PONO - Neil Youngs portable hi-res music player - Page 3

Any more news on this product?

Haven't seen anything, but you can email sign up for news at: www.mypono.com

 

I hope they come out with the slogan "Addicted to Po No!"  

That's excellent Vinne, thank you!

I signed up just for the heck of it,... ;)

After seeing the prototype, it's apparent to me that Neil has never heard of pockets. Either that or he always keeps a bar of Toblerone in his jeans...

Yummy!!!

...sounds like a great trick for picking up the ladies actually..."Is that a Toblerone in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

bumping this thread because i'm interested and there is not good information surrounding the device.

 

my understanding is that pono certified tracks will be remastered in one way or another.  I'm assuming neil's vision is, well at least im hoping, less compressed tracks.  Kind of a reverse loudness war.  That would be the best thing for music today.  MP3s are very good quality as is, it's the production trends of music that need to change to make music more dynamic.  There is very little difference to my, and most peoples ears between 320mp3 and lossless files.  Even with a $2500~ headphone setup lossless is not a major concern to me.  

 

To the average listener listening with ibuds or whatever, i dont think they mind how a track is produced or they would not be using ibuds.  If neil and pono can get people to think about sound quality on a massive scale i will be impressed.  I want the loudness wars to stop but I just dont see that happening.  The vinyl master of daft punk's discovery is the best thing I've ever heard.  It is a real shame more albums that can afford this level of quality are not mastered in such a living and dynamic way.

 

Anyone have any more info as to how these albums are going to be mastered.  They sound like they want to do something new.  I dont think a 24/192 release of stuff hdtracks style is going to change very much to an average person listening, i doubt i will even care if that's all they are doing.  Neil talks about how vinyls sound alive and a lot of that has to do with the mastering and recording techniques of that era.  Vinyls are not brickwalled like todays music.  Whenn CDs were first released production was really bad because studios did not know how to handle digital but some recordings from the 90s and 2000s sound amazing because the loudness wars had not taken full control of the recording industry.  Now things have pretty much gone to hell.

I'm reading his book as well as listening to his latest album.

 

He writes (and sings) about mp3s only having 5% and it's clear he's comparing with the original masters.

 

But he also thinks CDs sound pretty bad and that not only vinyl, but also cassettes sound better than CDs. Not sure I agree with this.

 

http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/02/01/neil-young-doesnt-like-digital-music-files/

Edited by Dreamnine - 11/29/12 at 6:05am

I could see vinyl and cassettes sounding better than badly mastered/produced CDs, but I think that to categorize  all CDs that way isn't fair.

Yes, that's one reason I won't listen to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers CD I have - even though I like some of their stuff, it sounds horrible.

 

But generally I think 16/44 is enough for me.

I agree, I don't think all CD's sound terrible, Of course if your like Neil or Micky Fremmer and have record decks that cost upwards of $120,000 then any CD does not stand a chance but to us mere mortals some of them sound almost as good on our humble playback systems as the vinyl.
But in truth as long as the tape player was well maintained and the music recoded from vinyl as I used to do in the olden days then cassettes could sound pretty amazing as well. However the variable with tape was so great and it was such a pain to use that I jumped on to CD's right at the beginning.. In hindsight I wish I would have kept my vinyl though as even though it is higher maintenance it truly does sound better on a well set up system.

As to Lloyds question, from what I can gather they are just taking a direct recording from the master tapes, Of course, what they are using to do that and what converters as well will make a difference. From what I can gather they have been using the original copies but I am not 100% sure of that.

Old ground that has been covered before, at least in-home, e.g. SACD and DVD-A.  And who says all those masters are really that good?  Garbage in...

 

As a grad student I did a test of bit rates with high-res audio vs. what undergrads could detect in quality terms through middle of the road stereo system.  Answer was none could hear any improvement beyond 160kbps.  With really good earphones (plus quality electronics) you can push that to 320kbps or so for most.  But CD is 1,411kbps: 4X greater still.  The marginal value that MOST listeners will get beyond 320kbps in a portable context, maybe at home too, is very dubious.  iTunes purchases are 128kbps so there is some room for improvement IF you have a good reproduction chain.  If the demand for great sound quality is there the David Cheskys will get much more work- TONS of room for improvement in the recording studio/venue.  Bottom line:  Buy CDs and rip lossless for both best sound and full support of artists.  Albums are still cooler than single tracks, IMHO.

 

Oh, and Mikey Fremmer and Stereophile have lost any credibility they once had, twisting themselves into pretzels to deny the validity of double blind testing in order to support ad space for $1,000 cables.  That goes along with the climate change deniers.  I prefer to live in the world that actually exists around us.

I think Pono and Neil's vision or concept was~is a good one. However, if I was a betting man, which I am, I'd give 10-1 odds it ain't gonna happen in my lifetime.

Get better kit and you may see this world more clearly. I actually understand the dilemma here as most kit is very masking but for those fortunate enough to get it right, there is benefit to higher bit rates. Converting can go wrong as well. You can talk bandwidth and dynamic range until the cows come home but there is just better sense of time/space and with it perspective and emotion in hi-res when other factors are taken out of the equation. This is why he's so hot to do PONO, he's heard his own masters and remembers analog as well. The device looks goofy but I like that somebody is at least trying.

 

Another problem is that most haven't even heard exceptional analog kit which was always a better reference than CDs to begin with. A great analog master played on the right stuff is something to behold and a CD quality dub of it will always pale. This isn't a HiDef debate and since this is about a HiDef player, I don't think this is the place for it continuing. We can agree to disagree and thise with interest can continue to subscribe.