Not at all, but if you bought something when you had plenty of money, then when it came (a year later) you found that you can no longer really justify the expense, youd be a fool to keep it, particularly if the value of the item had gone up since buying it. These players where available for a full 30 days on kickstarter. If you or anyone else really wanted one without paying an extra premium you could have backed the project at its birth.
As for why i can here to say that; firstly i haven't yet decided to keep or sell the thing - I (and many others) bought this thing with high hopes. Having read some reviews, it seems like its not the industry changing product I had hoped for. secondly, the main point of my post was about how much the import tax was into the uk and to make a comment on the packaging. I just wanted to clarify, for any one reading, why i have not made a comment on the SQ of the item.
It was posted in Update 46 on October 7th to Pono Kickstarter backers. I am not one of them but it has been discussed ad nauseum on the Pono music site. Any Pono backers here to verify?
Not at all, but if you bought something when you had plenty of money, then when it came (a year later) you found that you can no longer really justify the expense, youd be a fool to keep it, particularly if the value of the item had gone up since buying it. These players where available for a full 30 days on kickstarter. If you or anyone else really wanted one without paying an extra premium you could have backed the project at its birth.
As for why i can here to say that; firstly i haven't yet decided to keep or sell the thing - I (and many others) bought this thing with high hopes. Having read some reviews, it seems like its not the industry changing product I had hoped for. secondly, the main point of my post was about how much the import tax was into the uk and to make a comment on the packaging. I just wanted to clarify, for any one reading, why i have not made a comment on the SQ of the item.
For those who want to experiment with the balance cabling the sony XBA-Z5 comes ready with a pair of 3.5 mm balance cable, ready to be used with your pono.
Could you show where it says that? If so, the files are directly playable on Apple players, which opens up the potential customer base quite a bit. I thought the files were going to be FLAC, which Apple players don't play (with built-in the iTunes software that most people use).
Just because it's in a M4A container on their website, that doesn't mean it will be distributed in that format. AAC is a nice format for streaming services for demo tracks since they're small in size and they are technically superior to MP3.
In Firefox, you can look at the Page Source from Tools -> Web Developer
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.
Code:
Code:
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.
Why would they sound any different...both are lossless 16/44.4 hz? The only reason would be if the pono version was a different mastering...but there is no claim of that.
Why would they sound any different...both are lossless 16/44.4 hz? The only reason would be if the pono version was a different mastering...but there is no claim of that.
And hence why I pointed this out. If the demos from the website are representative of what the downloads will sound like, as in the master, then they might just be up-sampling the CD masters to HD resolutions and claiming it's HD, which is what the Pono music store is planning to distribute from my understanding.
HD Tracks tends to sell stuff exactly like this, and I just found out that a 24/192 album I have sounds identical to the CD rip I have. I can't express in words how pissed off I was when I found that out.
And hence why I pointed this out. If the demos from the website are representative of what the downloads will sound like, as in the master, then they might just be up-sampling the CD masters to HD resolutions and claiming it's HD, which is what the Pono music store is planning to distribute from my understanding.
HD Tracks tends to sell stuff exactly like this, and I just found out that a 24/192 album I have sounds identical to the CD rip I have. I can't express in words how pissed off I was when I found that out.
It's back in the box and awaiting further reviews, especially Skylab's. I am not sure in what setting I would use it for? My ten year old is showing a real appreciation for music, both listening and playing. Perhaps a few years from now if he keeps on the path I will make him a present. The problem is, it might be not relevant as a DAP in a few years, hell maybe next year the way technology is happening!
And hence why I pointed this out. If the demos from the website are representative of what the downloads will sound like, as in the master, then they might just be up-sampling the CD masters to HD resolutions and claiming it's HD, which is what the Pono music store is planning to distribute from my understanding.
HD Tracks tends to sell stuff exactly like this, and I just found out that a 24/192 album I have sounds identical to the CD rip I have. I can't express in words how pissed off I was when I found that out.
Doesn't this kind of all fall back into the ever present argument regarding whether or not your ears can even discern the difference beyond a certain level of resolution? There have been threads arguing this question, where I'm certain if the responding members had been in one room, they would have come to blows over this. I personally have come to the conclusion that, for my ears, differences are so minimal or non existant, that it seldom warrants the cost of trying to buy 96/24 or higher. It seems to me that the commercial market for sales of high resolution audio will, for the foreseeable future, carry the caveat emptor footnote.
Doesn't this kind of all fall back into the ever present argument regarding whether or not your ears can even discern the difference beyond a certain level of resolution? There have been threads arguing this question, where I'm certain if the responding members had been in one room, they would have come to blows over this. I personally have come to the conclusion that, for my ears, differences are so minimal or non existant, that it seldom warrants the cost of trying to buy 96/24 or higher. It seems to me that the commercial market for sales of high resolution audio will, for the foreseeable future, carry the caveat emptor footnote.
You are missing the point. Leave aside the debate about whether or not we can discern the difference between resolutions. An up sampled file cannot sound better than its source and selling such a file without disclosure is tantamount to fraud.
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