[roadrat]

  1/8" stereo plug to RCA plugs.  Monoprice makes some inexpensive ones.

Thanks!

 

[Soused]

I need a recommendation for a cable to connect my Pono to my receiver (in "unbalanced" mode) please.

If you look at the holes on each item and then go online, you should be able to find a cheap cable that has connectors on it that will go into the holes.

 

[Saraugie]

Just got noticed of my Neil Young signature Pono shipping.

 

[miceblue]

So as we all know by now, the masters are what makes HD music worth buying. Here's an experiment I tried.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2816447/Satans_Bed_Pono.zip (7.2 MB)

In that folder are two snippets of audio from Pearl Jam's "Satan's Bed" song from their Vitalogy album. One snippet is recorded from the website's demo track:
https://ponomusic.force.com/ccrz__CCPage?pageKey=product&oId=of%3Ac96cc3afa2d5482caf1342c3bbc17b0e&type=Album&artistId=undefined

The other snippet is obtained from their CD, accurately ripped, played back on the Audirvana Plus media player on Mac.

Spoiler: eac log

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011

EAC extraction logfile from 2. December 2012, 23:53

Pearl Jam / Vitalogy

Used drive : MAT****ADVD-R UJ-868 Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : No
Make use of C2 pointers : Yes

Read offset correction : 102
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 768 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
...
Track 10

 Filename C:\EAC Rips\10 Satan's Bed.wav

 Pre-gap length 0:00:00.23

 Peak level 100.0 %
 Extraction speed 8.2 X
 Track quality 99.8 %
 Test CRC 2E4427B9
 Copy CRC 2E4427B9
 Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [FF07817D] (AR v2)
 Copy OK[
...
All tracks accurately ripped

No errors occurred

End of status report

---- CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.3

[CTDB TOCID: cWW6_D0uMBxDY1GJiuAvxgJBasU-] found, Submit result: cWW6_D0uMBxDY1GJiuAvxgJBasU- has been confirmed
[74b102a7] (150/150) Accurately ripped


==== Log checksum CC5BA42CB86D8F1D03681990C6691A8E9E79C8D58489119D2192F30BD11E635F ====

In both cases, I was using an OPPO HA-2 beta unit as the DAC, Fiio RC-MH1 interconnect cable from the HA-2's line out port to a TASCAM iXJ2 iPhone stereo recorder with 0 gain (records audio at 16-bit/44.1 kHz), and the TASCAM recording app. The WAV audio files were extracted from my iPhone, trimmed in Audacity to make them even in length, and exported as FLAC to make the files smaller.

Can you guys tell a difference between the two files? I already wrote the ReplayGain metadata tags via Foobar to make the test more fair with volume-matching.
The answers are also included in the folder within another ZIP folder.

 

[Soused]

Both sound the same to me.

 

[Skylab]

Just got noticed of my Neil Young signature Pono shipping.

My Pono has also shipped. Unfortunately due to my work travel schedule it will be late next week before I get to set it up.

 

[Romanrus]

Hi, Pono supporters!
Can somebody who already got their PONO estimate size and weight of full package?
I need this information to discuss shipping issues with my logistics company.

 

[L8MDL]

Miceblue - the files on the beta Pono site are not hires so I'm not sure what you're trying to prove. They may even be mp3's from what I have read in the forums.

 

[RRod]

Miceblue - the files on the beta Pono site are not hires so I'm not sure what you're trying to prove. They may even be mp3's from what I have read in the forums.

 
I think the point was that they sound like the same mastering. Some of us don't want to pay more for what is essentially the same master, but that simply hasn't been downsampled+dithered to 44.1/16 from whatever the processing sample/bit rates were.

 

[Ableza]

The only reason to buy from the Pono music store today, IMO, is to gamble that they do follow through on their promise to upgrade purchased tracks to higher res versions as they become available.  But it is that right now: a gamble.

 

[L8MDL]

Keep in mind the "free upgrade" applies only to Kickstarter backers, not the general public.

 

[Saraugie]

  Just got noticed of my Neil Young signature Pono shipping.

 
 

My Pono has also shipped. Unfortunately due to my work travel schedule it will be late next week before I get to set it up.

Good news Rob. I'm not sure if I am going to open it or just keep as a collectable. I was most interested in supporting Pono in getting the word out that people are missing a lot of the music with using low quality copies of songs, be it MP3 or poor masters. However, with your reviewing the Poni that may change based on what you think.

 

[Ableza]

  Keep in mind the "free upgrade" applies only to Kickstarter backers, not the general public.

Yes, and as I also understand it only Kickstarter backers have access to the beta level Pono music store at this time, yes?

 

[L8MDL]

Correct. So far reports of the hires material is promising.

 

[miceblue]

Miceblue - the files on the beta Pono site are not hires so I'm not sure what you're trying to prove. They may even be mp3's from what I have read in the forums.

Maybe that's true but,

1. It's the masters that make the most difference in sound quality; regardless of whether or not it's 32/384 WAV or that file converted to 256 kbps MP3, they should still fundamentally sound the same. If you have a different master all together, the difference should be large enough to hear regardless of what format it's in.
2. The website says the files are m4a format, which is either Apple Lossless, or the more probable AAC format (at least 225 kbps AACs).

If the music store is just selling up-sampled CD masters like what I'm hearing from their samples, they're not going to get my business.