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The Pono Player Impressions Thread

May 11, 2015 at 9:47 AM Post #526 of 1,969
Charles Hansen speaking about the Revealer option in the next Pono firmware.  It will let you take a 24 bit and downsample on the fly to a variety of lossy and compressed formats to hear the differences as you listen to the track (no need to a/b, and it will be exactly the same track and exactly the same master and exactly the same mix).  His quote: "I've no idea what they do in the Pono, but I can tell you that the loss of resolution in MP3s is something that just deadens the feeling of the music. I'm looking forward to hearing the Revealer myself."
 
This is completely on-topic for the Pono discussion.  It is a feature being offered soon in the firmware.  NO discussion of sound science please, as the mod has spoken re that.  This is merely to be a discussion of the new feature in the Pono.  
 
May 11, 2015 at 12:09 PM Post #527 of 1,969
olddude said:
  Charles Hansen speaking about the Revealer option in the next Pono firmware.  It will let you take a 24 bit and downsample on the fly to a variety of lossy and compressed formats to hear the differences as you listen to the track (no need to a/b, and it will be exactly the same track and exactly the same master and exactly the same mix).  His quote: "I've no idea what they do in the Pono, but I can tell you that the loss of resolution in MP3s is something that just deadens the feeling of the music. I'm looking forward to hearing the Revealer myself."
Click to expand...

That Revealer option alone will justify installing the Pono software for me soon, to make it possible to upgrade from my current v1.0.4 (which works fine for me at the moment)
 
I'm curious if there will be even more adjustments in the next fw...
Maybe a ''double balanced mode'' for the people who own 2 Pono's
wink.gif

 
May 11, 2015 at 2:05 PM Post #528 of 1,969
Seems my Pono player has the flu this evening. For the first time it self shut down mid song and the blue light blinked a few times, had to reboot. Then about 10 minutes later I woke the screen with the down volume button and the music 'stuttered' a few times.

I'm not really concerned, I have the faith in it, it's playing away no problem. Has anyone had anything similar happen to them? (just curious)
 
May 11, 2015 at 6:24 PM Post #529 of 1,969
The Revealer sounds really neat...the problem with trying to assess high resolution files is, you have no idea what to compare it to, if you happen to have different versions of the same music, could be different masters, this will really give one the ability to compare "apples to apples". I do find I hear the differences in bit/sample rates more then I'm listening over speakers than headphones, but can hear them either way. I was using the Pono into car radio on a long drive Saturday, the MP3's I have on it were much flatter, less lively than CD or higher quality. Others find they notice the difference more this way, or is it just me?
 
May 11, 2015 at 6:43 PM Post #530 of 1,969
h20fidelity said:
Seems my Pono player has the flu this evening. For the first time it self shut down mid song and the blue light blinked a few times, had to reboot. Then about 10 minutes later I woke the screen with the down volume button and the music 'stuttered' a few times.

I'm not really concerned, I have the faith in it, it's playing away no problem. Has anyone had anything similar happen to them? (just curious)
Click to expand...


Never heard of that here or on the Pono Community thread.
 
May 11, 2015 at 9:40 PM Post #531 of 1,969
doctorjazz said:
The Revealer sounds really neat...the problem with trying to assess high resolution files is, you have no idea what to compare it to, if you happen to have different versions of the same music, could be different masters, this will really give one the ability to compare "apples to apples". I do find I hear the differences in bit/sample rates more then I'm listening over speakers than headphones, but can hear them either way. I was using the Pono into car radio on a long drive Saturday, the MP3's I have on it were much flatter, less lively than CD or higher quality. Others find they notice the difference more this way, or is it just me?
Click to expand...


I haven't had that happen but I did get to my first ever forced reboot the other day. I had a media error reporting on an Sd card, and after swapping them in and out 2-3 times I seemed to get stuck in an eternal "scanning music library" loop.
 
A reboot and a fresh scan seemed to take care of the issue.
 
As far as skipping audio - I have a few FLAC's ripped from old CD's that have skips in them, and they sound similar to mp3 file skips, just random data drops. I think they just need to be re-ripped.
 
I also have a purchased flac from somewhere that I have heard a dropout in. I highly doubt it was in the master, so the Flac version must have been flawed. If I notice who it is and find my store receipt, I'll ask for a new copy.
 
May 11, 2015 at 11:02 PM Post #532 of 1,969
h20fidelity said:
I'm not really concerned, I have the faith in it, it's playing away no problem. Has anyone had anything similar happen to them? (just curious)
Click to expand...

I've had one incident, when the Pono was playing a known-good track and stuttered for a couple of seconds, as if it were going back and repeating part of the track. The track was from a Hyperion download I'd copied to the Pono's MicroSD card. Later, the track played without problems so I'm attributing this to one-time weirdness.
 
I have occasionally found ripped CDs in my collection that had problems. I'd dig out the CD and re-rip it. If that didn't fix the problem I'd use Exact Audio Copy to get a clean rip to WAV, then import to Itunes and convert to ALAC. Now this is part of the normal CD-ripping workflow: insert the CD, check all the tags (there are usually errors, especially in classical music), rip, then play the files to make sure all the tracks are clean. After a good rip-check, the CDs get filed.
 
Faults in CDs aren't always visible. Obvious damage can sometimes be polished out. Some CDs look perfect but won't play right on one reader, so I try them in another. If that won't do it, I use EAC. If that won't work I look for another copy from, preferably, another pressing. What I've learned ripping something like 3000 CDs. Hyperion's albums are tagged differently from how I prefer, but the difference isn't major so I let it stand because they're consistent within the Hyperion label.
 
As for the "Revealer," I think it's a good idea. Give everyone the tools they need to find out, for themselves under their typical conditions, and then decide what kinds of files to download.
 
May 11, 2015 at 11:22 PM Post #534 of 1,969
olddude said:
  The new firmware has been released for Pono.
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Thanks...I never go to PonoMusic World unless I have to. Any release notes?
 
May 11, 2015 at 11:40 PM Post #535 of 1,969
Not really.  Shutdown screen's a bit different.  The revealer only works if you load music from Pono app, so I haven't tried it yet.  You apparently have to choose a track, dl it to the Pono, and then it will work.  
 
May 11, 2015 at 11:41 PM Post #536 of 1,969

Version 1.0.6 Release Notes

New Features:

 

Improvements and Bug Fixes

  1. The PonoRevealer
    1. The PonoRevealer allows switching between audio resolutions and file formats during playback to compare the differences in the sound quality in real time.
    2. Use PonoMusic World to convert songs in your music library into PonoRevealer tracks.
    3. ALERT: Make sure to install PonoMusic World v20.0.100 in-order to add tracks to the PonoRevealer.
  2. Fixed soft reset when micro-USB is removed during an update.
  3. Corrected playback length for long DSF files.
  4. Recognize DSF files that have no metadata and the sample data chunk is the last one in the file.
  5. Recognize DFF files with headers other than version 1.5.0.0.
  6. Changed button appearance throughout the PonoPlayer UI.
 
May 12, 2015 at 12:14 AM Post #539 of 1,969
subguy812 said:
  I am curious to see what everyone says about revealer...
Click to expand...

 
Very preliminary impression, but, I will say this: Heart of Gold may not have been the ideal track for the Ponofolk to release as an illustration of the feature.  
 
I own many other high-resolution albums and various tracks where I feel an audible difference is readily apparent.  I've never felt, from the first day I received my Pono, that Heart of Gold was one of them.
 
Just one man's opinion...
 
May 12, 2015 at 12:20 AM Post #540 of 1,969
I agree- I went in and dl'd it to my new Pono.  Ran through the various formats, it was pretty subtle.  There's a smoothness that happens, a richness, as you get into the higher resolutions.  And there IS a bit of a veiled feeling with the MP3.  But it's not OH MY GOD!  You have to listen and discern.  I'll try a different track at some point and see if that give a more dramatic differentiation.
 
That said, does anyone feel that the new firmware is slightly brighter?  The new Pono certainly felt a bit crisper in the very upper uppers (it has about 5 minutes of burn-in, so....)..  But then I tried my older one and it, too, felt just slightly brighter.  Maybe it's the time of night, or I'm fooling myself, but it feels like the sound is slightly different.  Anyone?
 
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