[Sauntere]

I'd like to see support for the idea that anyone can actually hear the difference between high resolution and 16/44. High resolution is great in the studio while doing signal processing and the like, but I've not seen any convincing evidence that anyone can actually hear the difference once it has been decimated to 16/44.

se

 
Am i missing something ? Is there something i don't understand ? This is a genuine question.  Isn't the idea here that is doesn't get reduced back to 16/44 ?

 

[Steve Eddy]

Am i missing something ? Is there something i don't understand ? This is a genuine question.  Isn't the idea here that is doesn't get reduced back to 16/44 ?

The "idea" here is that 24/196 is "where it's at" with the implication that it is far better than 16/44. What I'm saying is that I'm not aware of any convincing evidence that there's any actual audible difference between 24/196 and 16/44 that's been properly decimated from 24/196. Lacking that, 24/196 appears to be a cure looking for a disease.

se

 

[doublea71]

I don't doubt that it will sound good, but the 24/192 bit is just marketing b.s. from Pono imo. A well-designed player with a great dac/amp + great sounding masters + good headphones should suffice for all but the most obsessive listeners. The quality of the recordings is the most important piece of the pie, followed by headphones, then player, all imo of course. I really hope Pono can keep the spotlight on sound quality long enough for the bigger players to follow suit - we'd all stand to benefit in the long run.

 

[Levanter]

They finally answered my ques.. I'm sure some will be happy to hear this..

"If/when we support DSD it'll be native. The 8hrs of playtime is with a mix of different music qualities. We can't share any of our BOM details on this forum as it'll trigger a lot discussions that take away from the bigger picture. Thanks for understanding."

 

[miceblue]

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/572-pono-or-oh-no-interview-neil-young/
Wow, such language.

CC: Numbers such as sample rate and bit depth are only part of the equation. The people behind the recordings are more important. Will there be a Pono certification or guarantee or Mastered for Pono type thing to designate tracks that are of pono quality.

NY: No. Pono is Pono. You make what you make. When we say it's Pono that means we are bringing you the closest thing to the master, if it's not the master, if it's not the native resolution it's the closet thing to it that was mastered. Then were asking why the hell didn't they master the native resolution. If you buy what it is they supplied, and there's a higher resolution, and we're after them to master it, and they master it, you get it. You don't have to pay for it. You've already bought the best it can be. The best it can be is what we're gong to give you. You just have to download it again in our store. You'll get notified in our little newspaper, these are the new things that got upgraded. You bought it, you can believe if we can we'll upgrade it if it's not it's high as it ever can go. A lot of our stuff will be as high as it will ever get. A lot of people recorded at low res in the last little bit of time. Before that it was different. It's only recently people gave up. There's a window of that. There's nothing we can do about that. We can't put people down for that. We'll play whatever it was they were able to do. They created it. That's what Pono is. It's not about mastered for Pono. It's mastered. Period.




CC: Will Pono have an effect on the Loudness Wars or encourage less dynamic range compression.

NY: (Long pause) Well, I don't know. It could. To me dynamic range is king. The music decides how compressed it is. If you make a mix and you make the mix, not mastering, in the mix, that's where you do the compression. You compress certain instruments as an effect. That's really all you want. You want that **** to pump so that's what you compress. Why compress what comes and goes? You don't have to make that decision in mastering. The artist can make the decision. If they want something that pumps and grooves all the way through like ah, what the hell is the name, it's a great great band, two guys, two guys (The Black Keys -CC), Yeah, they are great. They use a lot of compression in their mixing. They record at like 48. I've noticed what they do. They'll have more to play with. They can still have that sound and have it be a 192 master with just like one area of the song, maybe the hook, or one instrument be 192, just *******, what the hell is that! The mix is made up of these two things (sample rates). You get source stuff that is 48k, it's not going to be higher than 48k unless you put acoustic echo on it and that echo will be at 192k. Using resolution as an effect is one of the offshoots of Pono. That's one of the creative tools that people like the Black Keys, Kanye West, Eminem, Jay Z, LIl' Wayne, can use. They are very creative, let them go, let them have whatever they want we just give them more.

 

[Kokomo O]

  I don't doubt that it will sound good, but the 24/192 bit is just marketing b.s. from Pono imo. A well-designed player with a great dac/amp + great sounding masters + good headphones should suffice for all but the most obsessive listeners. The quality of the recordings is the most important piece of the pie, followed by headphones, then player, all imo of course. I really hope Pono can keep the spotlight on sound quality long enough for the bigger players to follow suit - we'd all stand to benefit in the long run.

Once again, 24/192 is not just marketing BS from Pono or any other maker or hi-res devices and software. It's basic mathematics, an area called Fourier analysis that every math, physics and engineering student learns in the second year of calculus, and has been well known since the 18th Century. They're not making this stuff up and neither am I.
 
Music is composed of transients, signals that begin and end like drum beats, cymbal crashes, piano hammer strikes, guitar strums and the damping of strings, tongue slaps on saxophone reeds, even the distortion of an electric guitar. You can't possibly reproduce all of those transients accurately, within the limits of human hearing, if you are cutting off the bandwidth of the music at about 20kHz, as you must do with 16/44, 24/44 or even 24/48. And when you do so, you introduce phase distortion that further muddies the sound. 
 
It simply doesn't matter how well your DAC, amp, cables, headphones or other reproduction chain is, if you compromise the recording you mess up the sound that comes out when you play it. I really think you need to do some critical listening, comparing 16/44 files with their 24/192 analogues.

 

[JacobLee89]

  Once again, 24/192 is not just marketing BS from Pono or any other maker or hi-res devices and software. It's basic mathematics, an area called Fourier analysis that every math, physics and engineering student learns in the second year of calculus, and has been well known since the 18th Century. They're not making this stuff up and neither am I.
 
Music is composed of transients, signals that begin and end like drum beats, cymbal crashes, piano hammer strikes, guitar strums and the damping of strings, tongue slaps on saxophone reeds, even the distortion of an electric guitar. You can't possibly reproduce all of those transients accurately, within the limits of human hearing, if you are cutting off the bandwidth of the music at about 20kHz, as you must do with 16/44, 24/44 or even 24/48. And when you do so, you introduce phase distortion that further muddies the sound. 
 
It simply doesn't matter how well your DAC, amp, cables, headphones or other reproduction chain is, if you compromise the recording you mess up the sound that comes out when you play it. I really think you need to do some critical listening, comparing 16/44 files with their 24/192 analogues.

 
But doesn't that ignore the different algorithms/codecs used to compress files to such formats? How can you assume that the sound will be "muddied" without first talking about the different affects each codec would/might have with the resulting audio file?
 
*Huzzah for major derail*

 

[Koukol]

I have a question but I'm not on FACEBOOK.
 
If I order the regular black one and a Limited Edition came up later that I want (RAMONES) if I re-order the RAMONES version (I know...wishful thinking) will the first order be cancelled?
 
This is the only thing stopping me from ordering today.

 

[flatmap]

  I have a question but I'm not on FACEBOOK.
 
If I order the regular black one and a Limited Edition came up later that I want (RAMONES) if I re-order the RAMONES version (I know...wishful thinking) will the first order be cancelled?
 
This is the only thing stopping me from ordering today.

They recently posted this note on the pono kickstarter page.  Perhaps this helps:
 
A Note about Pledging & Multiple Rewards:

It is only possible to pledge ONCE on a single Kickstarter account. If you pledge again on the same account, it will OVERRIDE your previous pledge and reward selection. We recommend creating a a second Kickstarter account, which can be linked to the same Amazon account (and therefore the same credit card). Thanks for the support.

 

[doublea71]

  Once again, 24/192 is not just marketing BS from Pono or any other maker or hi-res devices and software. It's basic mathematics, an area called Fourier analysis that every math, physics and engineering student learns in the second year of calculus, and has been well known since the 18th Century. They're not making this stuff up and neither am I.
 
Music is composed of transients, signals that begin and end like drum beats, cymbal crashes, piano hammer strikes, guitar strums and the damping of strings, tongue slaps on saxophone reeds, even the distortion of an electric guitar. You can't possibly reproduce all of those transients accurately, within the limits of human hearing, if you are cutting off the bandwidth of the music at about 20kHz, as you must do with 16/44, 24/44 or even 24/48. And when you do so, you introduce phase distortion that further muddies the sound. 
 
It simply doesn't matter how well your DAC, amp, cables, headphones or other reproduction chain is, if you compromise the recording you mess up the sound that comes out when you play it. I really think you need to do some critical listening, comparing 16/44 files with their 24/192 analogues.

If you can either clearly hear anything above 20kHz or repeatedly tell the difference between a 24/192 file that has been down-sampled to 16/44 in a blind A/B test, you're not of this Earth. The most critical stage of a recording's inception has little to do with bit depth. Citing an equation's existence does not constitute evidence as you've laid it out. I stand by my claim until proven otherwise.

 

[Saraguie]

They just added Neil Young and Crazy Horse L.E.s they will sell out in a hour..........if only a 500 run like the others.

 

[Koukol]

  They recently posted this note on the pono kickstarter page.  Perhaps this helps:
 
A Note about Pledging & Multiple Rewards:

It is only possible to pledge ONCE on a single Kickstarter account. If you pledge again on the same account, it will OVERRIDE your previous pledge and reward selection. We recommend creating a a second Kickstarter account, which can be linked to the same Amazon account (and therefore the same credit card). Thanks for the support.

Cheers!
 
I hope they don't change this in the near future.
 
It makes you wonder about someone ordering a LE then losing it when another order goes in.
Is it then up for grabs?

 

[Steve Eddy]

I really think you need to do some critical listening, comparing 16/44 files with their 24/192 analogues.

And I think someone needs to convincingly demonstrate that there is an actual audible difference between 16/44 and 24/192. Otherwise, this is all just tantamount to saying "These go to 11."

se

 

[Koukol]

And I think someone needs to convincingly demonstrate that there is an actual audible difference between 16/44 and 24/192. Otherwise, this is all just tantamount to saying "These go to 11."

se

Yeah, but that's ONE more than ten!

 

[Bas72]

 
If you can either clearly hear anything above 20kHz or repeatedly tell the difference between a 24/192 file that has been down-sampled to 16/44 in a blind A/B test, you're not of this Earth. The most critical stage of a recording's inception has little to do with bit depth. Citing an equation's existence does not constitute evidence as you've laid it out. I stand by my claim until proven otherwise.

 
It's a useless discussion. You hear different things than others. It's like trying to convince a believer that his god does not exist: he'll never be convinced, no matter how much 'evidence' you throw at it.