehead]

It isn't like FLAC - it IS FLAC.

From the kickstarter:

Is PonoMusic a new audio format? What about PonoMusic quality?

No. We want to be very clear that PonoMusic is not a new audio file format or standard. It is an end-to-end ecosystem for music lovers to get access to and enjoy their favorite music in the highest resolution possible for that song or album. The music in the PonoMusic.com Store is sold and downloaded in industry standard audio file formats.

The PonoMusic.com Store uses FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) audio format as its standard, for compatibility, although the PonoPlayer can play most popular high-resolution music formats from other sources. PonoMusic has a quality spectrum, ranging from really good to really great, depending on the quality of the available master recordings:

• CD lossless quality recordings: 1411 kbps (44.1 kHz/16 bit) FLAC files
• High-resolution recordings: 2304 kbps (48 kHz/24 bit) FLAC files
• Higher-resolution recordings: 4608 kbps (96 kHz/24 bit) FLAC files
• Ultra-high resolution recordings: 9216 kbps (192 kHz/24 bit) FLAC files

[troutman]

I can't see replacing all of my music with Pono. Maybe just my favorite 1000 to 2000 songs, for the car.

[northcrunk]

Gonna need a lot of space, most 16-bit wav files when rendered without vocals tend to be 45-55 Mb. And that is without a ton of instruments and plug ins.

[troutman]

$1.7 M already pledged since start yesterday:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...iscovers-music

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by troutman

I can't see replacing all of my music with Pono. Maybe just my favorite 1000 to 2000 songs, for the car.

I'd try a few out and see if you really hear a difference. I've done blind A/B tests with CD quality files and much higher resolution ones and I struggled to hear any kind of difference between the two. Never underestimate the placebo effect of non-blind comparisons which is what was going on in that video.

And like I said above, the player is the core of all this. You can already get high resolution FLAC files and few people can reliably tell the difference between them and a lossless CD quality file. But if the player has an excellent DAC, filter, and preamp then it should be able to make any decent digital file sound better whether it be CD quality or even a 320 kbps MP3.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by northcrunk

Gonna need a lot of space, most 16-bit wav files when rendered without vocals tend to be 45-55 Mb. And that is without a ton of instruments and plug ins.

24/192 albums generally run 1-2 GB each, so yeah, that 128 GB storage would fill up pretty quickly at the highest resolution.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by troutman

$1.7 M already pledged since start yesterday:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...iscovers-music

30 people are putting up $5,000 each!

And the Neil Young, CSN&Y, and Pearl Jam "Special Edition" players are gone.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by northcrunk

Gonna need a lot of space, most 16-bit wav files when rendered without vocals tend to be 45-55 Mb. And that is without a ton of instruments and plug ins.

FLAC is about half that size for an average song. A 128GB device will hold 5000+ songs.

[troutman]

Hear Neil Young Explain His Pono Music Player At SXSW

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/20...edium=facebook

All Songs Considered


"I finally met my white whale! Such a joy to talk with Neil Young about sound and the quality of sound. He's working on a new audio player called Pono. Video interview will be posted next week." - Bob Boilen

[lazypucker]

I wanted to purchase the $5000 package so that I can meet Neil, but that means I will have to fly or drive down there to Cali using fuel from the Alberta oil sands. I am not sure if Neil will like it...

[Luder]

bow chikka wow wow?

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Luder

bow chikka wow wow?

People will inevitably start calling this the Porno Player. Perhaps a small mis-step in branding.

[Inglewood Jack]

95% of sound quality problems are in the mastering process, where for a couple of decades now the engineers have been butchering recordings with severely clipped, compressed dynamics. The fanciest lossless file format will only help to preserve that garbage so it hits your ears that much clearer.

Hilarious that guys like Flea are criticizing CD quality sound, when his own band is one of the worst offenders of this type of sound mutilation. While albums like What's The Story Morning Glory were pioneers, Californication took the art of crappy mastering to bold new heights.

Promise to fix the way sound engineers treat a musician's recording, and maybe the you can start looking at delivery format.