[LFC_SL]

Agree do not think pono player press necessarily reflects gen public feelings about this 'hobby'. It can be as simple as pono did not deliver on the marketing. I let some friends borrow my se846 and both were impressed. They are your typical normal consumer where £300 is the premium price tag

 

[cspirou]

........  
But I do know one thing: we ended up with a real drubbing with Pono. It’s in our best interests to ask why…and find ways to change that in the future. These are my thoughts, as penned on one random Tuesday in February.
 
How about yours?

 
I actually see a lot of parallels in audio with the watch industry, particularly with respect to tubes and vinyl. Whenever the subject of tubes/vinyl comes up there is always an objectivist that pours haterade on it saying that it's inaccurate, has more distortion, fragile, etc. However this hatred seems non-existent in the world of watches for mechanical watches by Rolex, Patek-Phillip, Tag Heuer, etc.
 
A big difference is that no manufacturer or dealer of mechanical watches will ever claim that mechanical watches have better accuracy over quartz timepieces. Instead the reason to get these types of watches is the appreciation for the engineering that goes into these intricate machines. Many of these mechanical time pieces have transparent backs where you can observe the inner workings of the gears and mechanisms. Tube amplifiers have a similar appeal to me because I know that the exposed tubes are also part of the circuit that makes the music I hear. Vinyl is also similar in the sense that I can literally see the music that I am listening to moving a needle on a disc. If people in audio focus more on what is tangible about vinyl and tubes and focus less of how they compare against transistors and digital, then I think that will go somewhat towards improving the image of the industry as a whole.
 
Another thing is to just simplify the pathway to better sound. Plug-in solutions like the Schiit Fulla or the Blue MoFi are good steps in that direction. Confusing people with amps, preamps, DACs, receivers, etc. is like the old days of computing where you had to know about LPT1 and COM1 ports.

 

[mab1376]

 

1. Seeing bands who take money showers in $100 bills complaining about people stealing music

 
LMAO

 

[rmoody]

  Also, if you drive the Schiit car at night you will get complaints from the neighbours because the headlights are too bright.

And that each one is a different color temperature.

 

[aamer23]

Dear Boy the Patek is about build quality,the complication of the movement, history and passing down a family heirloom however I do agree they are expensive and not very accurate at keeping time. One thing I like about Schiit and Patek is the attention to detail 

 

[judmarc]

Great as usual.
 
I have a Pono, and Charles Hansen did his usual fine job - it sounds really good.  It also caused me to buy some music I might not have otherwise (their storefront, unfortunately, is mighty user-unfriendly).  I'm amazed how well produced the old Simon and Garfunkel recordings were.
 

Maybe it’s time to get together and fund some research to see if there really are golden ears out there. Maybe we need to get together and pursue the research that shows high-res music affects our brain in different ways (look it up, seriously).

 
Would purely love to see it, but any research protocol involving humans would likely have to go through multiple layers of bureaucracy to be approved, and equipment that can really explore the boundaries of human hearing is *expensive*, as I'm sure you know.  You're talking millions to find out how many picoseconds of jitter matter, or whether folks really do like music at 192kHz sample rates better than at 96kHz.  I'm darned curious, but unfortunately I think the economics mean it's not happening soon if ever.
 
On the other hand, I think the welcoming attitude and lower pricing you mentioned are much more important.  The first costs nothing, and the second, if manufacturers go about it correctly, can be economically beneficial to their top of the line merchandise as well as the lower cost stuff.

 

[Byronb]

At the risk of offending, but with no intention of doing so, some listeners, I think a lot of the issues with selling "Hi Def" equipment/formats to the "Main Stream" market has to do with the music itself. Jason has stated it several times and I completely agree, the source is truly one of the, if the most important part of the equation. Main stream (i.e. Pop) music is engineered and mastered poorly, as a general rule. You can't tell the difference between an 256 mp3 vs a CD because honestly I feel that the CD must start with the 256 mp3 as a master. The music is so compressed it is impossible to distinguish the value of the lossless file. We have to in the studio a convince the engineers to make better source materials! IMHO!

 

[Ableza]

The obvious extension of Jason's logic is that Whole Foods needs to sell Ponos.

 

[StanD]

  At the risk of offending, but with no intention of doing so, some listeners, I think a lot of the issues with selling "Hi Def" equipment/formats to the "Main Stream" market has to do with the music itself. Jason has stated it several times and I completely agree, the source is truly one of the, if the most important part of the equation. Main stream (i.e. Pop) music is engineered and mastered poorly, as a general rule. You can't tell the difference between an 256 mp3 vs a CD because honestly I feel that the CD must start with the 256 mp3 as a master. The music is so compressed it is impossible to distinguish the value of the lossless file. We have to in the studio a convince the engineers to make better source materials! IMHO!

MP3 compression and Audio (level) Compression are two different things,
Music compressed in the studio has it's dynamic range compressed,
MP3 compression is a means of data compression that takes into account what we "can't or shouldn't be able to hear." This is a lossy compression using a technique referred to as "Perceptual Coding."

 

[StanD]

  The obvious extension of Jason's logic is that Whole Foods needs to sell Ponos.

That's food for thought.

 

[dr cornelius]

  The obvious extension of Jason's logic is that Whole Foods needs to sell Ponos.

But will that get in the way of  Whole Food’s vinyl sales?

 

[jacal01]

Three, no four things:
 
1.  Lead by example.  That enthusiasm (if not inner glow) will invariably provoke interest in ever increasing larger circles.
2.  Exposure to quality equipment.  Lotsa local group mini meets, with public invitations (e.g. posters in coffee shops, green sheet ads, etc.).  Audio clubs, with colors?
3.  Form follows function, or, "It's the master, stupid."  Reeducate the bands and music studios to high-res recording and mixing for quality, not formulaic commercial success (spelled compression).  Can we ever get there from here?
4.  Recalibrate public expectations.  Why do the Japanese as a culture embrace quality recordings and audio gear?
 
Still, it'll never be mainstream until it's affordable to the average consumer.  For most people it's a matter of priorities for their discretionary (if any) spending.  And music is accessible at all levels, so where does the artificial construct begin?

 

[Delirious Lab]

 
And that each one is a different color temperature.

Quoth Henry Ford: You can have any color you like, as long as it's some shade of metallic gray, unless we get a batch of black body parts by mistake.

 

[Sarvasaha]

There is hope with the younger generation.
My son's first headphones were Beats, because they were fashionable and school-friends were of the view that they were the bees' knees.
But  he researched via the internet and decided he could do better and he got a Grado (don't know which).
All powered from his phone or a pro-sumer audio interface (ie home-studio interface).
Eventually he found head-fi and got me hooked too.
Now he has a Hifiman He-400 and Schiit Asgard, next he will want a DAC.
He is 18 by the way.
 
He may be not your average 18-year old as his Dad is an engineer and he is (fortunately/unfortunately?) following in Dad's footsteps. He has been exposed to high quality music reproduction, including vinyl - which he thought sounded great.
 
We plan to try Gungnir (mine) to Asgard to He-400 soon.
Would love to hear Yggdrasil - Ragnarok - some top of the line cans.
Cannot even audition the Rag as the local store in Melbourne (Australia) says that they are bought before they even arrive in the store. So will have to wait for that one.
 
To close: We need to teach people to listen with their ears. 
My wife listens mostly with her eyes. My hifi was clearly cheap and therefore not good because it was black, not silver and shiny. (No criticism, she is just very visual). [Linn Sondek - VTL Monobloc tube amps - Which I think I will sell to get the best digital setup I can, lots of new Schiit]

 

[mkozlows]

Originally Posted by Jason Stoddard /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
It doesn’t help that it’s easy to bring up crazy, crazy examples like multi-thousand-dollar USB and Ethernet cables, magic fuses, cable suspenders, and other may-do-something-but-there’s-no-measurements-to-quantify-it stuff that is eyebleedingly expensive. We can seem more than a little nutty.

 
I think this is by far the biggest problem. The audio press is firmly in the grip of Big Crazy, and forums aren't much better.  Whenever my friends on social media are posting links to audio-related things, it's always magic Ethernet cables and power cords and other such obvious nonsense. 
 
And so there's a portion of the audiophile world (like headphones, for instance) that is obviously real and non-magical, and that gets treated in the consumer press with the same seriousness and attention as other consumer electronics -- the Wirecutter recommends the PSB M4U and Sony MDR-7506, which are totally respectable recommendations -- but then the part that's less obvious (which includes things like external DACs and headphone amps) gets tainted with the magic spillover.
 
And so if you are a quality-loving person, the sort who is willing spend a bunch of money to get good stuff, you might read that Wirecutter headphone review, and see vaguely positive things about using an amp, and go off to find out about amps -- but before you know it, you're reading forum threads where people are talking about fuses and power cords, or places like Audiostream that are full of magic USB cable nonsense, and it quickly becomes apparent that there are almost no amp reviews at all from sources that don't seem obviously nuts; quick-and-dirty PR-repeating Engadget-style listicles seem credible in comparison.
 
You guys at Schiit have actually done a good job of holding the magic at arm's length, especially on your website copy; and Tyll Hertsens at Inner Fidelity is great, too. But Inner Fidelity is one click away from Audio Stream and its pile of steaming nonsense, and some of Schiit's most rabid fans hold the magic tight, so people who are already skeptical are going to find it real easy to lump all that in with the silliness.
 
So my take is that if the audiophile world wants to get into that high-end-consumer-goods niche, it needs to make a clean break with the fringe elements. Which is going to be awfully difficult when that constitutes not only most of the industry press but also the biggest-spending customers. For a while, it looked like the head-fi world was going to break out of that -- back when HD-600s were the highest-end headphone you could get and Headroom was the biggest amp maker (and had that really obvious crossfeed feature to sell even if you didn't believe in other sound quality improvements) -- but it's been firmly ensconced in the larger, sillier audiophile world by now.