Neil Young claims he was working on an audiophile iPod with Steve Jobs

[acidbasement]

A reasonably-priced trans/portable flac player with decent storage and a high-quality line stage (one assumes)?  I like the shape for that purpose.  The video on the kickstarter page bugged the shit out of me, but if the reviews are good I'll probably get one at some point.

[HiWire]

Neil Young's name still gets the gold: http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/12/5499450/pono-music-player-reaches-kickstarter-goal

 

The device design, battery life, and storage capacity aren't particularly impressive to me, but the price is much better than Astell&Kern's.

[skullguise]

At this stage, price seems to be the best thing going for it as a player, if it brings the expected audio quality.  For me, still interested if the music store can deliver the quantity of music, for a decent price (and on a thought, will it have any kind of DRM embedded?).

 

Ultimately, we'll see if it can compete with things like itunes and the venerable i-devices for much larger audience outside the audiophile circle.

[aardvark baguette]

 

 

Connaker also reports that PonoMusic will no longer feature any sort of DRM.

 

You can't add drm to FLAC iirc.

[acidbasement]

Ultimately, we'll see if it can compete with things like itunes and the venerable i-devices for much larger audience outside the audiophile circle.

 

I don't think there's any way a dedicated music player can compete with smartphones outside audio enthusiast circles - muggles will happily sacrifice audio quality if it means they don't have to carry a second device.  I only hope it gets enough market share and buzz that the loudness war moves closer to becoming uncool in the industry.

[TMoney]

Here's hoping for an Inner Fidelity review!

[jvlgato]

He ought to partner with a more established outfit like Headamp for the amplification stage, and create a PicoPono.

 

And does anyone else's eyes keep seeing 'Porno Player' or am I just a perv?

[acidbasement]

You're not the only one, John.  Their marketing dept. should be doing more to play up the double entendre, IMO.

[Grahame]

Depends. Are your playlists full of "Bow-chicka-wow-wow"?

[postjack]

I guess I am interested in the size of the pono music store, especially now that I know its just plain ole flac, so no pono player required.

My concern, as always with hi rez, is will it just be a bunch of upsampled red book files?

[jvlgato]

You're not the only one, John.  Their marketing dept. should be doing more to play up the double entendre, IMO.

 

 

Depends. Are your playlists full of "Bow-chicka-wow-wow"?

I wonder if that screen is in HD?

[Torpedo]

I don't like the shape, but the price is OK and possibly sounds good. Liking the line out for portable player use on vacation and work duties. It keeps more music than my iTouch. One of those limited series with an artist signature looks good. Not that good for daily commuting or sports practice listening.

[nopants]

Glancing at the site, the shape is to just to house the electrolytics:

 

I wonder what component choices they settled on

 

In before someone takes off the case and substitutes duelund PIOs

[TMoney]

If the DAC is really the Sabre then I wonder if the Pono will someday be able to play DSD with some kind of a firmware update?

[HiWire]

The shape seems like a hack, then. They should have a flat face for the display and controls, and a cylinder for the rest of the body.

 

It would be more comfortable in a pocket or in the hand, and you could fill the extra volume with a bigger battery or something.

 

Mo' Shakey, Mo' Money: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/03/neil-young-endorsed-music-player-kickstarts-past-1-6-million/

[justin]

i eagerly await the blind tests showing people can hear the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96 or 24/192 on the Pono

[acidbasement]

i eagerly await the blind tests showing people can hear the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96 or 24/192 on the Pono

 

It's like, CD-quality is when you're 200 feet below the surface of the water, but when you get to 192, you've broken through the surface of the water and you're out in the air, man.

 

Argh... that promo video in all its wishy-washy bullshittery can't be unseen.

[Grahame]

Argh... that promo video in all its wishy-washy bullshittery can't be unseen.

 

Try reading this, http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html , to calm you down  

 

In Pedant news, the Pono player isn't triangular (which would make it 2D, and thinner than an iPhone), but a prism, or prismatic! (cue DSOTM references)

[grawk]

it's an excuse for mastering engineers to do a good job, instead of squashing the master for radio/earbuds, just like dsd, sacd, hdcd, etc.  44/16 is plenty good for playback, but since people don't have to work for it, they don't value it.

[Grahame]

Yep, obviously bigger containers = moar better, even if the value is in properly mastered content - which they could do already if they cared / there was an economic incentive.

[nopants]

if it's a sabre part I'm going to guess it's the 9023

[CarlSeibert]

If we're talking FLACs here, I'm becoming real interested in how the store will work. If they really have the catalogs of the big three in at least full res and a semi significant portion of them in high res, that would be a huge win. 

 

It should be borne in mind that once the physical CD goes away, the only way to buy full res music will be, well, maybe this store, niche places like Acoustic Sounds, and LPs.

 

Considering the efficiencies involved, maybe the market is big enough. And once you've done away with the physical disk, there's nothing to say that 16/44.1 needs to be the standard anymore. Maybe crappy 256 Mbps MP3s become the wares for the likes of Amazon and iTunes and fine upsacle stockists will move the easy to differentiate hi res files. Maybe 16/44.1 becomes pure legacy.

[postjack]

If we're talking FLACs here, I'm becoming real interested in how the store will work. If they really have the catalogs of the big three in at least full res and a semi significant portion of them in high res, that would be a huge win. 

 

I'm definitely not your average consumer, but give me a store full of 16/44 and I'd be a happy camper.

 

I know a lot of labels already offer this directly, and stores like bleep have a pretty decent selection. But give me a store the size of itunes/amazon, and just give me the redbook, and I'd give them my business.

 

oh, and make the albums like $10 as well. for me it still needs to be at least comparable pricewise to buying the CD on amazon.

[Torpedo]

I'm definitely not your average consumer, but give me a store full of 16/44 and I'd be a happy camper.

 

I know a lot of labels already offer this directly, and stores like bleep have a pretty decent selection. But give me a store the size of itunes/amazon, and just give me the redbook, and I'd give them my business.

 

oh, and make the albums like $10 as well. for me it still needs to be at least comparable pricewise to buying the CD on amazon.

Mostly this. I think a full 16/44 FLAC (or any other lossless codec) store offering prices under $10/album could get a lot of my music expense.

[Salt Peanuts]

I'm definitely not your average consumer, but give me a store full of 16/44 and I'd be a happy camper.

 

I know a lot of labels already offer this directly, and stores like bleep have a pretty decent selection. But give me a store the size of itunes/amazon, and just give me the redbook, and I'd give them my business.

 

oh, and make the albums like $10 as well. for me it still needs to be at least comparable pricewise to buying the CD on amazon.

 

Mostly this. I think a full 16/44 FLAC (or any other lossless codec) store offering prices under $10/album could get a lot of my music expense.

Same here and I love that some places (like CDBaby) have started offering lossless digital options.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Salt Peanuts