PONO - Where Music Lives

What is this?

http://ponomusic.com/about/

Hi Friend,

There's an awfully good chance you heard about a revolution we're working on. Something that will significantly improve the way you get to hear and feel your favorite music.

Shocking you say? That perhaps the promise of "Perfect Sound Forever" propagated by the inventors of the Compact Disc was a bust? And that "CD Quality" promoted by the likes of iTunes and the creators of the MP3 was only an inkling of the flawed format they were hoping to emulate?

We're here to say it's incredibly true! Miraculously, there's a wealth of music & soul (or if you must, "data") trapped on millions of recordings made over the last half century, that we're hoping to unleash for the very first time.

Can you imagine? Your own personal time machine, to take you back to the place and time of the original musical event, and let you feel music in ways you've only felt seeing it live? We here at Pono are listening to it now and assure you, IT'S AMAZING!!!!

We ask dear music lover that you root for Pono bringing this very real technology to the world. We're still toiling away on making this happen (yes, there are record labels, artists, publishers and more to finalize with), but we wanted to share our excitement with you.

In the meantime, please follow us on Facebook or Twitter for updates.

Rescuing an art form,

The Pono Team

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=pono+player&espv=210&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=q_IeU9DNF-rF7AaNrYDYDg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1680&bih=901

What with their pin-sharp copywriting and endorsement from none other than Neil Young, I'm sure this is destined to succeed.

There was a little bit of chat about this yesterday on the Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil thread.

I don't esp enjoy live music so

What is the difference between this and listening to a wav file on your iPod?

there's a bulge in your pocket. from the PONO, that is.

bone-o amirite

can you listen to wavs on your ipod?

I listen to FLACs on my Android. It's fine.

You can listen to .WAVs on Apple devices, but they take up alot of room; FLACs which are smaller but equally good sounding aren't supported; instead Apple's proprietary Apple Lossless serves a similar function.

I still don't know who they think they're aiming this at. Casual listeners aren't gonna shell out $400 to listen to Pono on the subway, and serious audiophiles already listen to the many high-resolution digital options out there (SACD, HDTracks, etc.).

Their promo shots of the device show untagged artists on the screen. They're not doing a good job.

This was already discussed here:

Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

So this only played Dire Straits and Bob Dylan?

Whoops, and I see Eyeball Kicks already mentioned that.

(xpost)

Neil Young is involved in this, it's aimed at his fans.

March 10, 2014 - (Burbank, CA.) - PonoMusic is a revolutionary movement conceived and founded by Neil Young. Our mission is to bring the highest-quality digital music to discerning, passionate consumers, who wish to experience music the way the artists intended, with emotion, detail and power intact. "It's about the music, real music. We want to move digital music into the 21st century and PonoMusic does exactly that. We couldn't be more excited about bringing PonoMusic to the market," said Neil Young, founder and chairman of PonoMusic.

PonoMusic and Ayre have collaborated their ideas to achieve their goal -- to make the power and majesty of music available to everybody. "We are absolutely thrilled to be a part of this project. We will always be grateful to Neil Young for changing the landscape of recorded music," said Charlie Hansen, CEO of Ayre Acoustics (www.ayre.com).

there's pretty much no way Neil Young has very good ears is the thing, he has been playing music real loud for decades

this thing would have a much better chance of succeeding if it didn't have such a stupid name

i don't want to go back to having to carry both a phone and a player in my pocket at the same time. especially if it looks a bit like a car battery

In Shakey he admitted to having sustained permanent hearing damage in 1991.

xxp

Poned!

Hey, does anybody remember CODE, the audio standard T-Bone Burnett (and iirc Neil) were pushing 5-6 years ago? Also: how weird is it that it's not Daft Punk/James Murphy types, but old dudes basically committed solely to recording 4-5 guys sawing it out live in a room that are pushing for new standards.

would make more sense if he was trying to market a portable player with "the warmth of vinyl" or something

We'll all be harking back to the 'cold clinicality' of 128kbps MP3 in a few years.

128kpbs MP3s are the lathe-cut 10"s of the future

artisanally compressed ringtones

I only listen to the original master tape in the mastering studio with the mastering engineer while the final master is being cut. Any other listening experience is fundamentally insulting to the very idea of sound itself.

there's pretty much no way Neil Young has very good ears is the thing, he has been playing music real loud for decades

The killer app aspect of the PONO player will no doubt be a volume dial that goes up to 20. You know, to make it louder.

For enough money, maybe you can convince Neil Young to come to your house and listen to your music for you, and better than you, too.

i keep on thinking this thread is about POCO

POCO ON PONO

a man can dream

BONO, ENO, AND YOKO ONO DO GOING LOCO DOWN IN ACAPULCO ON PONO

i think ppl might be a little harsh on this, from the comments in the original computeraudiophile article:

Anyone know of another portable music player with the same features for $399? I don't think the Astel and Kern has these features and it's more money?

Quote Originally Posted by The Computer Audiophile View Post
More info about Ayre's contribution to the PonoPlayer.

1) Ayre's custom designed and implemented digital filter. It is minimum phase, with no unnatural (digital sounding) pre-ringing. All sounds made always have reflections and/or echoes after the initial sound. There is no sound in nature that has any echo or reflection before the sound, which is what conventional linear-phase digital filters do. This is one reason that digital sound has a reputation for sounding "unnatural".

2) All circuitry is zero-feedback. Feedback can only correct an error after it has occurred, which means that it can never correct for all errors. By using proprietary ultra linear circuitry with wide bandwidth and low output impedance, there is no need for unnatural sounding feedback.

3) The DAC chip used is the ESS ES9018, widely recognized in the audio and engineering community as the best sounding DAC chip available today.

4) The output buffer used to drive the headphones is fully discrete so that all individual parameters and circuit values and parts quality can be fully optimized for the absolute finest sound quality. The output impedance is very low so that the Pono Player will deliver perfectly flat frequency response to any headphone made.

so basically it's a really nice digital music player with high quality components at apparently a lower price than competitive players....

i know ILX kind of hates the idea that anything can sound better than anything else, but i've recently invested in a very relatively cheap DAC for my computer/headphones and it's fucking really great in comparison to plugging into the mac headphone jack

I only listen to the original master tape in the mastering studio with the mastering engineer while the final master is being cut. Any other listening experience is fundamentally insulting to the very idea of sound itself.

the thing is, you're joking, but if you listen to the mastered final edits of a record from the tape in a mastering studio, you know for a fact that everything else is not as good & that you're hearing what you're trying to make the one and only time it's going to sound as good as it should

also please spill which DAC did you get for your laptop? if the 30 dollar one is a viable option I'm gettin' it

i got this one (129)
http://www.amazon.com/Nuforce-ICON-UDAC2-BLACK-Headphone-Amplifier-USB/dp/B003Y5FRNS

but now that they've dropped the price and also apparently improved it i'd probably get the Dragonfly if i had it to do over....it's been great but i've had a few overheating issues which kind of annoys me

http://www.amazon.com/AUDIOQUEST-DRAGONFLY-V1-2-USB-DAC/dp/B00H00VLZQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1394556451&sr=1-1&keywords=dragonfly+dac

or the old model is now 99

http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-DragonFly-Digital-Converter-Version/dp/B00882U782/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1394556462&sr=1-2&keywords=dragonfly+dac

did quite a bit of research and these kept coming up

I got a Fiio E17 headphone amp just before Xmas and, yeah, it's definitely better than plugging into the headphone jack.

yeah that was another on my list, you like it alot?

xxp thanks UMS, those look very interesting

Sorry for the silly question, but what's a DAC for and why is it good and should I invest in one?

NuForce uDAC2 rec warmly seconded

Xxxp Yeah, I think it's great. It's not a revelatory difference in sound quality but it's definitely an improvement. Different enough to encourage me to get a new set of headphones a short while later (AKG K550) and together music sounds better than it ever has on my laptop.

the thing is, you're joking, but if you listen to the mastered final edits of a record from the tape in a mastering studio, you know for a fact that everything else is not as good & that you're hearing what you're trying to make the one and only time it's going to sound as good as it should

― (or if you must, "data") (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, March 11, 2014 12:42 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was joking, sure, and I've been on a few mastering sessions, so I definitely know what you mean. But the language used for things like Pono and other Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil can sometimes come across as accusatory and borderline insulting, like, "You like CDs?! You don't even know what music is, idiot!"

Pono makes no sense at the math level

https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

love that quote in the footnotes: "The Sampling Theorem hasn't been invented to explain how digital audio works, it's the other way around. Digital Audio was invented from the theorem, if you don't believe the theorem then you can't believe in digital audio either!"

the thing that sucks about the audiophile industry and that rhetoric is that it's created this impression that it's all this crazy, ridiculous multi-thousand dollar thing that's not attainable for regular folks when the reality is the opposite! we're in a golden age of affordable great sound equipment....

for a few hundred you could get some great self-powered speakers by a quality manufacturer and an entry level DAC that would knock your socks off! heck for, around 1000 or 1200 you could outfit a great turntable, amp, and speakers! it's really never been easier or cheaper than it is right now and the difference might surprise you...

hell, i'm listening to $30 Monoprice headphones right now at work that would destroy expensive ones from the 80s or 90s...it's insane!

for the price of one of those sets of shithole Beats by Dr. Dre headphones you could have the first-gen Dragonfly DAC or nuForce DAC AND these Monoprice headphones and everything would sound so much better

otm

I bought one of those new NAD D3020, which has a built-in DAC as well as digital-friendly connections (the combo being relatively rare for an amp), suiting my setup, and man, it sounds great.

he said NAD

If I had two of them ...

Two NADs and a PONO.

..make a PORNO?

subway she is a pono

upper mississipi sh@kedown killin it itt, preach!!

dog latin:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital-to-analog_converter

So he's fixing to deliver the SXSW keynote, supposedly RIGHT NOW--but he's still having a Q&A about guess what http://sxsw.com/live Rebroadcasted: 7pm CDT Wednesday & 7am CDT Thursday

keyPONOte

that's just what it turned out to be--if you take out the "key" and "te."

UMS, I would like a headphone amp (to mediate between my 160gb iPod and my koss or grado phones) that gives me better EQ control than the lame non customizable EQ settings in the iPod firmware. Like, some little thing with 6 or more bands of eq that's not too huge to walk around with. Any advice?

That is something I haven't looked into
But a portable mp3 player with a HQ headphone amp?
Have you considered... Pono?

Made its Kickstarter goal of $800,000 already apparently

http://t.co/9XSAJrLZly

phew!

PonoMusic is supported by all major labels and their growing catalogues of high quality digital music. The music industry is excited about making the amazing music they’ve curated conveniently available to music lovers everywhere in its highest available quality.

The record companies set their own digital music prices, label by label. High-resolution digital albums at Ponomusic.com are expected to cost between $14.99 -$24.99

Uh, yeah, this is a revolution with legs.

Pornomusic more like, right? Right?

"We can't wait to sell you the albums you've already bought on vinyl, on CD, on deluxe CD remaster, and on deluxe 180g vinyl remaster yet again." *cue Rumours

this reminds me of when 30-dollar gold-plated cds were a thing

Finally, some high resolution digital files. I'm surprised they're charging as low as $24.99! Music this good that sounds this good should really be a lot more, like, maybe $100 an album? That way the artist finally gets paid, and the record label can finally recoup and put all that money into signing, developing and promoting new acts.

Someone needs to show Neil an iPhone and how it can play mp3s and tell him almost everyone on the planet has one. Cos apparently he has no idea.

I want a phone that makes calls in perfect digital fidelity.

"Your mom has never sounded better!"

"Your mum rang. She's hideous".

Like when TV went to HD and all the actors had to pancake on the make-up to look presentable, yet garish at the same time. My HD phone will require apps and other devices to make you sound good, what with everyone hearing every dB of your spit moving around in your mouth.

I need a music player that doesn't fit comfortably in my pocket. Can anyone help?

plz contribute to the kickstarter for my PonoProtecto carrying case, suggested retail price $199

man you guys are otm about everything except the device. it looks kinda cool and slightly bulky would be a plus for me in a device at this point. when I'm digging in my backpack for my iPod or phone it goes hiding everywhere. behind books, in pockets, wherever. I wish it stuck out a little more. would buy an iPod shaped like a PONO that played all my files. not buying a bunch of higher-res files for a Pono though wtf seriously I've bought these records enough times

my little pono: HQ is magic

just in case anybody needed a headline for a positive review of this thing

do we know that it won't play conventional MP3s? i'd hope it was compatible with all file types, like AAC, FLAG, ogg etc...hope it's not all like weird SultansOfSwing(Live).pono files

it might play them but i guarantee you it wont like em

so will the desktop app at least be able to rip CDs into whatever new format they're pushing?

lol you still listen to CDs?

and their cold, digital LIES?

It will play at least FLAC, ALAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, and AAC (the default/preferred format being FLAC), and I'm not sure if this made it into the final design, but there was also supposed to be a "degrade" feature so you could instantly hear what your high quality file would have sounded like if it was a lowly MP3.

the high-res FLACs they're going to be selling are better than CD quality so there would be no point in ripping your own

xpost -- Boy talk about some smugass bullshit if so.

Yeah, I have a feeling that feature didn't make it to the final design, but Neil talked about it in his book.

I want to hear the full richness of knopfler screaming "Ha!" @ 3:12 into "In the Gallery" on my InTheGallerlol.pono file

lol I love the idea of a "degrade" feature. then we could have people saying "I happen to prefer the degraded version" and doing EMP presentations about it

if possible, I'd also like to have ringtones. i don't need pono to be a phone, but if it could function as a Dream Phone, where I can answer "calls" and hear a prerecorded message from Neil Young saying, "He looks cool...in whatever he wears"

http://badnrad.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/do-you-look-cool-in-whatever-you-wear-e2-80-a6-c2-a0-c2-a0too-cool-is-your.jpg

the delightful frolicsome flutter to the cymbal decay you can only get from 64kbs streaming

xpost

They definitely completely buried the lede in the rhetoric. I'm not really sure I get any of the logic in this. Sell high end circuitry at an affordable price to people by making them feel bad? That's a tried and true marketing strategy, right?

Yeah, I have a feeling that feature didn't make it to the final design, but Neil talked about it in his book.

― cwkiii, Wednesday, March 12, 2014 12:10 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbh neil talks about a lot of stuff

So, this has now blown Amanda Palmer's Kickstarter total out of the water. Thanks Neil.

did she try to find an audio player that made everything sound like a shellac 78 played on a victrola or something?

*fund

http://gizmodo.com/what-is-high-resolution-audio-1252637824/1541582373/+marioaguilar

^ comments section is predictable "I can hear the difference!" "No you can't!" but the author has the last laugh:

Your weeping is not science.

"heck for, around 1000 or 1200 you could outfit a great turntable, amp, and speakers!"
Could you make do with half that?

I think UMS has convinced me I should get a DAC for my MacBook. Is Dragonfly the best balanced DAC in the $100-150 range or is there a better one? Dragonfly doesn't inflate the bass too much, right?

"heck for, around 1000 or 1200 you could outfit a great turntable, amp, and speakers!"
Could you make do with half that?

― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, March 12, 2014 1:51 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sure!

clearance pro-ject - $299

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-7622-pro-ject-debut-iii-matte-black-turntable.aspx

andrew jones pioneer bookshelf speakers - $129

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Home/Speakers/Home+Theater+Speakers/SP-BS22-LR

(review:http://www.stereophile.com/content/pioneer-sp-bs22-lr-loudspeaker-page-2)

It's impressive when a talented speaker designer such as Andrew Jones takes time off from designing $80,000/pair speakers to come up with a quality speaker costing less than $200/pair. It's even more impressive when he takes the time to revise and refine such an inexpensive design. Jones's SP-BS22-LR is a stunning achievement at $159.99/pair. Its sound is balanced, neutral, and involving, with no significant shortcomings. I'm scratching my head at how Pioneer can produce this level of quality at this price. Every audiophile—even well-heeled investment bankers—should listen to the Pioneer SP-BS22-LR, to hear what's possible for the fiscally challenged music lover.

Marantz PM6004 integrated amp (demo on clearance) - $369

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-120522-marantz-pm6004-integrated-amp-demo.aspx

What Hi FI? review (2011 product of the year):

http://www.whathifi.com/review/marantz-pm6004

Total: $797

killer system!

so close to half...

honestly if you want to save...go on Craigslist and I'm sure you could find an older NAD amp/receiver with a phono in for $200

though I'd probably buy 2 Ponos instead if i were you

Marantz PM6004 integrated amp (demo on clearance) - $369

I have the PM5004 (same as above with fewer watts per channel) and it rules. So unbelievably happy with it.

just want to post this here because i find this stuff interesting and the author, tom fine, who runs a well-regarded preservation audio company and knows just ridiculous amounts of stuff on this topic, is amazing. originally posted to a mailing list, i hope he doesn't mind the repost. it was in a thread about the loudness wars and "toothpasting" (so named because the dynamic range compression makes the waveform look like a squeeze of toothpaste). anyway i think it does a little to demonstrate that there aren't any hard-and-fast rules with audio, that it's completely dependent on context all the way from recording to playback, that bad audio is more a result of gaps or lack of understanding of the context of production/reproduction than of inherently "bad" or "good" digital or analog media.

Compression of dynamic range, especially for rock and pop music, is not necessarily bad. In the case of "Graceland," the new reissue DOES sound better than the thin and tinny original CD, to my ears. I could hear it was more compressed, but I like the nice low end and the more natural-sounding voices. Another example where the latest reissue is probably a bit more compressed than the original LP and CD, but sounds better, is Fleetwood Mac "Rumours." Much more solid bass and the EQ decisions of the latest remastering engineer especially brought out the details of the guitar and smaller percussion instruments, without at all damaging the good-sounding voices.

The problem with toothpasting is that it causes clipping distortion from the digital realm into the analog realm.

I was just talking to one of the best mastering guys yesterday, and we did some careful listening in his excellent-sounding room (you gotta love a setup where you can do careful listening for half a day and not leave with your ears ringing). The problem with many CDs, up into the 90s, is that A-D converters had problems with phase and high treble. You get something akin to digi-swishies with high-treble information. You notice it in the worse cases with things like ride cymbols, triangles and sleigh bells, but it's always there on the "air and space," which gives that "metallic sheen" that people don't like about CDs. I think the problem was made worse by aggressive and ill-used "hiss reduction" DSP on analog tapes. Tape hiss is much more easily ignored than the strange high-frequency stuff that happens when you try too hard to remove it. The other thing we noticed about many early CDs is lack of bass. We couldn't figure that out, it shouldn't be a problem, but it is. We decided that there might have been under-spec'd power supplies in many early A-D converters, so the analog stage going into the converter couldn't handle a lot of bass energy. The best examples of LP cutting still stand up very favorably to CD, and some of the modern LP cutting bests earlier CD reissues of the same material. When you get into higher-resolution digital, you can (if it's done right) get beyond the high-frequency problems of CDs and most converters of any type today seem to handle bass better, my theory being that people convert and record at lower average levels at 24-bit, so the analog input is not strained with loud bass energy. Back when they were cutting CDs directly from tapes, you had to go full-final levels into the converter, which meant the analog input stage needed to be capable of +24dBm dynamics. Tape machine and console designers had spent the 70s and 80s figuring out how to get clean, loud bass energy and I think it took many digital interface designers some time to catch up, with the end compromise being essentially padding down the input and working in 24 bits (which is desireable anyway in the DAW world because you need headroom for digital EQ, dynamics and other signal processing).

-- Tom Fine

I have these hand-me-downs, or something very similar. Do these stack up against modern marantz?
http://vintagemarantz.net/vintage-marantz-2250b-receiver-marantz-6200-turntable-instant-collection/

I've heard that even with great equipment, the vast majority of people cannot tell the difference between a well-encoded MP3 and a lossless wave file. I've done some side-by-sides and while 128kbps's do indeed sound like garbage once you hit like 192 I really don't see much point in going higher. Can anyone here in all honesty tell the difference?

it depends on the recording. 320 "mastered for itunes" can sound great but it can slaughter other things that were/are not meant for mp3.

lol, baaaaaaad look, Neil.

Taking the microphone, a young man asked: “What’s your cut?” — referring, of course, to Apple’s now-famous 30% cut of sales on the iTunes Store.

Hamm, after a flustered moment, responded that, “It surprises most people that everyone who buys music from the record labels pays exactly the same amount.” At this, several audience members shouted, “What?!”

“That’s a delicate question, isn’t it?” asked Young.

Shortly thereafter, Hamm turned to the moderator, slightly flushed at this point, and said “We can end it.”

“You can answer the question if you like,” Snider said.

Hamm shook his head slightly before Snider closed the discussion.

Pono makes no sense at the math level

https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Did anyone read this piece that onlydarkness linked to? Don't think I understood some parts. It links to test samples with 30kHz/26kHz and other tones. The author says:

Assuming your system is actually capable of full 96kHz playback, the above files should be completely silent with no audible noises, tones, whistles, clicks, or other sounds. If you hear anything, your system has a nonlinearity causing audible intermodulation of the ultrasonics.

Is the point here that you're supposed to get silence - meaning this kind of detail is useless - or that most people can hear something, showing that few systems are up to it and will introduce distortion? Because listening on an iMac - which I think is capable of 96kHz playback - I can easily hear things going on and I definitely don't have good ears.

audiophilia sure does take the fun out of music doesn't it?

i doubt my crackly old Charlie Parker albums will sound any better in 192/24 and neither do I think Kid A or Immer or Reign in Blood or SHaking The Habitual or any album made before or after this date will sound better in that quality, because I am a human being with ears and a song is a song and a guitar sounds like a guitar. What I mean is that for a start you'd have to be recording in that level of quality, and even if you manage to do that, what are you going to be picking up? A bit of extra hiss from a mic? Sympathetic reverb from a snare? A background cough? IT's like wishing that my acoustic guitar at home sounded "better". I could buy a more expensive guitar, but would it sound more real? Would it make a lick of difference?

(xpost to budget hifi discussion)

i've been reading about a killer turntable that clocks in at $179.
http://www.analogplanet.com/content/u-turn%E2%80%99s-remarkable-179-orbit-turntable-crosley-killer

I take people's word for it that it's junk science but in the same way organic/pasture-raised food is likely of dubious benefit in certain contexts, I think people who still use it exercise a greater care with most steps until the final product, and likewise something created in that chain of higher resolution audio would probably sound different/better, regardless of whether the extra bits of fidelity were necessary.

I could buy a more expensive guitar, but would it sound more real? Would it make a lick of difference?

yes

a better guitar would sound better, but it won't sound any more like a guitar.

I'm just curious where the market is for $20+ digital albums

When I want to demo my highest of hi-fi set ups, I always reach for Neil Young first. Then Steely Dan. But always Neil first, because those albums are like reference quality fidelity.

almost believed you there

Time Fades Away was recorded directly from the soundboard to 16-track using the Quad-8 CompuMix, the unreliable first digital mixing soundboard—against the wishes of producer David Briggs, who referred to it as the "Compufuck" but was forced to yield to the desires of Young. This resulted in a murky-sounding release.

Murky, maybe, but perfectly murky in PONO.

Note: this vinyl rip is in HD (!), but don't tell Neil:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLv2VviaLX4

I'm just curious where the market is for $20+ digital albums

The big fish that are also the market for F2P games?

play Buffalo Springfield for awhile before every listen to heighten your enjoyment of what comes after

relationship problems? call coked-up Stills and chat for 15 minutes. your relationship is now enhanced.

Prince and Neil Young should collaborate on an instantly outmoded music distribution model.

Harvest is a great sounding record

while 128kbps's do indeed sound like garbage once you hit like 192 I really don't see much point in going higher. Can anyone here in all honesty tell the difference?

Yep, absolutely. I don't know whether that's because I've got better ears than you, or better playback equipment. Where I start to hit my limits is in the comparison between 320 kpbs and lossless files. While I can hear a difference, it's barely discernable.

192 is it for me.

I can only tell the difference once I start playing out on larger pa systems. A portable player? Nah, any detail gets drowned out by the train carriage.

I think better playback equipment makes the difference here, although sometimes that difference might just be due to poor (non-LAME) encoding for the MP3s.

Josh are you claiming that Harvest or Gold Rush or Harvest Moon or most of Neil's records are lo fi?

haha look out

This idea that better sound equipment does not sound clearly and radically and obviously better than shitty equipment or that you need some sort of super human ears to tell the difference is ridiculous

Like listen to a good system you'll be like dag bro those tunes sound off the chain

i mean people take it too far and get crazy for sure, there's diminishing returns at a certain level with anything...like with bit rate there's the difference between 128k and 320k...and there's improvement after that but the difference between 320 and WAV won't be as apparent as the difference between 128 and 320

same with the very nice, affordable system i put together for 700 upthread...HUGE difference between that and plugging your ipod into some shitty Bose sound dock...but go from like a $1500 system to a $50,000 one and yeah it'll be better for sure but the rate of improvement's going to flatten out...

same with a a guitar....like the difference between a laminate p.o.s. $150 acoustic and a nice all wood $1000 guitar is huge....from the $1000 one to some luthier made handcrafted one of a kind $4500 guitar....well, it's perception more at that point....

but that doesn't mean that there aren't very reasonable and apparent degrees of distinction especially going from shitty stuff to good solid quality yet affordable stuff

and it's not like "oh i hear this new esoteric high end sounds" it's like i NOTICE things in songs i never heard before. like i was listening to court & spark by joni for the first time on vinyl and i noticed like little shakers and percussion things i'd never noticed before

harvest moon doesn't sound too great to me

I dunno about guitars -- would you prefer to hear your favorite artist live on a crap guitar or on a pono with the best guitar?

UMS relentlessly OTM here imo

Harvest Moon -- like This Note's For You, Freedom, Ragged Glory, and Arc/Weld -- was recorded digitally.

It only took Neil five years, and five albums, to realize he didn't like the sound of digital recording.

xxp

man forget sound quality, who's got the hard drive space for flacs

the reverb on harvest moon bothers me.

can pono give me dry gold rush sound on harvest moon? would buy.

Josh are you claiming that Harvest or Gold Rush or Harvest Moon or most of Neil's records are lo fi?

Nah, Harvest sounds great. Gold Rush is hit or miss sonically, imo. Most of his records are pretty hit or miss, sonically, or even outright uneven, recording quality-wise, imo, but it doesn't matter. Same with Dylan. Like, am I listening for every ghosted snare on "Ragged Glory?" The perfect fidelity of the wrong bass notes hit throughout "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere?" Neil's not about hi-fi overdubs and perfect clarity, and the notion of Neil Young in hi-fi to me is like bringing a top of the line digital recorder to capture Crazy Horse live: you're going to get all that distortion, all those flubbed notes, all those vocals shouted anywhere but into the mic, in glorious pristine quality? Please. That's not what it's about.

Which brings it all back to the ridiculousness of an old guy who surely must have some serious degree of hearing loss and who definitely has a weakness for novelty recording methods and who historically prefers to capture his recordings live, with minimal takes/overdubs, pushing some weird proprietary device/format in 2014. Suckers who shell for this are just as silly as anyone who bought Archives on Blu-Ray and are still waiting around for more downloads.

the notion of Neil Young in hi-fi to me is like bringing a top of the line digital recorder to capture Crazy Horse live: you're going to get all that distortion, all those flubbed notes, all those vocals shouted anywhere but into the mic, in glorious pristine quality? Please. That's not what it's about.

i wholeheartedly disagree with this

man forget sound quality, who's got the hard drive space for flacs

― j., Wednesday, March 12, 2014 3:08 PM (17 minutes ago)

you gotta be kidding me, storage is cheaper than ever

I have like 6,000 FLAC albums on a 3 TB drive with room to spare and many more thousands of MP3 albums that I never listen to any more, the drive cost me $125

hey i'm straight up wondering how many vegetables i can afford to buy this week to sustain my existence, sounds like it would be sweet to be rolling in terabytes like the one-percenters tho, instead playing delete-another-album on my aging 230 gig factory drive, cheaper than ever my ass

pomme de terre-a-bytes

I wonder if I could tempt anyone here to invest in my new portable audio device which I'm going to be calling POTATO

http://i.imgur.com/iYKBTI9.png

I make a point of converting all my downloaded Crazy Horse boots from FLAC to 128 MP3, then manually shaking the hard drive until I start to get all that cool clipping and stuff. Then I blast the boot through headphones, via a DAC, stick little mics in the headphones, then record that in lossless. Then I pay to have them pressed to 45 RPM vinyl, which I play exclusively on a portable Mickey Mouse turntable that I listen to only in a moving electric car.

Hey Josh could you post some more sarcastic straw man bullshit in this thread? You haven't referenced 5.1, Super audio CD, reel to reel, or 8 track yet

My new album's going to be available on 64Kbps MP3 exclusively.

You know, I actually really liked 5.1! I'm not kidding. I had a few 5.1 DVDs - I want to say DM's "Violator," plus some Genesis, and I really enjoyed those. It forced me to hear stuff I'd never heard before. Even T. Rex's "Electric Warrior" sounded good in 5.1. Tony Visconti told me once that when he was mixing the T. Rex for surround, he realized that for all these decades most people have been playing the wrong chords in "Bang a Gong." Someone once told me that they thought stereo is no more "real" than "surround," because they're all studio constructs approximated/reduced from the more infinite sonic scope of the band/instrument live in a room.

more infinite sonic scope

audiophile set theory

i mean people take it too far and get crazy for sure, there's diminishing returns at a certain level with anything...like with bit rate there's the difference between 128k and 320k...and there's improvement after that but the difference between 320 and WAV won't be as apparent as the difference between 128 and 320

yeah that's pretty much it for me, though even on a good system it's hard to tell between -v0 rips and the WAVs. 192 flat rate does still have artifacts here and there.

yo j no offense intended, I used to have to burn everything to DVD cuz I had no HD space

I agree w Josh in Chicago's point about Neil being lo-fi. I'm not saying "Neil Young is lo-fi and you are an idiot if you don't think so" but this is the way I just kind of picture him, through my own experience, first hearing his big albums as scratchy second-hand vinyls (thanks, mom and dad!) then later seeing Journey Through the Past as a badly encoded WMV file of a nth-generation VHS rip, then later hearing "On the Beach" b/w "RE-AC-TOR" from a tape dub I found at a thrift store. "On the Beach" in particular is stark and plainly produced.

Also I will never not roll my eyes whenever a product is introduced that promises to "put music back in the hands of musicians".

It will play at least FLAC, ALAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, and AAC (the default/preferred format being FLAC), and I'm not sure if this made it into the final design, but there was also supposed to be a "degrade" feature so you could instantly hear what your high quality file would have sounded like if it was a lowly MP3.

― cwkiii, Wednesday, March 12, 2014 12:52 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Boy talk about some smugass bullshit if so.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, March 12, 2014 1:02 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'Degrade' feature in working prototype axed after focus-group testers found they couldn't hear any difference between a well-ripped 192kbps MP3 and a FLAC, and then questioned why they should buy an expensive, awkwardly-shaped music player with no ecosystem.

why do people get so butthurt about sound quality. oh yeah, derrrrrrp

sleeve do you listen directly from that drive or mount it to your laptop or?? we got a couple of drives to clear space and the music that went to those drives will basically never be heard again, it was this experience that put me back onto good old hard copies again. that's got its own it's-been-moved-to-the-back-of-the-closet problem but nothing near as final as "it was moved to a hard drive which, if you like, you can mount in order to stream it to the living room stereo"

and it's not like "oh i hear this new esoteric high end sounds" it's like i NOTICE things in songs i never heard before. like i was listening to court & spark by joni for the first time on vinyl and i noticed like little shakers and percussion things i'd never noticed before

in the late 80s I did not have enough money for anything more than a boombox so I bought my music on tape. (this turned out to be a real blessing for me, as that tape deck ended up meaning a great deal to my life.) the Nice Price copy of Blue I owned then was my rock & my stronghold and changed me as a person. about twenty years later, I bought Blue on CD and played it through my OK speakers. I heard SO MANY THINGS I didn't even know had been there during all those years of Blue being my favorite record

I just have it connected to the laptop & permanently mounted - basically I never shut the thing down or eject it. I play directly off it.

I have had the effect you describe with all the MP3 stuff from Mutantsounds or whatever that I DL'd 5-10 years ago, I hardly ever listen to it. But it's like a 50/50 chance whether I will pull a CD from the shelf that is right there, or play it off the HD. If it's a record I have ripped, I play the digital probably 85% of the time, why wear the record/needle out for one more hour?

BONO, ENO, AND YOKO ONO DO GOING LOCO DOWN IN ACAPULCO ON PONO

― bizarro gazzara, Tuesday, March 11, 2014 12:17 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well there was once (twice, actually!) a U2 Special Edition iPod with Bono and company's signatures on the back, so we can hold out hope for a Bono Pono....

http://www.everymac.com/images/cpu_pictures/apple_ipod_u2_5g.jpg

how did I miss that bizarro post, lol

I agree w Josh in Chicago's point about Neil being lo-fi. I'm not saying "Neil Young is lo-fi and you are an idiot if you don't think so" but this is the way I just kind of picture him, through my own experience, first hearing his big albums as scratchy second-hand vinyls (thanks, mom and dad!) then later seeing Journey Through the Past as a badly encoded WMV file of a nth-generation VHS rip, then later hearing "On the Beach" b/w "RE-AC-TOR" from a tape dub I found at a thrift store. "On the Beach" in particular is stark and plainly produced.

stark production has nothing to do with fidelity - lo-fi doesn't mean fewer overdubs, sloppier performances, less attention to detail. lo-fi means "the sound is unfaithful to its source." neil young's records have been decently recorded (sometimes masterfully recorded) documents of performances that largely went down in a studio. he's not a no-overdubs guy afaik but he's a "try to get a performance rather than comping takes" guy. but that has nothing to do with sound fidelity. his records actually sound so distinct and so unlike other people's records that it's fair to say he's very very into getting a particular sound and that the one he wants varies according to the material and the spirit of the sessions.

but the idea that neil young's take is "good recording, crappy recording, who gives a shit" is not borne out by the records themselves imo

The thing that's weird to me is that.. like look at the iPhone in your pocket, or your HDTV or video games now compared to 20 or 10 years ago and be so skeptical that there couldn't have been big improvements in digital audio

Backing up mp3s to DVD-R (back when external drives were not so cheap) was something I came to regret deeply. A bunch of those fuckers became unreadable on me.

"the sound is unfaithful to its source."

^This is basically all recorded music ever

xp yep, Milton and I bitched abt that on the Data Migration thread I think?

can't really compare to visual media; there was no broad consumer interest in improved audio quality like there was for the jump from SD to HD

so many people are/were content listening to music over the shitty packaged earbuds or bass juicing headphones like Beats; if that's what you're using, 128kbps is a good enough facsimile of CD quality

re: videogames, at least with shooters, there's an argument that the current experience is degraded compared to the tubey past because of the lag in video. tubes again.

I agree re: Neil recording strategy. The guy knows what he wants and gets it. Just saying' it's less to do with fussing and more to do with feel.

http://www.nme.com/news/neil-young/76018

Young said: "I'm a fan of listening loud – I love to listen loud… I like to take whatever it is to the limit." He stated that this was not possible with MP3 and said the music industry also began to slump after its introduction. "Everything started to die – it was because of the MP3 and the cheapening of the quality to where it was practically unrecognisable," he commented, lamenting albums which were perceived to have been made with 'filler' tracks. "The album had no value – only the individual tracks had value," he stated.

He added: "As a guy who'd been making records for many years at that point, I was pissed off – I love every note, on every song, on every record…. They weren't just filler." He then said that the sound of MP3 was 'shit': "We were selling shit, but people were still buying it because they like music (but) they were buying Xeroxes of the Mona Lisa."

Young went on to explain that music adapted to the constraints of MP3. "Instead of being soulful – which it still is – music adapted, it became beat heavy, it became smart, it became tricky. But for me, it was like 'woah, I don't want to do that!'... I started thinking it might be a good idea to do something about it".

He then showed a short film, which saw a host of music world stars commenting on Pono, after listening to the player, including Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Patti Smith, Mumford and Sons, Dave Grohl, Elvis Costello, Mike D of the Beastie Boys and Jack White. Click below to watch the video. "This gives it to you as good as you can get it," says Tom Petty, whilst Springsteen comments that it has "a closeness and intimacy that digital recordings can lose very quickly." Elton John says: "I haven't heard a sound like that since vinyl".

if this is everything it puports to be, I'd def be interested in doing a little ponoing

the problem is that everyone wants to shout over each other to have their format be the ONLY format. i listen to stuff on tape, CD, MP3, vinyl, spotify... people need to start being ok with the idea that every format has its benefits and limits.

i think the biggest YOU DUN GOOFED of this whole endeavor is this idea that it's gonna revolutionize music and blah de blah and be the new way we hear things. Really they should release like maybe 500 albums a year in Pono and make it a luxury item for serious nerds, because there's not fucking way this or anything is gonna start eating iTunes' lunch any time this decade

*no fucking way

I can't listen to flacs anymore I just sing in my shower

old man.shower

flac post

Like if it was some cloud where you could forever download your mysterious ponos to your pono player, then again, legs. But FILES just mean people will rip them like MP3s and then nerd hoarders will start their "i only listen to music on pono, i have blah blah terrabiytes of pono" and it will be dumb and boring real fast

He should release Archives II as a PONO-player exclusive, to prime the pump.

think i'll pack it in and buy a Pono

lol "mysterious ponos"

this thing is for dads

I don't see how in 10 years we won't look at FLAC files and think they sound like crap compared to holographic 3d printer music pyramids.

That would be cool if they just started releasing the master tracks, so you can mix your own "Tonight's the Night" in Garageband.

promises to "put music back in the hands of musicians".
The real promise - and you don't have to read too hard between the lines on the PONO website to get this - is it's trying to put the dollars back in the hands of the record companies. I'm not a record company hater (altho I have a lot of respect for DIY and, like, basically samizdat production and distro) or a "the internetz puts indie musicians on a level playing field with U2, isn't it awesome" guy, but this just seems like a blatant grab, another last gasp.

The thing that's weird to me is that.. like look at the iPhone in your pocket, or your HDTV or video games now compared to 20 or 10 years ago and be so skeptical that there couldn't have been big improvements in digital audio

But digital was that improvement. It just happened with audio first because audio is easier and takes less cpu power and memory than video or interactive realtime 3D rendering on a videogame. Actually text was first (remember dedicated "word processor" machines?), then graphics (desktop publishing revolution), digital audio, then digital video. 16/44 really is good enough and there's nowhere else to go except for more dynamic range (unnecessary for a final delivery format since the vast majority of recordings don't even use a fraction of what's available at 16 bit) or encoding higher frequencies that nobody can actually hear.

I mean we already had 24/96 audio available as a consumer format 15 years ago with DVD-Audio and SACD, but nobody cared because nobody could hear the difference.

Hey, where's Tyler?

the problem is that everyone wants to shout over each other to have their format be the ONLY format. i listen to stuff on tape, CD, MP3, vinyl, spotify... people need to start being ok with the idea that every format has its benefits and limits.

I love this post

i just press my ear against the wall and listen to whatever my neighbors are listening to, i'm not sure what format they use

saving up to buy a glass, i hear it really adds definition to the sound

Hey, where's Tyler?
just hanging out, listening to time fades away on vinyl. so scratchy! i dunno, i believe that there is some truth to the pono stuff (or at least the idea that digital media can be better), i just dread the idea of purchasing a bunch of catalog stuff for the nth time. i thought that the last round of neil reissues on CD sounded amazing. would be great if he'd just get on with the rest of them.

i just dread the idea of purchasing a bunch of catalog stuff for the nth time

Rather. In my case after all these years I'm pretty sure I've bought the vast majority of what I have just once, a much smaller amount twice (vinyl to CD, rerelease with a slew of bonus tracks, etc.). I intend to keep it that way.

i just dread the idea of purchasing a bunch of catalog stuff for the nth time.

I think this is key, and it's essentially what the industry has been chasing since the mid-90s. CDs were such an insane boon for the industry -- "holy shit, everyone's buying everything a second time!" -- that they keep trying to replicate that formula (usually disingenuously -- "whoops, our bad, we left some bonus tracks off that last reissue; but hey, they're all here on this new box set!")

Wk I'm not taking about bit depth or encoding... I'm talking about DAC and playback

This bit rate shit is a red herring... There's better and cheaper great equipment then there's ever been, it's actually cheaper than shitty Bose stuff people already buy!

i thought that the last round of neil reissues on CD sounded amazing. would be great if he'd just get on with the rest of them.

^^THIS

Like you'd be way better off having good speakers and a good amp/DAC & listening to 320 mp3s than having shitty speakers & listening to lossless files...

think i might spring for one of those DACs, thanks for the recs

This bit rate shit is a red herring... There's better and cheaper great equipment then there's ever been, it's actually cheaper than shitty Bose stuff people already buy!

You mentioned video games and hdtv so I thought you were wondering why there haven't been improvements in the underlying digital technology. But yeah, there's already good enough stuff and people don't buy it because people don't give a shit about sound quality for the most part.

Beats is kind of interesting because even though it's Bose-style marketing bullshit, at least it's a marginal step up from white earbuds, and it gets young people used to paying a good chunk of change for audio gear. I saw an article about how other more legit headphone manufacturers have been seeing a big uptick in sales thanks to Beats because people move on from them and upgrade.

It's kind of weird to me that Pono is focused on mobile, since I think some kind of beautifully designed retro-styled home box could be a better niche.

Maybe there will be some amazing new breakthrough in speaker technology eventually, but it doesn't seem like that area sees the same kind of R&D dollars that stuff like TVs and monitors get. But yeah, I feel like overall the basic digital audio technology, the DACs, and decent amps have all been figured out and it's just a matter of marketing to get people actually interested in buying stuff that's not total garbage.

yeah i'll give Beats (and Skullcandy before that) some credit for at least making big headphones fashionable again; I no longer feel like a nerd walking down the street wearing over-the-ear Sennheisers or Grados anymore. I'm on the fence on the likes of Bowers & Wilkins, which seem to be equally about high-end audio and high-end style; I almost expect to see them sold at Nordstrom or Saks alongide wallets and purses.

alongside

I think this is weather related or something. when I was in Montreal a couple years ago I ONLY saw people wearing over-the-ears. as a cali kid I was shocked but it kinda made sense for when in very cold weather, eh. and it made me think that in my normal warmer climes the last thing I want when enjoying tunes is to be all sweaty in and around my earholes, wot

I don't have much to add here, but I love the upthread description of Beats by Dre headphones as "a shithole".

I'll give PONO this clear advantage over Beats phones: nobody's going to snatch your PONO off you on the train.

PONO needs to have a feature where any .mp3 played at less than 320Kbps is randomly interrupted by ear splitting static.

it'd be like Spotify using adverts to drive the move to premium.

Should have been designed after one of Neil's famous giant amp props.

Would make a cool MP3 player case tbh

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MrmhVasiKAw/UHmn_7rzwFI/AAAAAAAAD0Q/6k6lQrliAo4/s1600/Neil+Young+626.JPG

I think this is weather related or something. when I was in Montreal a couple years ago I ONLY saw people wearing over-the-ears. as a cali kid I was shocked but it kinda made sense for when in very cold weather, eh. and it made me think that in my normal warmer climes the last thing I want when enjoying tunes is to be all sweaty in and around my earholes, wot

― Tom Waits for no one (outdoor_miner), Thursday, March 13, 2014 3:11 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i use my big over-ear monopricers as earmuffs!

Decent piece by Bobby Barry here: http://thequietus.com/articles/14724-neil-young-pono-player-review

My only issue with that piece is the air of vinyl superiority, which is tiresome at best and bullshit at worst. I mean, I acknowledge that vinyl sounds *different* but superior is in the ears of the listener.

"I buy music mostly on vinyl and listen to it on bespoke speakers that dominate my bedsit like twin sarcophagi in an Egyptian tomb."

http://0.tqn.com/d/goparis/1/0/a/D/-/-/colette-hultonarchivegetty-1940.jpg

i think a lot of reactions to the ponoplayers form factor are misinterpreting its portability. based on the way the player sits horizontally in this image, i feel like its portability is meant for having it sit on your desk at home, grabbing it and throwing it in the car on the way to work, and then setting it down at your desk

it definitely wasn't designed to be a pants pocket player

the other thing you can't tell from that image is that the player is eight feet tall.

Yeah I don't get the impression it's for walking around

Just noticed "Herbie Handcock" in that pic. Jesus Christ who is making these fucking marketing materials?

Is there a porn star called Herbie Handcock? Kinda feels like there should be.

http://thequietus.com/articles/14724-neil-young-pono-player-review

am i missing something or did this person not actually listen to this player? the word "review" a little misleading...

Just reviewing the facts at hand.

Oh dear. Handcock. An illegal rip maybe? Or some PORNO on Neil's PONO?

If I want to hear "Heart of Gold", "Watermelon Man", and "Blowin' in the Wind" through fine speakers, I'll go to Chipotle.

Beatsmania: "Beats Music is meant to be a curated recommendation service first, playlist creator second. The company hired individual curators like Scott Plagenhoef, former editor of the music site Pitchfork, and it also formed partnerships with Target, Rolling Stone magazine, the fitness chain SoulCycle, Thrasher skateboarding magazine and the Academy of Country Music to create, presumably, better lists than you can on your own."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/technology/personaltech/beats-hopes-to-serve-up-new-sounds-in-a-novel-way.html

If fitness chain SoulCycle can create better lists than I can on my own I have failed as a person.

I'm awfully happy with my Sansa Clip that plays regular flacs. It's not high resolution, but it's also $45, and even with the best sound-proof earphones, I question how much a difference extra sound quality is going to make when I'm sitting on the subway. But I'll find out, I suppose...

not too dis the sansa ..
but a few years back when on a trip to chicago, my nokia phone got drowned out due to a session of booze excess.
so as a short term solution i bought a sansa ..
no idea if yours is the same, but damn, the build quality was cheap and nasty and the display was unreadable.
but far worse, the sound quality truly awful in comparison to what i was used to.
within 24 hours i got a refund and decided to wait until i got home and could replace the nokia.

Not sure what yours was. I'd vote for it as best bang-for-buck for music players. Definitely sounds better than iPhone/iPod.

i have to give this to neil young tho, "Herbie Handcock" is hilarious

http://static.techspot.com/images/products/mp3-players/org/sansa-clip-plus-main_932857548_o.jpg

i knew pono was reminding me of something...

https://scontent-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/t1/10007444_720100121363134_2043088432_n.jpg

I remember when my soul rediscovered Super Mario Bros.

http://craphound.com/images/buddhamachine.jpg

lol @ Herbie Handcock, that is a delight.

http://bullmurph.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/herbie2.jpg

I mean, I acknowledge that vinyl sounds *different* but superior is in the ears of the listener.

I don't know, vinyl can be a completely analog reproduction of the sound. As long as you are digitizing music you are going to fall short of this standard, even with FLACs.

Handcock also gives new meaning to Headhunters, Vein Melter.

also Maiden Handjob

once again, ilm delivers

Watermelon Balls

Future Cock

Cock-It

Jizz Africa

Fat Prince Albert Rotunda

sex taint or something or other

hey did you hear that if neil young was the commissioner of the belgian police force, he would probably ban all staff from listening to janes addiction on their ipods?? apparently this rule would ensure that from now on, there would be strictly only pono for poirots

Thrust, featuring "Palm Grease"

Hey Dlp9001 have you seen this baby yet?
Sansa Clip Sport
http://m1.agitomedia.pl/image/700x700/160395ae8849e232d74b2891a9208e1e/odtwarzacze-przenosne/sandisk-mp3-sansa-sport-8gb-niebieski.2012769.2.jpg
Totally agree with your comments about the Sansa clip series, they are all I ever use now.

Brain Dance
Horn ets

fall lyrics?

No one has taken "Herbie Handcock" as their display name, right? Good.

A Tribute To Jackin' Johnson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id0fgoYL6og

wangship journey to macchu picchu

Cantaloupes (if you know what I mean).

Sorry, Cantaloupes Island.

but now that they've dropped the price and also apparently improved it i'd probably get the Dragonfly if i had it to do over....it's been great but i've had a few overheating issues which kind of annoys me

yo I am listening through my newly-bought Dragonfly, I sorted my iTunes by "most played" so I could pick something I'd listened to a million times and fuckin'

dude

THANK YOU for this because it is a fucking revelation, I am going to cry for how much better everything sounds right now - strings, vocals, bass, absolutely everything

:)
Y
Cool glad you like it!

I think Akinyele beat Neil to the punch with "I'ma be like Herbie, and hand you a cock"

"I remember when my soul rediscovered Super Mario Bros."

original gameboy apparently had a sound chip that delivered warmer tones than the revisions.
i do remember the earbuds being the best sounding earbuds ever.

I had no idea! When Gameboy came out it really seemed like a magic box.

yeesh the gameboy audio nuts are not playing around!
http://www.herbertweixelbaum.com/comparison.htm

i wonder what they'd make of the pono

y'all using dragonfly, you listening via headphones or stero system?

^^^yeah, i'm wondering if a dragonfly would be good for my stereo setup

I'm putting it through headphones now - I'll have a chance to put it through the stereo at some point but the living room stereo is largely for vinyl, I don't have a CD player hooked up to it

ordered a Dragonfly also, can't use it until my bday next month though, but I am hyped

best cd player i've ever had. got it for christmas. sounds like a dream.

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081018215715/gtawiki/images/0/0a/PlayStation.png

Yeah the orig PlayStation has a cult following w audiophiles too

is dragonfly portable? I assume no?

super portable, but not "phone amp" portable. It's basically USB stick.

it comes with a tiny leatherette carrying case! I have only tested it on a little classical music, some vocal stuff, but it sounded great there too

oic. no good for my caveman 160gb ipod then. oh well. Someday I'll have a lifestyle that allows me to sit at home listening to music again :/

xpost

there are portable headphone amp/DACs, Jon. I've never owned one but some folks swear by them. I think a friend has Fiio E07K (or it's predecessor) and loves it.

Yeah, the Fiio E17 I have and talked about upthread will work with your iPod, although putting both of the in your pocket at the same time might be a bit awkward.

Dork friend has one in each front pocket and runs the connecting cord through his belt loops.

lol

the curse of skinny jeans. Cargo pants for the win.

since this has now become the default budding audiophile thread, how does Dragonfly compare say with nuforce uDAC (which also acts as a phone amp)?

"And by 2040, most individual visual-interface applications (home entertainment, business, mobile, etc.) will be headworn."

http://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-engineering-next-40-years

I bought this unit 3 months ago and finally discovered the setup guide last week on Audioquest's website. Understand on my iMac it simply works when you plug it in, and it does improve your sound quite a bit. When I purchased it I thought well thats it and it was noticeably better so I enjoyed it for about 3 months as a nice but not elite DAC. However, after walking through audioquest's setup guide and adjusting a few settings in sound preferences and itunes the sound really opened up to a new level. The sound stage sounds wider with a more vinyl like warmth. Today I tried the recommended itunes companion program called pure audio (it's pricey at $129) and now it is actually very close to my main high-fi system running a NAD 51 DAC to monitor audio gx speakers/ Denon amp. After installing the application the highs are better separated and the lows are more controlled. As I write this I am listening to "lights" by Journey

As I write this I am listening to "lights" by Journey

I just knew there was a punchline waiting for me at the other end of that paragraph.

that's, like, the best punchline

since this has now become the default budding audiophile thread, how does Dragonfly compare say with nuforce uDAC (which also acts as a phone amp)?

― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Monday, March 17, 2014 2:18 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i have the nuforce and, like i said upthread, i've been very happy...BUT...it does have a tendency to overheat and i googled around and this appears to be sort of known design flaw in it. it's not terrible, you just have to unplug it for awhile and let it cool down, but still that's kind of crappy.

so for that reason, and because it's been improved and price cut by $50 since i bought the nuforce, i'd do the dragonfly now if i had it to do over....

I am on vacation but I plan on buying a Dragonfly as soon as I get home, I have been looking at an M-Audio FireWire output but they seem expensive and obsolete and I don' really need inputs since I don't do recording. So thanks thread!

From my reading about this Dragonfly thing, it will make any file sound better, correct? Like you don't need to be using FLAC or anything for it to be noticeable? Because I ceased having an mp3 collection about two computers ago and use Spotify a lot. It sounds awesome though.

works w.spotify

yeah I'm listening to mp3s right now and I just a/b'd this little minor arpeggio in King Diamond's "Haunted" from Fatal Portrait - to get a true A/B I'd have to turn up the volume on the pre-Dragonfly signal but the "3D" aspect of the preamp is just so audible even with the pre-boost's volume lower

imo listen to stuff with guitar solos and a/b those, it's a place where you can really focus and notice a vast improvement. also just listen to more stuff with solos generally

ugh another awesome cool thing i have to buy

well, PONO seems to be fantastically successful so far in increasing consumer interest in simple-to-use, affordable digital audiophile products...that aren't PONO

maybe that was... the point

next week, neil's electric car, with built in Dragonfly audio, is announced!

when you get an external dac or w/e and you hear an improvement i v much doubt it's cuz of the dac but a better amp/impedence match for your headphones/speakers/amp

somebody posted this upthread, which is a v good introduction to digital audio and sampling

https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

also ethan wiener knows what's up, skip to about halfway through and iirc he does some blind AB testing + phase cancellation testing with a "shit" dac/adc and a good one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ

Iirc, all PONO is right now is a picture and a name. No one has heard anything from/on it yet, right? Like, Neil's whole SXSW keynote shill was nothing but talk. So there's not much to talk about, which seems a strategic roll-out error. Or strategic LOL-out.

no one will buy this

I mean I'm baffled at the whole thing.

out of touch rich guy in assuming everyone agrees with him shocker

thanks for the fiio e17 recommendation guys. I see B&H has it in stock for 130 bucks. I want it. Thinking I can lash it to my 160 GB ipod back-to-back with the UI sides facing out, lol

> no one will buy this

they already have, about 10,000 of them via the kickstarter thing.

anyone try using a dragonfly on linux? googling seems to suggest folks have had success and others have had issues...

out of touch rich guy in assuming everyone agrees with him shocker

― anonanon, Tuesday, March 18, 2014 12:22 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In his book Neil seems to imply he's not rich. Which may just be modesty or something, but i cant imagine he's not pretty wealthy.

believing you are not rich seems to be a key aspect of being rich

he says in the book that anytime he's had a lot of money he ends up throwing it all into some not-very-profitable project

model train money will one day dwarf real train money just you wait

either way his ranch he bought way back in the day has to be worth a gazillion dollars now given northern cali real estate so he's rich in assets at least

Don't forget the car collection!

with the ticket prices he charges and what he prices his LPs at I can only assume that he really needs the cash.

Don't forget, he has three kids, at least two of whom require major, 24/7 medical care (both his sons have cerebral palsy and his daughter has epilepsy).

In his book Neil seems to imply he's not rich. Which may just be modesty or something, but i cant imagine he's not pretty wealthy.

he doesn't license his music and record sales are moribund. Obv if he tours he rakes in a fair bit of money and as upper miss points out he owns a big piece of property he bought on the cheap in NoCal, but his publishing is limited to airplay & covers at this point - does he even sell his stuff to movies? I would guess his receipts are pretty lean, though I also think he probably negotiated a big advance for the book

does he even sell his stuff to movies?

Yep, "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" was in Almost Famous (the director's cut; not sure if it was in the theatrical release), and "Rockin' In The Free World" was in Fahrenheit 9/11. Those are just off the top of my head; there might be more.

But I don't recall any stories about him getting screwed by bad investments or shady tax shelters or anything like that, and I can't think of a single thing he's done that even remotely smacked of a cash-grab.

xp According to Shakey, "Safeway Cart" was in Beau travail, and "Time Fades Away" was in Scorsese's American Boy. Also: "Out On The Weekend" was in the festival version of The Wackness (replaced by "All The Young Dudes" for general release iirc).

Checking imdb, he had songs in Due Date, Eat, Pray, Love, and Shallow Hal wtf?

Dead Man-esque score for Shallow Hal iirc

The guy clearly has money, but he's not rich like some of his peers, no doubt. I always bring up Ringo. Is Ringo rich? Sure, by most standards. Near as rich as Paul or Lennon's estate? Not even close. Rock star/celebrity finances are so weird. Frankly I don't get how any of them go bankrupt, but it happens all the time. Stuff must be tied up in investments and holdings and trains and instantly pointless high-end digital music players.

I would think Ringo is fucking loaded.

ok yeah Neil is making some money on placements then. Not "I'm rich" money but probably doing all right. Movies don't pay like commercials do.

He and John and George nearly went bankrupt at various points post-breakup. Paul was fine, largely due to his music publishing holdings (of other artists, that is).

xp

just checked celebrity net worth, which suggests ringo is worth about 300 million. neil young is about 65 million.

Forbes puts Paul at $650 million, in part due to his divorce payout:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2013/04/12/why-paul-mccartney-isnt-on-the-forbes-billionaires-list/

But according to this his current wife is so wealthy she put him over the billion mark.

in one of the laurel canyon books someone (one of the Flo and Eddie guys I think?) says that simply due to never having had monster coke habits, Neil and G Nash are presently the least struggling of their coterie.

financially

65 mil

Jesus Neil

Put 20 of that in an interest-bearing account and chill on the PONO

smokin' blunts in Savannah
blow 65 mil like I'm PONO

Supposedly, converting his old-timey cars to electrics costs $40,000. Per car.

He and John and George nearly went bankrupt at various points post-breakup

being bankrupt, legally speaking, is v v different from not having a lot of money. it's not as if george was living on the streets. (did john have bankruptcy issues too, though? that's news to me.)

Supposedly, converting his old-timey cars to electrics costs $40,000. Per car.

and buying a taco, for me, costs $4. which is, relatively speaking, about the same deal.

(did john have bankruptcy issues too, though? that's news to me.)

Yeah, pretty sure it was when he tried to emigrate to the US; most of his money was tied up with Allen Klein.

And granted, it's not like George would come home to his mansion to suddenly find his furniture and guitars out by the curb. But if it wasn't for the Anthology, he would've gone bankrupt (due to a combination of factors including, but not limited to, his film company tanking, and his longtime business manager screwing him over).

i wish i had as much money as some bankrupt celebrities.

god, the tacos

Neil Young spends $40 per taco, but they taste much better because they have more of the essence of the original ingredients.

the Canadian Taco is probably one of those gross sex moves

No one wants a taco made of denim.

that's just how the wealthy roll, money changes you

TACO - Where Heartburn Lives

TAC&O: Find The Cost of Tomatoes

pono asado

Pono hermanos

yoko pono

Pono, there goes Tokyo ...

http://www.nme.com/news/nine-inch-nails/76409

Apologies if there's a better thread for this, but can Upper Mississippi or someone else recommend a $50 or $100 pair of headphones? I need to replace my $5 Walgreens earbuds. Just not doing the trick anymore...

Sennheisers

Koss Porta Pro

^unless you have long hair :-)

Beyerdynamic 251s

whiney otm

iGrado

http://www.amazon.co.uk/AKG-High-Performance-Foldable-Headset-In-Line/dp/B005LBQ7BY

AKG 451s sound great, fold away easily and the cable is detachable so if that part goes first (which it always does on headphones) then you just need a replacement lead. They're £40ish round these parts, not sure about US prices.

the 451s (and 450s, which I think are just the same but without the in-line remote) are v good for that price, yeah. Porta Pros too, I never had problems with them in my shaggy-haired hippie periods? Unlike my Grado SR60s, which are good but enjoyed sucking my hair into themselves and messing up the sound.

I've got the AKG 451s as well and love them. Just the right size. I had to turn the bass down a wee bit on the ipod but after that it was great sound.

Very interested in these AKGs with detachable cable. Always the first thing to go. My hair always got caught in the metal bands of the porta pros. So it'd rip my hair out when I removed them.

I use earbuds right now and I swear they are giving me tinnitus (more than usual anyway).

it's my understanding that hey are much worse for your ears than over the ear cups

I always thought etymotic research style passive noise reduction earbuds were best for your ears? In that they block out so much noise they allow you to listen at lower volumes

that could be, but those are hardly the most common experience for most ppl with earbud, which i think in general is cranking the shit out of regular ones

I bought a pair of Klipsch after a couple of pair of Sennheisers broke for no apparent reason. They have been excellent so far.

I have a pair of Sony MDR-V600s, which I think have been discontinued. They were a little pricey ($100), but I've used them daily for the last 13 years and have had no problems whatsoever (except with the foam dealies, but those are easily and cheaply replaceable).

One thing I hated about "Her" was how he had to wear that earpiece ALL THE TIME. If I had to wear earbuds all the time I think my ear would just die.

Earbuds are worst for tinnitus, closed over the ear cans are second worst, open over the ear cans are best. Or so they say and my own tinnitus reaction has borne this out.

Neil Young's proprietary new headphone, where the mastering engineer sits on your shoulder and sings the song lovingly into your ear.

"Unsuspecting Teens Try Pono": http://vimeo.com/91084885

(I assume "teens" is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the "unsuspecting teens try a walkman" thing, since most of these people are clearly in their late 20s - 30s)

"Unsuspecting" "teens"

Needless to say that video is the most transparently unconvincing piece of marketing I think I've ever witnessed.

i'm seriously so in love with the fact that on the eve of pono's kickstarter success, neil released an album that literally has the fidelity of a 1928 78s recording

that's my dogg right there

...why does that video make the hipster in me want to start hating vinyl ?

Choosy teens choose Pono

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/you-can-now-invest-in-neil-youngs-ponomusic-20140813

New campaign will allow public to invest in the high-end music player for as little as $5,000

Phew.

This has been dragging on too long. Just put out a reel-to-reel machine you can wear on your back and be done with it.

Man I would totally do this but I already invested all of my future failed businesses fund in a company that makes vending machines for steampunk hats. You can choose from five different kinds of brass gears!

We don't need Neil finding out about Steampunk.

That most recent album is so close, though, I'm surprised he's not performing it live at uh... Steamcons? Is that what they call it when those people get together?

You guys are crazy. When people see the reaction of Stephen Stills at :44 of the promotional video, this thing is going to take off like a rocket.

Everybody's jerking off to the ever-elusive ponography.

i got to listen to one a couple of weeks ago. sound quality was great on the lossless files and i liked that it had a line-out and 128GB as standard. but i could hear all the flaws in my shitty compressed files, in a way that i don't notice on my £40 sandisk clip zip.

cool, would you consider getting one?

but i could hear all the flaws in my shitty compressed files

are you talking 128s or even decent quality like 320?

oggs on default quality 8) (i'm one of those greedy people who'd rather have 5000 files than 2000 whilst walking around)

(roughly equiv to 128kbps mp3s. that said, i later listened to the original flac that i bought from bandcamp and THAT also sounded shitty. not sure whether somewhere in the recording / upload chain it hadn't been converted down and then up again)

as for whether i'd get one, $300399 buys an awful lot of cds. plus i'd be scared of losing it somewhere, even if it is bright yellow and hard to miss (whereas £40 of mp3 player i'm not so bothered about).

yeah I can't really tell the difference between 320 and 192 most of the time but I can pick out 128 in seconds

I'm waiting for a Pono with a built-in speaker so that I can make everything around me sound better. I suggest they design it to look like this:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B7tFVbj40gc/ULwgE5rzTlI/AAAAAAAAGEA/glRohpR68MI/s640/DSC01147.JPG*

*Neil Young not included.

what happened to Neil's right hand

Lost in the music.

what is up with this stupid gadget is it out yet, is it vaporware, did yr dad buy one

per his howard stern appearance:

The first batch of Pono players are sold out. "We're going to try and make more in January," he said. "We're starting to build and scale up, but the demand for them was awesome…We're making this for people that want it. We're not making it for people that don't want it, but they may not know then want it until they hear it. It's a gentle revolution. We're not trying to bowl over the world. We don't think success is anything you can tangibly see. It's a smile."

oh god neil young has prosopagnosia

TOP PONO ARTISTS
1. Neil Young
2. Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers
3. Pearl Jam
4. Foo Fighters
5. Patti Smith
6. James Taylor
7. Kenny Rogers
8. Elton John
9. Norah Jones
10. Beck

I think that should be enough information for you to tell whether this device is for you.

ha, nice work glenn

Neil should pitch Pono on Shark Tank.

he'd do well because he would not be able to see the horror and disappointment on the judges faces

"We're going to try and make more in January,"

That's good CEOing, Neil, I hope you get around to it.

Will reserve judgement until I can hear "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)."

I still can't figure out how/why this would work. I was poking around the store and there's tons of albums that I'm sure haven't had the master tapes touched in years

Like what would these be sourced from?

https://ponomusic.force.com/ccrz__CCPage?pageKey=product&oId=of%3A7ab373c879474d4abf3e49cd35c3876e&type=Album&artistId=undefined

https://ponomusic.force.com/ccrz__CCPage?pageKey=product&oId=of%3Aea230df5f6244f71bd38387d380ab3ac&type=Album&artistId=undefined

https://ponomusic.force.com/ccrz__CCPage?pageKey=product&oId=of%3Ae91955fa357b44aca239600e75e9f9c4&type=Album&artistId=undefined

i just poked around the store for the first time and couldn't help noticing that the album cover displayed with neil young's decade is the cd version, complete with the message "a 3-record set on 2 compact discs":

https://ponomusic.force.com/ccrz__CCPage?pageKey=product&oId=of%3Aaad0a2306828429aa46d9c2aaa138fb9&type=Album&artistId=undefined

pono should have pristine analog vinyl album art, no?

Hahahaha Whiney how did you miss the hype over Light in the Attic's Alien Ant Farm reissues

Whiney are you ok
Are you ok

are you okay, Whiney

"We're going to try and make more in January,"

Waiting for the release of Pono: Volume II.

As he poked around the Pono
It was switched from line to phono
He came into the web site
He left beside himself, somethin ain't right

Does anyone know anything about this site? I'm slightly intrigued but probably at those prices I'd just buy physical albums

http://www.hdtracks.com/

i think that's the go-to site for audiophile 24 bit downloads, that was one of the things ppl were saying about the PONO store is that it was basically just trying to be HD Tracks which was already pretty robust

the thing that sucks about the audiophile industry and that rhetoric is that it's created this impression that it's all this crazy, ridiculous multi-thousand dollar thing that's not attainable for regular folks when the reality is the opposite! we're in a golden age of affordable great sound equipment....
for a few hundred you could get some great self-powered speakers by a quality manufacturer and an entry level DAC that would knock your socks off! heck for, around 1000 or 1200 you could outfit a great turntable, amp, and speakers! it's really never been easier or cheaper than it is right now and the difference might surprise you...
hell, i'm listening to $30 Monoprice headphones right now at work that would destroy expensive ones from the 80s or 90s...it's insane!
― gimme the lute (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, March 11, 2014 12:15 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i would love a series of no-nonsense recommendations for relatively inexpensive but excellent audio components that i could buy one at a time toward the end of having a relatively inexpensive but excellent audio system to play LPs, CDs, MP3s, FLACs... and listen to the radio.

if you go on the internet there's simply so much info, and I have little sense of what sources to trust. it seems for every piece of gear there's one person saying this is a godsend and another saying it's a piece of junk.

i'm suspicious of HD tracks, can anyone tell the difference between your standard FLACs and 24-bit FLACs? i mean, you'd have to have a pretty incredible sound system to even begin to notice the difference, no? i'm not yet completely convinced I can usually hear the difference between a good V0/320 MP3 rip and a FLAC rip. at least not on my stereo system (much less on my laptop).

anyway...

i'd love good recommendations for...

- a good DAC for my mac laptop
- a excellent turntable for under $500

now, my receiver/stereo has phono input, do i still need/want a standalone phono preamp?

sorry i know this is the PONO thread but people seem to be talking all things audio.

HD tracks are mastered directly from analog masters, right?

aren't most or at least many digital masters much less than 24bit in the first place? meaning you wouldn't gain anything to hear them in 24bit. that's certainly true of the first few generations of digital masters (which include things like 1980s fleetwood mac albums IIRC).

and alien ant farm is exactly what i mean (set aside the issue that an alien ant farm song will never sound good even if it was from god's speakers to your ears)... it was probably recorded using some late 90s digital format that isn't anywhere near up to the sonic capacity of a 24bit file.

FWIW i can usually tell the difference between e.g. 128 MP3s and 320 MPs... but beyond that it gets harder. of course it's hard to compare unless you are literally comparing e.g. a 320 MP3 and a FLAC rip from the same exact CD. if you're listening to two different masters then the differences are probably from other than the different formats.

Can someone explain to me whether/why HDTracks would be preferable to just getting a CD and ripping it to your computer at the highest rate? Does "directly from the analog masters" mean better than CD?

I think they offer better than 44.1 KHz/16 bit (CD quality) audio as an option, which would require going back to the original master tapes and making a new transfer at a higher quality.

Also lots of people don't want to own actual things these days and would rather pay through the nose for bits.

HDTracks files in higher resolutions (usually 24bit/96KHz) are invariably sourced from the SACDs, although a few dedicated masters are cropping up. 24 bits means that there is less background noise than a CD, and sampling at 96KHz rather than 44.1KHz means that a wider range of frequencies are are captured. However (a) the lower noise floor is of no practical use since you're very unlikely to listen to music loud enough to hear it, and (b) CDs capture the entire range of frequencies human ears can detect, so reproducing frequencies outside of that is fairly pointless. It would like a TV that displays IR and UV - terrific technical exercise, but utterly pointless in the real world.

Audiophiles will tell you that the harmonics of the non-audible frequencies interact with the audible frequencies and so to get an accurate reproduction of the music "in the control room", you need these extra frequencies. Saying that, no-one has ever been able to tell the difference between CDs and high resolution audio in an blind ABX test, and the well-regarded audiokarma.org forum prohibits discussion of the benefits of high-definition audio because there's no evidence that the difference is detectable, even if you're listening REALLY hard.

Annoyingly, SACDs (and so HDTracks files) often DO sound better than their CD counterparts, but that's becsause more care goes into the mastering process since the kind of people who buy SACDs are more likely to care about SQ. Even "from the analogue masters" isn't a guarentee of quality because if the mastering process has been screwed up, it may still sound terrible (although not many do by all accounts).

xp so far as recomendations for gear:

- DAC: The Audioquest Dragonfly DAC is the size of a USB stick, looks great, sounds amazing, on Amazon for $145. If you want something you can use to amp your mp3 player as well, I'd recommend the Fiio E17 for around the same price. It's bulkier and not as attractive but its got a battery and you can plug it straight into your ipod/iphone.

- Turntable: Project make good entry-level turntables. I've got the Project Debut Carbon ($400) which I'm really happy with. I wouldn't recommend getting a turntables much cheaper than this since cheaper turntables often press the stylus harder onto the vinyl causing your records to sound audibly worse over time., while a turntable with lighter tracking will mitigate this effect.

EBay is your friend for most of this stuff. Audiophiles tend to take good care of their gear and upgrade fairly frequently and so bargains can be had without too much effort.

thanks so much for the recommendations. they will come in handy. eventually i will upgrade my receiver/preamp and speakers as well. any recommendations for those?

Annoyingly, SACDs (and so HDTracks files) often DO sound better than their CD counterparts, but that's becsause more care goes into the mastering process since the kind of people who buy SACDs are more likely to care about SQ. Even "from the analogue masters" isn't a guarentee of quality because if the mastering process has been screwed up, it may still sound terrible (although not many do by all accounts).

― DISMISSED AS CHANCE (NotEnough), Thursday, October 16, 2014 2:53 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

right ... if a label is bothering with a SACD then there's a greater likelihood that they're taking care to find the best elements and to remaster them thoughtfully. as is often the case, the putatively inherent differences between formats comes down instead to differences in the mastering process.

oh also...

now, my receiver/stereo has phono input (and therefore i assume it has a built-in phono premap)... do i still need/want a standalone phono preamp?

HDTracks files in higher resolutions (usually 24bit/96KHz) are invariably sourced from the SACDs, although a few dedicated masters are cropping up

oh i should add that HDtracks are available for albums that never received a SACD or DVD-Audio release (or any release in one of the seemingly myriad HD audio formats)... e.g. a few Prince albums. so those are likely dedicated masters.

Oh yes, the debut turntable has no inbuilt preamp so you will need one of those. Your amp probably doesn't have one built in despite having an input labeled Phono, tho its worth checking the manual just in case. Above the level of super cheap ones, preamps make very little difference in SQ so don't spend a fortune, you should be able to get an adequate one for way less than $100.

i'm using a technics turntable right now with my receiver/amp w/o a standalone preamp and it works just fine... i guess i was just wondering if buying a nicer preamp would improve the sound any.

If you've got a technics 1200 then iim not sure it would be worth upgrading to a project tbh. Those things are built like a tank and sound really good. If its old and had lots of use then it might be worth getting a new cartridge, but I'm not sure you'll notice much of a difference on a turntable upgrade unless you want to drop >$1000.

It's all really disappointing because I would gladly pay for some fancy player and fancy master-sourced files as, like, the luxury experience for certain beloved records. Instead, they're trying to sell LOTS OF THE MUSICS through their mysterious box, which just reeks of snake oil.

if i wanted to rebuild my music listening entirely from scratch and have options like using streaming services like spotify, having speakers around the house and iphone-controllable sonos-style, and also be good for watching movies (but i could probably go w/o surround, tbh)... uh... what should i do

probably make sure everything supports airplay, buy a bunch of speakers ...???? profit!

airplay always didn't work for me :(

i'm trying to decide between sonos + a good amp i can hook up a turntable to and... i dunno... a cheap mac mini? and stuff?

If Spotify had a service along the lines of streaming HDTracks quality music I would probably pay triple what I currently pay. Spotify does offer higher bitrate streaming, but the files themselves seem to have mixed quality control.

https://ponomusic.force.com/ccrz__CCPage?pageKey=product&oId=of%3A7ab373c879474d4abf3e49cd35c3876e&type=Album&artistId=undefined

lol'd so hard when this link opened, ty whiney

- DAC: The Audioquest Dragonfly DAC is the size of a USB stick, looks great, sounds amazing, on Amazon for $145. If you want something you can use to amp your mp3 player as well, I'd recommend the Fiio E17 for around the same price. It's bulkier and not as attractive but its got a battery and you can plug it straight into your ipod/iphone.

- Turntable: Project make good entry-level turntables. I've got the Project Debut Carbon ($400) which I'm really happy with. I wouldn't recommend getting a turntables much cheaper than this since cheaper turntables often press the stylus harder onto the vinyl causing your records to sound audibly worse over time., while a turntable with lighter tracking will mitigate this effect.

^^was gonna suggest the Dragonfly

pair them with these and you'd have great sound for really cheap: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FE9XGVM/ref=asc_df_B00FE9XGVM3364545?smid=A14FMGGKFTICNN&tag=mysimon-pc03-20&linkCode=df0&creative=395129&creativeASIN=B00FE9XGVM

project turntables are very good....i have a Rega which I love and is very comparable:

http://www.amazon.com/REGA-RP1WHT-Rega-Turntable-White/dp/B004B3GO9I/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1413470035&sr=1-2&keywords=rega+rp1

I'm upgrading my Rega and I am sooooo stoked

What upgrades you getting? I always assume that the difference turntable upgrades make are marginal...

I dunno: most amps with a dedicated Phono input will have a built-in phono amp, so probably no need to worry about that. I also use and recommend a Project turntable, but depending on what model Technics you have now you might be fine just getting a new cartridge and needle. When you eventually replace your receiver and speakers, you might want to look into powered speakers, like the Audioengines linked above, which will eliminate the need for a separate amp -- though you'll still need a phono pre-amp and/or a full pre-amp depending on how many inputs you need for different sources.

Socki: if you've got the budget for it, Sonos is fantastic. I've used Airplay for many years in a couple of homes and have never gotten it to work consistently. Sonos is rock-solid and dead simple, everything Apple promises but doesn't deliver on when it comes to streaming in my opinion. It can get crazy expensive though if you're setting up a number of rooms -- the unit to hook up a single existing amp is $350. Though I've found their least expensive speaker ($200, built-in amp) works great for casual, non-critical listening in modestly-sized rooms.

my jaw left: Check out Deezer. Spotify-style service but with HD streaming. I think it's $10/mo for the first year and $20/mo after that. I haven't used it so don't know how the interface compares with Spotify.

thanks! yeah, i tried airplay literally for years, and was constantly frustrated with dropouts and mysterious missing audio. it drove me insane.

question re sonos : does it do gapless playback of tracked mixtapes ?

quite tempted to install a NAS drive on my home network, and then wire a sonos into my amp.

but i seem to have read that like most mp3 players, tracked mixtapes get the dreaded second drop between tracks.

apparently deezer soon to be, but not yet, in the US

My concern, again, is not just bitrate but actual file quality/quality control. I sometimes find certain Spotify files sound pretty bad even at high bitrate.

note : current promo = 12 months free deezer with sonos from a certain uk supplier.

still, does not resolve my one my issue ..

and the reason i am keen is cos playing mp3s via a network option on my amp is a lot better quality than via the headphone output on the laptop, however, the amp has a very limited visual aspect, making it impossible to navigate a 3000+ album catalogue.

I don't recall if I've tried a tracked mixtape specifically, but Sonos does support gapless playback and it works fine for me for e.g. regular albums and live stuff that I've downloaded from nyctaper. As long as the mixtape was encoded properly I don't think it would be an issue.

re: Deezer the source files are lossless. They're standard CD quality though so I shouldn't have said HD. It is actually available now in the US in beta for Sonos users; not sure when the general rollout is.

ooh .. the urge has just upped a notch.

ta.

What upgrades you getting? I always assume that the difference turntable upgrades make are marginal...

no I mean I'm upgrading to an RP3 Elys.

thanks! yeah, i tried airplay literally for years, and was constantly frustrated with dropouts and mysterious missing audio. it drove me insane.

― socki (s1ocki), Thursday, October 16, 2014 10:46 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes! i've lived in several apartments and airplay hasn't been dependable in any of them. i even got one of those thingies (forget the actual name) that apple sold that you plug into the wall and then plug your stereo into, so i could send itunes through my stereo system/speakers. it worked about 1/2 the time, and every time it was unplugged it took like ten tries to get it to work again.

one of the worst purchases i've made honestly

Is it worth staring a general purpose "stuff I listen to music on" thread? All this gear talk is fascinating but I'm not sure its got much to do with PONO-related snakeoil.

yeah i would love a thread for that

there are already a bunch of threads with 'audiophile' or 'hi-fi' in the titles. bump one of those (and post a link here)

lots of discussion of Sonos etc. on Maintaining a Digital Music Collection ... I'd like to hear more about people's solutions for home streaming systems, my antique Squeezeboxes are working fine right now but they are definitely not Pono-ready

I think I've said before, but Volumio running on a Raspberry B+ with the HiFiberry DAC+ & Wifi USB dongle then get a NAS that supports uPnP.

conversion & streaming up to 24/192, tiny size and all for about £150.

Good sound as well as good DAC chips are actually quite cheap, its all the other stuff that costs (& hefty markup to make it look expensive)

I would pay good money for someone to write a firmware for the Squeezebox that stopped relying on squeezeserver.

Fwiw, PONO as a device isn't snake oil, I read an audiophile site break down the components and they were all well known complements, very good DAC and headphone amp, the said it was actually very cheap for the quality

I mean at the end if the day it's just a high end portable player, there's no voodoo

But there is Sammy Hagar's Red Voodoo: https://ponomusic.force.com/ccrz__CCPage?pageKey=product&oId=of%3Adeafb337ddc94c42b85d3b353106ec6f&type=Album&artistId=undefined

I'd like to hear more about people's solutions for home streaming systems

There's a pretty good rundown of currently and soon-to-be available systems here:
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/sonos-player/

I love my Sonos but don't have the budget right now to connect as many rooms as I'd like, so I still use Airplay in a couple of rooms. The system seems more reliable/robust since I've attached my Airport Expresses to powerline adapters -- they're little boxes with ethernet connections that you plug in to outlets to essentially turn your home's electrical system into a wired network. One attaches to my router and sends data over the electric wiring to other ones throughout the house, which are connected to the Airports. Still isn't foolproof but I seem to get much fewer dropouts now.

i find that my airport express just kind of shuts itself off when it doesn't feel like playing along. i've had two of them and they both have done that.

xp Yes, incorporating powerline adapters was key to defeating dropouts on my home system

i did at one point consider powerline adapters but then i started to think i was losing my mind

i love my powerline adaptors

such a great invention.

question re sonos : does it do gapless playback of tracked mixtapes ?
quite tempted to install a NAS drive on my home network, and then wire a sonos into my amp.
but i seem to have read that like most mp3 players, tracked mixtapes get the dreaded second drop between tracks.
― mark e, Thursday, October 16, 2014 4:35 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ok, i took the plunge, got a basic media server and sonos connect to feed into my amp.
so, to answer my own question.
yes - gapless playback is part of the groove.
however, this is one small issue that has not been mentioned in any of the recent press excess from sonos.
there is a 65,000 track limit for the sonos library.
this has been an issue for a while now, and it seems that sonos are not looking to address it.
now, i was somewhat concerned that this would be an issue, but turns out i have only 48,000 tracks in my digital archive, so all good.
also, another bonus re sonos is that if you use W8, then there is the new 'play to' function that means you can right click on any mp3, and direct it to the sonos kit whether its in the indexed library or not.
i.e. perfect for those mixtape downloads that have you have yet to suck into your digital library and wait for it to be indexed etc.

I hit the 65k track limit. Pretty frustrating for me but I may start a new library with things I know aren't on Spotify. Love the Sonos though. I have the Connect, Play 1 and Play 3.

Poking around the store, anything I'd actually want to spend extra audiophile money on is just listed as CD quality.

And buying a used CD is cheaper than ever, so I don't know why I need this log

would love a nice remastered CD of Tonight's the Night.

^^^ posted to pvmic

haha

Poking around the store, anything I'd actually want to spend extra audiophile money on is just listed as CD quality

You do it to support struggling entrepreneur Neil Young! If Pono fails, then what incentive is there for other famous artists to introduce their own tech boondoggles?

grain of salt etc. being the Post...still...

http://nypost.com/2015/01/11/do-consumers-really-care-about-digital-quality/

If you’re skeptical about Neil Young’s pricey new music-download service, you’ve got company — inside Young’s company, even.

Product engineers for the shaggy rock icon’s newly released Pono digital music player have privately admitted they aren’t convinced that the high-resolution audio files it plays have any significant technical advantage over CD-quality files, sources told The Post.

this was discussed on the audiophile snake oil thread as well, I believe

Thought this revive would be RIP Tim Drummond for some reason.

deserves a repost here:

http://xiph.org/%7Exiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

more like ohno

http://nypost.com/2015/01/11/do-consumers-really-care-about-digital-quality/

Author is an ol pal, he went on this investigative tear after I forwarded him the xiph article...

I thought he did a great job in the last few paragraphs summarizing the linear algebra for the NY Post crowd...

The print edition had a big ol picture of Neil with the headline: "I'm High Deaf"

haha good ol NY Post

aw shit been posted already

96k 24bit files are very helpful when producing & multitracking; higher bit depth increases your headroom & the number of tracks you can bounce, and high sampling rates increases your options for processing & transforming sounds. And on a really great speaker setup, yes I have heard very subtle differences in the high end when listening to classical or jazz or music with extreme dynamic range. But for portable systems, I can't think of many reasons to go HD.

Much more to the point with portable systems is the digital to analog converter, the 14 cent 1/8" jack on most iPhones is doing far more damage to the sound than mp3 compression. My new car stereo takes digital Bluetooth in from my phone, and it is pretty amazing how good mp3's and aac's sound on it. I sprang for a small $100 phone dock with a digital out to plug into my amp which has a spdif in, and... it is no coincidence this is the year I started feeling ok with paying for downloads, the last barrier for convenient home mp3 listening went away

i'm probably going to replace my system top to bottom once i move, and will be in the market for a setup that can play digital audio files—MP3s but also FLACs— well, as well as a new turntable, and I think the DAC and phono preamp will be an important part.

(i already have a very nice CD player, it's the only component i don't intend to replace)

maybe a noob question but does streaming via AirPlay degrade sound quality? Been using this for a while and wondering if I should go back to a dock.

the 2-second delay with airplay is driving me fucking bananas, especially with video. how do people use macs as media servers???

I have a Mac mini plugged into one of those NAD D3020 hybrids, and it sounds great to me.

Audiophile stuff is so sort of innately ridiculous, though. There are no constants. Every room is different, all speakers are different, components are different, cables and wires are different, placement is different and then, at the end of it, you factor in actual ears and hearing, which are are the most different and least constant of them all.

I trust Neil's ears, though. I'm sure he totally hears in HD.

Airplay doesn't compress the audio at all, so no, no inherent degradation.

96k 24bit files are very helpful when producing & multitracking; higher bit depth increases your headroom & the number of tracks you can bounce, and high sampling rates increases your options for processing & transforming sounds

YES

on a really great speaker setup, yes I have heard very subtle differences in the high end

NO

I mean, obviously I can't tell you what you heard!! those subtle differences might be due to changes in atmospheric pressure, what you had for breakfast, the phase of the moon but they definitely aren't due to extra samples or extra bits per sample!!

This is not really in the subjective realm! It's well understood by anybody who does DSP for a living -- determined by the same math that makes digital audio possible in the first place -- and backed up by every single double-blind listening test ever.

http://gizmodo.com/dont-buy-what-neil-young-is-selling-1678446860

i love the idea that a guy who has by his own admission damaged his hearing by playing loudly for 50 years is the flagbearer for ultra-hd audio. it's textbook neil, really.

All I can think is back when CDs came out and people were "Oh CDs are great, you hear so much more than vinyl records, that stuff was cheaply made trash".

Then years later when classic rock bands started getting reissues with bonus tracks and stuff "Oh that first run of CDs were all horrible and mastered on crap decks etc but these remasters are CREAM OF THE CROP sound-wise".

And now....yeah, I'm not surprised this thing exists, or that the fidelity wars has bled from physical to digital media. Neil Young can start whatever business he likes, and if he makes a ton of money off people buying this (whether for a sonic increase or pure status symbol) then good for him. But yeah there is no reason anyone needs to buy a copy of Who's Next or The Doors LP for the 10th time. Those guys aren't hurting for money.

Then years later when classic rock bands started getting reissues with bonus tracks and stuff "Oh that first run of CDs were all horrible and mastered on crap decks etc but these remasters are CREAM OF THE CROP sound-wise".

this was largely true though i mean jfc imagine what kind of computer was being used to master CDs in 1986? your phone is 100x more powerful, i do feel like all this backlash sometimes imagines this bizarre world where technology in literally every other aspect of entertainment and life has made mind-blowing progress but even the possibility that some significant progress in digital music and playback coud have occured between the mid 80s and today is viewed as charlatanism

I don't think it's necessarily the case that the initial run of CDs (broadly speaking) were poorly mastered. Granted, some were (e.g., major CBS titles like Kind of Blue that were muffled to shit). But there's a significant second-hand market (among audiophiles, fwiw) for first-issues of some titles; supposedly, the first Zeppelin CDs in the 80s were better-mastered than their 90s replacements (among others).

the new zeppelin one are killer though, man

I've only heard the first three, but yeah, they totally are.

xps Sony Music was kind of notorious in the early cd era for taking whatever the first tape they could find off the shelf (usually a safety tape or production master) and putting it out. It wasn't 'til the early '90s that they started righting wrongs, a process that is still going on today (Springsteen box set).

xpost
totally...meet me in the parking lot after class *makes joint rolling finger gesture*

(half-lidded slow knowing nod)

xps Sony Music was kind of notorious in the early cd era for taking whatever the first tape they could find off the shelf (usually a safety tape or production master) and putting it out. It wasn't 'til the early '90s that they started righting wrongs

Yeah, the first CD of Miles Ahead was all alternate takes. I think something similar happened with the first CD of Sly's Fresh.

I remember the first Clash (US) CD sounding pretty good, but they cut off a few opening bars of the drum intro to "I Fought The Law."

As for the muffling, which I assume was overzealous noise reduction, it obscured (among other things) much of the ride-cymbal and brushwork on Kind of Blue. I think it took Sony at least 3-4 tries until they got that one right.

significant progress in digital music and playback coud have occured between the mid 80s and today

sampling theorem has been around since the 30s and there's been nothing *but* progress since then!

shouldn't conflate technical advances with high-def though, no amount of tech can make that extra data audible...

apologies for linking fox news but contains an hilarious quote from Neil re this issue: "Science says it doesn't matter, but who cares about science?"

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/01/12/neil-young-wants-reawakening-to-hi-res-audio-and-pono-is-just-start/

haha

yeah i'm not stumping for 24/192 that much but man some of the recent years CD reiussues of stuff really sound great, like i don't know what happened in the last decade but the beatles, zeppelin, bunch of jazz stuff all those rudy van gelders etc, like man those cds sound great compared to older versions imo

tbf no one on Fox News cares about science

CD issues of pre-CD albums are really hit or miss in general, although yeah seems like early 80s is the best bet for certain things (+japan and german issues), although it seems like maybe the late 90s were a good time as well, per the excellent sounding byrds and rolling stones reissues. the stevehoffman board site is a nice resource for figuring out the best version(s).
A lot of albums STILL lack a decent sounding or complete CD version. Like the first Duran Duran album, there's a song that only appeared on the og LP until the brick-walled deluxe master came out. And a bunch of Blue Note albums, I don't know if decent CDs even exist.. maybe some OOP Japanese editions. The mobile fidelity Nevermind sounds loads better than the original geffen CD, I'm assuming the new issues are brick walled to death.

And yeah the Zeppelin reissues are the absolute bomb, really dynamic sounding. They don't sound all mushy when you crank them up. Zep have strange powers, tho, they defy physical laws

"Science says it doesn't matter, but who cares about science?"
lol we have reached peak pono

tbf no one on Fox News cares about science

Exactly, I'm sure they printed that quote b/c they found it provocative and delicious

A lot of albums STILL lack a decent sounding or complete CD version.

The CD history of the Who's A Quick One is an insane maze of botched remixes, lost multitracks, sub-par 2-track masters, and vinyl needle-drops. I think you have to buy seven or eight different discs (some imports, some out of print, some not even A Quick One) to get decent stereo versions of all the songs. I haven't tried/can't be bothered, and I love that record.

>backed up by every single double-blind listening test ever.

you are right to call out superstition, and I didn't want to get too into the details: what I was hearing almost certainly had as much, or more, to do with clock noise & filter error than any magic heterodyning down into the audible spectrum from the 96k bat, flute, and tuvan throat singing recordings I was comparing, both of which contained a lot of crazy upper-frequency information. you can call it 'air' or 'presence' when it's probably just bad filters hashing up the inaudible high end. but if that's what it was, I want more of it in my music, as long as I've got senken 100k mics to work with and an anechoic chamber to listen in. for a portable system, the converters are much more important than a big hard drive. my guess is that Sony $1200 thing has fairly good ones.

Zep have strange powers, tho, they defy physical laws

^also copyright laws

Hi Bill

i think Bowie's pre-Ryko CDs from the 80s are highly prized, other audiophile types will know more but they were considered the best sounding at least until recently iirc.

Theory: Neil Young is NwAvGuy. thinkaboutit.

i should try a double-blind, but the new "remastered for pono" version of "Everyone Knows This is Nowhere" sounds better my pristine vinyl.