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

[Wmcmanus]

Money in the wallet is money in the wallet.  Most people in the audio business care not how it gets there.

 

Yes, and the "percentage" business is one of their classic tricks.  Oh, it gives you 80-90% of the sonics for only a fraction of the price!  As if "sonics" can be quantified at all, let alone on a sliding scale measured based on percentages.  But that gets the attention of the masses, meaning most people who would find $400 to be quite a stretch for some such contraption to begin with.  Yet, at least now they can think they are getting a steal of some sort.  

Meanwhile, 80-90% of what is possible is nothing to the guy who wants 99% or 100% and will settle for nothing less... so he won't lose that customer either.  Don't ask me how I know that.  MBL in my case.  No regrets because I could afford it and it's what I wanted, but price certainly wasn't my first consideration.

[roadtonowhere08]

Pretty much, Santa.  Totally different markets that will NEVER cannibalize each other, because each is looking for something different.

 

Leonardo, think about Lexus and Toyota.  They are the same company (Toyota), and they are both making plenty of money.

Edited June 2, 2014 by roadtonowhere08

[Leonardo Drummond]

Good, good points.

 

I was surprised because to me it's a claim that in the end seems to discredit the whole high-end market (and in a way his own design), but indeed, so many people will pay whatever it costs for the last few percents...

[justin]

Some manufacturers did that with headphone amps years ago. Sell the expensive home tube amp, then come out with the 'just as good' portable amp

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[grawk]

ray used to say all his amps sounded the same

[roadtonowhere08]

Yeah, like this:  

[Leonardo Drummond]

And we all know where that got him:

 

 

Maybe you should try that Justin, why don't you come up with a portable BHSE that's just as good as a big one?

Edited June 4, 2014 by Leonardo Drummond

[justin]

portables have changed, gotta have a DAC now and then the DAC has to have top secret NASA technology that goes obsolete in 6 months. its not worth it anymore

[blessingx]

So over at http://audaud.com/2014/07/audio-news-for-july-4-2014/ ...

"PonoPlayer Coming October – Neil Young’s Kickstarter campaign has been the third-highest-funded Kickstarter project ever, with over $6.2 million in pledges. The triangular-shaped PonoPlayer (larger than an iPod Touch) will be $399 when it comes out in October and will accept most any music files up to 192K/24-bit. It will come with 128 BG of memory and accept removable SD cards. Ayre Acoustics will make the player, which will have a high-quality DAC and headphone output as well as an output for a higher-quality separate DAC in your home system. The associated Pono Music store won’t offer any MP3 files—just 44.1K/16 up to 192K/24, at quality-tiered pricing. The main source for the files will be the original analog master tapes of the top recording artists. Yes, it looks like Young has done it right for hi-res; but wait, Apple is also going hi-res about the same time, so let’s see what they come up with."

So I thought Neil said you paid once and just redownloaded if higher res becomes available (which would seem to counter the tiered pricing) and did I miss a big Apple announcement?

[postjack]

So over at http://audaud.com/2014/07/audio-news-for-july-4-2014/ ...

"PonoPlayer Coming October – Neil Young’s Kickstarter campaign has been the third-highest-funded Kickstarter project ever, with over $6.2 million in pledges. The triangular-shaped PonoPlayer (larger than an iPod Touch) will be $399 when it comes out in October and will accept most any music files up to 192K/24-bit. It will come with 128 BG of memory and accept removable SD cards. Ayre Acoustics will make the player, which will have a high-quality DAC and headphone output as well as an output for a higher-quality separate DAC in your home system. The associated Pono Music store won’t offer any MP3 files—just 44.1K/16 up to 192K/24, at quality-tiered pricing. The main source for the files will be the original analog master tapes of the top recording artists. Yes, it looks like Young has done it right for hi-res; but wait, Apple is also going hi-res about the same time, so let’s see what they come up with."

So I thought Neil said you paid once and just redownloaded if higher res becomes available (which would seem to counter the tiered pricing) and did I miss a big Apple announcement?

 

no apple announcement nor no signs of an apple announcement, at least based on what i've read the past few weeks.

 

the only thing that really interests me with regards to pono is the tiny possibility that they actually focus on selling quality masters.

 

"The main source for the files will be the original analog master tapes of the top recording artists."

 

but i think its much more likely it will be the same stuff you see at hdtracks et. al. if the retailer could just tell me the source of the recording i'd be much more likely to spend my money there.

[blessingx]

First review?

Pono Backers Listening Party in San Francisco, 8/1/14: Part One

http://parttimeaudiophile.com/2014/08/09/pono-backers-listening-party-in-san-francisco-8114-part-one/

[Voltron]

It seems remarkably ballsy and/or stupid to use LCD-Xs to demo a portable player.

[RudeWolf]

Are the X'es that heavy to lift? If there's one thing I've noticed about orthos - it's how bearable they are with subpar equipment. Give the HD650 a cruddy output stage and it'll put you down to sleep.

[blessingx]

It seems remarkably ballsy and/or stupid to use LCD-Xs to demo a portable player.

I was thinking how strange it was proving the point of a high res/"100% music" ecosystem with Momentums.

[Voltron]

Yeah, but the idiots who invested and said yet to the event want something they are familiar with and possibly used with a portable device  Plus, I have never heard Momentums.

[blessingx]

^ Funny, cause the only Momentums I've ever heard was at your house (Shelly's).

Part 2 (I guess): http://parttimeaudiophile.com/2014/08/10/pono-backers-listening-party-in-san-francisco-8114-part-two/

All audio events should be categorized as: "the headphone and non-headphone portions"!

[CarlSeibert]

I'd kinda like to hear Momentums that are broken in and on a rig they get along with. Shelly's pair were straight out of the box and it was hardly love at first sight with my portable.  Portable stuff is still finicky. Nobody's gotten it quite right yet.

 

Musings aside, I think the point that portables should be heard with stuff meant to be used with portables - which the Momentums are - is really well taken.

 

I'm optimistic. Hi-res DAPs are selling by the boatload - by audiophile standards, anyway. CDBaby is selling FLACs. The crappy headphones I see on heads at Urban Brew are getting a little less crappy. Kids are buying records. The other day I found an intern cutting video with a pair of Shure SRH 440s on. Quality is edging toward the mainstream. The real main part of the stream will always be garbage. It's the littoral zone where there's life.

 

Remember the "good old days". Most people listened to scratched LPs on systems that couldn't aspire to reach absolute crap status. Or cassettes that were dubbed at ten or twenty times speed. And yet, they still manged to make enough records that sounded good enough that we could enjoy them.  Win or lose, this Pono thing is bound to help.  

[Tyll Hertsens]

Sort of along these lines: I just got the new Beats Solo2 and they are excellent.  Yes, excellent. Better than either the Momentum On-Ear or V-Moda XS.

 

This is a headphone that the masses will hear. It's likely to be the best selling headphone above $100. Pono and a Solo2 will sound pretty damned good I'm thinking.

[Hopstretch]

Well fuck me sideways!

[Tyll Hertsens]

No shit.  I can't wait to do the review (should go up by Friday). It'll cause a stir, I'm going to be very complementary.

 

Then the week after I'll do the Studio2 review....that's not going to go so well for Beats.

 

Put your head on a pillow and the noise canceling circuit goes into a wicked low frequency oscillation.

 

That's what the whole "Do you wear headphones in bed at night" thing was about.

 

40% of folks listen to headphones in bed more than once a week.  They're going to be very disappointed.

Edited August 11, 2014 by Tyll Hertsens

[TMoney]

So apparently in addition to buying a PONO you can now invest in the company in $5k blocks.

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/you-can-now-invest-in-neil-youngs-ponomusic-20140813

 

 

 

What I am wondering is where do I go to short the PONO company? Not that I don't like what they are doing, I do. What I don't see is how they become a stable, profit-generating business over the long-term. $400 just seems like a ludicrous amount to pay for a portable player when most of their target demographic are going to already own high end smart-phones. I wish them the best, but take Neil Young's name off the project and what do you have?

Edited August 13, 2014 by TMoney

[postjack]

So apparently in addition to buying a PONO you can now invest in the company in $5k blocks.

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/you-can-now-invest-in-neil-youngs-ponomusic-20140813

 

 

 

What I am wondering is where do I go to short the PONO company? Not that I don't like what they are doing, I do. What I don't see is how they become a stable, profit-generating business over the long-term. $400 just seems like a ludicrous amount to pay for a portable player when most of their target demographic are going to already own high end smart-phones. I wish them the best, but take Neil Young's name off the project and what do you have?

 

 

apparently you haven't seen this chart. moar high resolution = moar betta.

[robm321]

I like the publicity it brings to the mainstream, but the business model has fail written all over it. IMO.

[CarlSeibert]

Weirder business models have worked. The entire telecom industry comes to mind. It's a brave, Twitter-y new world. We'll see.

 

By the way, their heavy use of yellow is a point of interest for me. It's a controversial color in my household....... 

[blessingx]

For lack of a better place to put this...

New Curated Music & Video Streaming Service – Later this fall, a Scandinavian music streaming service called WiMP HiFi will introduce TIDAL in the U.S., which offers uncompressed lossless sound, hi-def music videos and is curated by experienced music journalists. It will have over 26 milllion CD-quality tracks and over 75,000 HD music videos for a monthly subscription of $19.99. It will be available on the web as well as thru a dedicated player app of iOS and Android devices. When streaming on the move, users can choose either a lower bitrate, AAC+96 or AAC 320kbps.