The Pono Player Impressions Thread

[subguy812]

 I was really underwhelmed with the revealer selection Heart of Gold, I tried it with 3 different hp's and none of them wow'ed me. Not an ah-hah moment to showcase the difference.
 
I was listening to a 24bit Little Feat recording and was thinking this sounds a touch different than before, but if you remember people always said the same about the X5 every time a f/w update came out, I am guarded to say that.

 

[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

I just updated to 1.6 and am listening now, everything sounds clearer and crisper, an improvement to my ears. Treble crispness may be taken for brightness by some people, but for me it's not, everything has become clearer and crisper as a whole, which has increased the blackness of back round, bass is tighter, everything is more composed. I'm glad that the Pono guys are actually out to improve the sound of their firmwares.

 

[H20Fidelity]

  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.

 
Thanks very much for the detailed post. 

 

[oneway23]

I like the subtle changes to the UI, especially the on-screen buttons, but, I'm not prepared to say that there have been any improvements to the sound signature, at least to my ears...

 

[doctorjazz]

Have to try this tonight, curious.

 

[uncle b]

Currently having great deal of trouble updating PONO player and PONO Music World on my MacBook. Kinda frustrating me.

 

[oneway23]

Try updating the PonoWorld software prior to doing the firmware update...If you're having trouble updating from inside of the app, download the installer from ponomusic.com and jut install atop the older version...it will overwrite.

 

[H20Fidelity]

When you guys have an album with various artists what tag can I use (with MP3tag) to make Pono leave it as one album? (or how are you doing it)

 

[oneway23]

When you guys have an album with various artists what tag can I use (with MP3tag) to make Pono leave it as one album? (or how are you doing it)

 
Put the individual artist under the "Artist" tag, and use "Various Artist" or something similar in the "Album Artist" column.

 

[FFBookman]

I tested the demo revealer track and it taught me nothing new.
 
At least on initial listen, controlling the buttons myself, everything was obvious. 
 
I can hear the jumps from lossy to lossless, and then the jump from down sampled 16bit to full 24bit, then to no down sampling at all.
 
The differences are very much there and clear to me, and this is just on cheap computer speakers. I currently am loading about 20 more revealer tracks and I will ultimately have the wife give me some blind tests. Should be a fun challenge. I'll do it to her too, since she's been listening to iPhone for 5 years.
 
I'm so glad they made this tool, this should go along way towards explaining neatly in sound what takes so many contentious words to describe.

 

[Kerouac]

  I tested the demo revealer track and it taught me nothing new.
 
At least on initial listen, controlling the buttons myself, everything was obvious. 
 
I can hear the jumps from lossy to lossless, and then the jump from down sampled 16bit to full 24bit, then to no down sampling at all.
 
The differences are very much there and clear to me, and this is just on cheap computer speakers. I currently am loading about 20 more revealer tracks and I will ultimately have the wife give me some blind tests. Should be a fun challenge. I'll do it to her too, since she's been listening to iPhone for 5 years.
 
I'm so glad they made this tool, this should go along way towards explaining neatly in sound what takes so many contentious words to describe.

Totally agree!
 
Listening balanced with my Z5 to some loaded 24bit tracks (NY, Beck, RHCP, Rush, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Radiohead etc) in the Revealer at the moment. This a very nice ''gift'' from the Pono people...

 

[FFBookman]

If you start with 24bit files recorded between 1965-1995 and you can't tell the difference between the resolutions on the revealer, I'd say you either have serious gear issues or hearing that needs repaired, or maybe both.
 
I've just tested on $20 computer speakers and $40 sennheiser open-ears, and it's pretty clear to me.
 
Very hard to describe in words. I'd say I hear "more voices" with more EQ space, a slightly wider yet tighter soundstage, and more accuracy in the reverbs and delays, and instrument timbre as the resolution goes up. More voices. On both sets of these cheap unbalanced speakers.
 
There are obvious tells in the songs I've selected --- the long huge phase shift at the beginning of "You're All I've Got Tonight" by The Cars; the children's choir at the beginning of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Stones, all kinds in Zeppelin, the better the original mix the more it comes alive at higher resolutions.

 

[subguy812]

When you guys have an album with various artists what tag can I use (with MP3tag) to make Pono leave it as one album? (or how are you doing it)

I use MP3tag for all tagging tasks. But what I do is delete the ft. artist and only use the main artist, if you want to use that artist line at all.

 

[H20Fidelity]

   
Put the individual artist under the "Artist" tag, and use "Various Artist" or something similar in the "Album Artist" column.

 

 
I use MP3tag for all tagging tasks. But what I do is delete the ft. artist and only use the main artist, if you want to use that artist line at all.

 
Ok, thanks.  The first method still left some as single songs.
 
What I did was change the artist name for 'all tracks' to the album name. (VA - Standard Gravity)
 
Because the track titles are still tagged it opens as one album and the all tracks remain correctly named. 
 
(that will do for me) 
 

 

[victorcc]

Is there anybody else getting errors when trying to generate Pono revealer tracks? 
 
I always get the same error regardless of the track used: "Error occurred generating this Pono Revealer Track. Please try a different song.". What I do in the Pono Music World app:
- Go to the PonoPlayer drive, select a song, click "Transfer to computer".
- Go to Music Library, select a song, click "Create Pono Revealer Track".
I have several GB free in both Pono drives and in my laptop hard disk.
 
 
By the way, I feel a bit suspicious about the Revealer. I believe that Pono guys could easily use "bad" filters when downsampling the tracks for us to feel the differences more easily.
 
 
Cheers