[Ableza]

   
Do they guarantee the best sounding master/mix available though?  See, if they did that kind of legwork for me, I might be more interested.

"Best sounding" according to who? 

  Subjective questions like that are pretty meaningless.  They have stated they are going back to the owners of the master tapes and asking for the highest resolutions available.  Whether that sounds good or not will be in the mind of the listener.

 

[Soused]

  "Best sounding" according to who? 

  Subjective questions like that are pretty meaningless.  They have stated they are going back to the owners of the master tapes and asking for the highest resolutions available.  Whether that sounds good or not will be in the mind of the listener.

 
What does the resolution of it have to do with sound quality?  Its all about the master used.
 
For example, the MoFi Bitches Brew uses the original mix of the album and is the best sounding master of this - to my ears, of course.   And that has nothing to do with whether its 16/24/48/96/3 billion and 78 or whatever silly numbers you want to invent to confuse people.
 
For me, its all about the provenance rather than the bits.

 

[Ableza]

   
What does the resolution of it have to do with sound quality?  Its all about the master used.
 
For example, the MoFi Bitches Brew uses the original mix of the album and is the best sounding master of this - to my ears, of course.   And that has nothing to do with whether its 16/24/48/96/3 billion and 78 or whatever silly numbers you want to invent to confuse people.
 
For me, its all about the provenance rather than the bits.

So you agree with me.  What sounds "good" to any particular listener is a subjecitve judgement.  All Pono has offered is the highest possible sampling rate from the original masters.  They have no control over that's ON those masters, nor on how the mastering was done, nor on what the owners of those masters allow them access to.  But at least they have also promissed not to upsample for the sake of advertising larger numbers, like others do, because they understand that is meaningless.

 

[Soused]

 
So you agree with me.  What sounds "good" to any particular listener is a subjecitve judgement.  All Pono has offered is the highest possible sampling rate from the original masters.  They have no control over that's ON those masters, nor on how the mastering was done, nor on what the owners of those masters allow them access to.  But at least they have also promissed not to upsample for the sake of advertising larger numbers, like others do, because they understand that is meaningless.

 
Fair enough. Pretty ropey then.

 

[Ableza]

"Ropey"?

 

[PalJoey]

   
Fair enough. Pretty ropey then.

Ropier than the alternatives? 

 

[Ableza]

What does "ropey" mean?

 

[meat01]

I think someone should create a new thread specifically for PONO sound impressions and keep this thread for people who want to bash the product, discuss the packaging, discuss high resolution audio, or the lack of music in the PONO store.
 
I can't believe no one has posted any impressions yet.

 

[alpha421]

^x1000
 
Looks like Pono flippers are out of the wood works and on ebay.  Reminds me of when the Sony PS4 debuted. 

 

[Ableza]

  I think someone should create a new thread specifically for PONO sound impressions and keep this thread for people who want to bash the product, discuss the packaging, discuss high resolution audio, or the lack of music in the PONO store.
 
I can't believe no one has posted any impressions yet.

There have been a few.  Go back a couple of pages.

 

[alpha421]

  I think someone should create a new thread specifically for PONO sound impressions and keep this thread for people who want to bash the product, discuss the packaging, discuss high resolution audio, or the lack of music in the PONO store.
 
I can't believe no one has posted any impressions yet.

 
This.

 

[bruce1967]

  What does "ropey" mean?

I wondered what that meant too so I googled it...
 
British informal
poor in quality or health; inferior.
"a portrait by a pretty ropy artist"

 

[heatofamatch]

*sings* keeps me searching for a Toblerone... I've been a miner for a Toblerooooone, oooh.
 
But really, the gadgeteer in me is quite glad there are new parties in the portable player game. And at the same time, the old fart cynic in me is over the moon that iriver might want to sue them in some way, shape or form.

 

[fleasbaby]

^x1000

Looks like Pono flippers are out of the wood works and on ebay.  Reminds me of when the Sony PS4 debuted. :rolleyes:

Saw the Herbie one...I love Herbie, would be nice, but I need to know about power and see some impressions before I part with my X5/E12 stack...ah well...I am sure in 6 months I might be able to get a decent condition second hander. I have a classified open in the FS section to trade if anyone is up for it...

 

[zorntel]

Just took a quick look at the Herbie Hancock entries in the pono store.  Its interesti

   
Do they guarantee the best sounding master/mix available though?  See, if they did that kind of legwork for me, I might be more interested.

I agree this would be a great...but unlikely service...because of subjectivity.  You can read hundreds of pages of people debating the best version of a recording.  It is great, however, if they stay true to their pledge of no bogus upsampling.
 
The main thing I'm interested in is whether they are going to break with the pricing structure that people like HDtracks and Acoustic Sounds have been using.  Specifically whether there was going to be a more uniform price for the various resolutions.  With server prices as cheap as they are its ridiculous that a 24/96 file is $17.98 and a 24/192 file is $24.98.  They are made at the same time with the same equipment and there is almost no difference in storage and delivery cost.  Obviously there should be some upcharge for hiresolution if it required a legitimate remastering to get it.
 
Now that I know that they have some Herbie Hancock in 24/96 I took a quick look through the catalog.   Basically the album that I got 24/96 with my signature player was about $12.98 while another that I do not know of a high resolution version for was $6.99.  Both are listed as 24/44.1 on the website...but they promise to make higher resolution versions available for no additional upcharge...thus they are charging more for the one they know they will make available at 24/96 later. Next, I looked at the Neil Young album that we all got a 24/192 track from...that was $16.98. Thus, I'm guessing there will be an upcharge for high resolution...but $12.99 is better than $17.98 and $16.98 is better than $24.98.  What we don't know is whether these prices will creep up once the actual high resolution files  are made available.
 
We'll see!