Neil young announces the launch of ponomusic

[Hiro]

It uses the ESS 9018 Sabre DAC so it's capable of DSD. However, Charlie Hansen isn't exactly a DSD proponent. Neither is Neil. So I wouldn't count on it.

 

Charlie may not be a DSD proponent but he already works to add DSD128 support to QB-9 DAC, and it would be a shame if the Pono player didn't offer the same functionality.

[RPM]

Whether its Neil or Dr. Dre, the promotion of being able to listen to music as intended by the Artist in this day & age

is a welcome turn of events. Whether their products actually do that maybe up for debate, but I like that its being

discussed and hopeful it will bring about some change from the convenience/ how many songs can I fit in my pocket

culture. Looking forward to Chris's impressions!

[Hiro]

This caught my attention:

"Pono confirms the service will support “other high-resolution digital music devices,” but doesn’t specify which ones."

 

Good catch.

It appears there will be other players which will be able to play pono files; the remaining question is, will the Pono player support other than pono files (flac, alac, wav, dsf)?

[sm31]

Good catch.

It appears there will be other players which will be able to play pono files; the remaining question is, will the Pono player support other than pono files (flac, alac, wav, dsf)?

 

I haven't seen anywhere it clearly stated that pono files involve a new file format. Certainly the PR doesn't suggest this.

[Hiro]

I haven't seen anywhere it clearly stated that pono files involve a new file format. Certainly the PR doesn't suggest this.

 

How would then this new service be any different from HDTracks or SuperHirez (which offer hi-rez downloads in a variety of standard formats)?

[Superdad]

The funny thing is folks, there has been NO official confirmation anywhere that PONO will be 24/192. That notion--repeated by many publications on and off-line--keeps tracing back to a September 2012 article in Rolling Stone (Neil Young Expands Pono Digital-to-Analog Music Service | Music News | Rolling Stone) wherein the following completely inconclusive paragraph appeared:

 

"Pono's preservation of the fuller, analog sound already has the ear of the Big Three record labels: Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music. WMG – home to artists including Muse, the Black Keys, Common and Jill Scott – has converted its library of 8,000 album titles to high-resolution, 192kHz/24-bit sound. It was a process completed prior to the company's partnership with Young's Pono project last year, said Craig Kallman, chairman and chief executive of Atlantic Records."

 

Aside from the silliness of the idea that the labels may have upsampled their back catalog to 24/192 (what's the point if the tracks were put down at 24/96?), the Atlantic executive was not saying that 24/192 is what the PONO format would be.

 

Take a look around, and you will see that the RS article is THE source of the 24/192 idea. Let me know if you find other, more definitive sources. And I'm guessing that PONO won't be 24/192. Obviously, with Chris headed to SXSW, we should not have to wait too much longer to find out. Unless Mr. Young and his Pono Ponies continue to be vague.

[sickicw]

I'm wondering if the Pono player is going to support non-PONO-encoded audio formats such as FLAC, ALAC, WAV, DSD64 and DSD128...

 

Good question. Also, will PONO have ios & android apps on devices that have 192/24 DACs like the note 3?

[flatmap]

New article posted on Time confirms 24/192.

Neil Young’s Pono Music Player to Cost $399 via Kickstarter Campaign - TIME

Very nice article, coming from a mainstream magazine. Raises my appraisal of Time Magazine's abilities for technical topics!

[Superdad]

Very nice article, coming from a mainstream magazine. Raises my appraisal of Time Magazine's abilities for technical topics!

 

Nice article, but to be clear, it is NOT confirmation of 24/192 for PONO as it simply references the Rolling Stone article--the one with the inconclusive quote I pasted above.

[sm31]

How would then this new service be any different from HDTracks or SuperHirez (which offer hi-rez downloads in a variety of standard formats)?

 

That's kind of my point: until they release specific details (presumably in the next day or so), it's all speculation.

[flatmap]

Nice article, but to be clear, it is NOT confirmation of 24/192 for PONO as it simply references the Rolling Stone article--the one with the inconclusive quote I pasted above.

Agree that the Time article does not confirm 24/192. And I hadn't realized about the RS article

and am glad you made the connection.

 

Overall I think 24/192 may be impractical. But on the other hand, even if all the of near-term content is 24/96, it might be a smart idea to enable 24/192 in hardware to get the bragging rights and really differentiate the product. Perhaps leading to more 24/192 in the long term.

[Don Hills]

I heard Kickstarter Pono backers will receive Neil Young approved 24/192 versions of both Beatles and Led Zep complete catalogs for free. Anyone know if that's a rumor?

 

I'd call it unfounded, given that the most recent transfer of the Beatles tapes was at 24/96.

[Superdad]

Overall I think 24/192 may be impractical. But on the other hand, even if all the of near-term content is 24/96, it might be a smart idea to enable 24/192 in hardware to get the bragging rights and really differentiate the product. Perhaps leading to more 24/192 in the long term.

 

I think you are spot on. In fact, something I read earlier today supports the idea that PONO's intention this whole time is just to do a as many deals as it can for, what will hopefully be the master tapes or original higher res files, and sell those along at whatever was the original sample rate. That sounds better to me than having the record companies do some unknown job upsampling everything to 192KHz. Of course the PONO player itself may upsample and apply Ayre's DF.

As long as the files they will be selling work with computers, I will be thrilled. The real power of PONO may be to wake up both the public, the other music services, and the record companies to the inevitability of full resolution music. Jeez, 4K ultra-def televisions are arriving and the vast majority of downloadable music is ultra-low res.

 

--AJC

 

P.S. I've been writing while listening to Julia Holter's "Loud City Song" album. She's totally new to me and the freshest thing I have heard in a while (and I cycle through a lot of new music each month). Not surprised it showed up on a wide range of eclectic "best of 2013" album lists. Check it out, but don't judge it by the first few tracks. It's a journey.

[firedog]

I'd call it unfounded, given that the most recent transfer of the Beatles tapes was at 24/96.

 

Not true. Find links on this site to articles showing Beatles analog masters were digitally transcripted at 24/192 before undergoing minor edits and fixes. That "fixed master version" was then used as a basis for the remasters, which were worked on at 24/44.1.

 

Bottom line: there are 24/192 digital masters of the Beatles albums if Apple (re the 4 parties involved) ever decide to prepare the files for release and release them in a hi-res format.

[beetlemania]

I'd call it unfounded, given that the most recent transfer of the Beatles tapes was at 24/96.

I agree that labjr is starting a crazy rumor but I'm pretty sure the latest remasterings were done @24/192. That's why many folks were scratching their heads at the vinyl re-issues derived from the 24/44 set.

 

EDIT: oops, didn't read thru' to firedog's post

[food4thought]

New to this forum, this is my first post, in fact I only registered to post this one post.

 

I have just spent the last 30 minutes reading through this thread, came across it while reading about Pono and Neil Young speaking at SXSW tomorrow about the launch. I am an audiophile. I love music. The better it sounds, the better. First things that came to mind? I was intrigued, I thought it sounds good on paper. No negative connotations whatsoever. Here's a guy trying to pull off something good. With the way digital music has been going, surely this initiative can only be applauded.

 

I also love much of Neil's music and from the little I know he is someone who cares about the things he does, may they be music related or to life on this planet. In my book he's a solid, stand up guy with a lot of integrity. So I am thinking, I am really looking forward to finding out more about Pono, giving it a chance. Who knows this just might be something special, different from a lot of the crap out there, you know?!

 

These were my thoughts.

 

Then I read this thread. And I just couldn't believe the load of negativity on here. I am German and one thing I dislike about many of my fellow country men is their constant negativity and bitching and moaning about just about everything. This, that and the other, always knowing best. I lived quite a long time abroad, met many people from the States, lived in the UK. People always struck me as much more open minded, I liked that. This is the first time I read through a thread here on this site and I am sorry to say, some of you really need to get a life!!

 

Anyways, that's all from me here. Good luck to ya all!

 

More importantly though: Thank you for the music Neil!!!!

 

Much appreciated!!

 

Cheers!

[labjr]

Not true. Find links on this site to articles showing Beatles analog masters were digitally transcripted at 24/192 before undergoing minor edits and fixes. That "fixed master version" was then used as a basis for the remasters, which were worked on at 24/44.1.

 

Bottom line: there are 24/192 digital masters of the Beatles albums if Apple (re the 4 parties involved) ever decide to prepare the files for release and release them in a hi-res format.

 

What would the 4 parties have to do with sample rates and using CD quality masters being used for vinyl? Total nonsense.

[BB73]

Take a look around, and you will see that the RS article is THE source of the 24/192 idea. Let me know if you find other, more definitive sources. And I'm guessing that PONO won't be 24/192. Obviously, with Chris headed to SXSW, we should not have to wait too much longer to find out. Unless Mr. Young and his Pono Ponies continue to be vague.

 

Not sure how many times Neil has used specific numbers (though he regularly refers to highest possible digital resolution), but he did in his memoir "Waging Heavy Peace," back when PONO was called PureTone: "PureTone resolutions are 192 kHz and 384 kHz. Although 192 is here today, 384 is on the horizon, and both could be presented by PureTone in the future."

[firedog]

What would the 4 parties have to do with sample rates and using CD quality masters being used for vinyl? Total nonsense.

Again, it would be good if you would educate yourself on the topic before you reply. The setup at Apple is that all 4 parties (Paul, Ringo, Olivia Harrison, Yoko) have to unanimously approve any new remaster of Beatles material for release. Apparently it is extremely difficult to get unanimous approval from them on any given remaster of any given song, and some previously completed remasters have been shelved for just this reason.

 

According to reports from Apple, part of the reason the Beatles vinyl was produced from the 2009 24/44.1 basic remasters was that Apple didn't think they would manage to get approval of any new remaster for vinyl.

 

So yes, any hi-res release of the Beatles albums would require unanimous approval of the 4 parties, and apparently for each song. And by the way, 24/44.1 isn't CD quality, but something better.

 

Try to pause and think next time you want to make such a dismissive, nasty reply of something you clearly know little about.

[Audio_ELF]

Then I read this thread. And I just couldn't believe the load of negativity on here. I am German and one thing I dislike about many of my fellow country men is their constant negativity and bitching and moaning about just about everything. This, that and the other, always knowing best. I lived quite a long time abroad, met many people from the States, lived in the UK. People always struck me as much more open minded, I liked that. This is the first time I read through a thread here on this site and I am sorry to say, some of you really need to get a life!

I think you have misjudged (most) of the negative comments here ... they are not people suggesting this is not a good thing; however Pono has been talked about for 2+ years and nothing has happened. The press release and other information / reports are also full of words which offer very little detail. This makes people question what will actually be produced and what it will be able to do...

 

Eloise

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Food4Thought - You aren't the only person who thinks the negativity in this thread bad. I've talked to a couple people on the phone in the last day who couldn't believe the level of negativity.

 

Pono is the only chance we have right now of increasing the numbers in this wonderful hobby. Sure it's not perfect but people need to give it a chance now that the company is headed in another direction and close to an actual launch.

 

I know for a fact that the people who run Pono are reading this thread often. It would be great if we could support Pono and offer constructive criticism when needed. Access to more music is never a bad thing.

[firedog]

I also think the thread has been too negative. Neil Young is getting more press for hi-res audio and the idea that mp3's are not the standard we should have in recorded music than probably every other source put together over the past decade. Many community members here don't seem to realize that out in the general public, most people have never even heard of hi-res audio, the volume wars etc.

 

Unless Pono or something like it succeeds, high quality audio files and equipment will remain at best a very small niche and could even disappear altogether once the baby boomers are gone.

 

I don't really plan on buying in to the Pono HW b/c I'm not a big user of mobile audio, but I DEFINITELY want Pono and its music store to succeed. The members of the community here will all benefit from more and better quality downloads, and better and less expensive audio HW if Pono is a success.

[Jud]

I know for a fact that the people who run Pono are reading this thread often.

 

OK, Ponofolk, please consider my request to make sure the Win drivers work with kernel streaming so folks who like XXHighEnd as an audio player can use it as it was intended.

[matt123]

The members of the community here will all benefit from more and better quality downloads, and better and less expensive audio HW if Pono is a success.

 

I too really want this to succeed. But, I contrast how Pono is rolling this out to to the way Light Harmonic has launched its new Geek products and is engaging the community so deeply.

 

Really glad the Pono team is reading this (Hi!). My message is - engage us, be more open, be more scrappy, we want you to succeed. Offering Chris an interview is a great start, but in today's world, you need two way communications if you want a loyal following. Feedback and criticism can be a route to build an audience of dedicated customers if you engage them in an meaningful way.

 

How about CA hosting the Pono community forum? Others have suggest Neil Young respond to questions here directly. That'd be AWESOME.

[Audio_ELF]

OK, Ponofolk, please consider my request to make sure the Win drivers work with kernel streaming so folks who like XXHighEnd as an audio player can use it as it was intended.

Do you know something that hasn't been noted elsewhere because (my understanding) was that the Pono hardware was a player (much like an iPod) where as you are suggesting you will use it like a DAC...

 

Eloise