PONO - Where Music Lives

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

We had one at work - we supplied the files for them - and us going out of business is what caused their website to disappear, never to return 8(

damn!

(collapse is covered a few pages back, July 2016)

Tidal streams at CD quality and it sounds really good

What’s “Qobuz”?: https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/music/streaming/offers

been curious about it sound kinda promising

https://www.techhive.com/article/3340383/qobuz-review.html

shelling out for a nicer headphone setup (with proper, separate DAC and amp and all that) caused me to convert all the lossless files i had kicking around to MP3. Cannot detect a difference. Though nice headphones rule.

We had one at work - we supplied the files for them - and us going out of business is what caused their website to disappear, never to return 8(
― koogs,

more importantly, who got the Pono koogs ?

technically i think the company that bought us out, who i can only legally refer to as "Large Technology Company", would own it as it was a company asset. but i imagine it went home in the pocket of our guy with the golden ears who did all the demos and who was let go by the liquidators a couple of months before they found a buyer.

it was nice enough and the design principles were sound, i think (the shape being what it was because that allowed for proper components and a round battery which is more efficient [citation needed]) but i remember the screen looking terrible.

(neil young visited us once, was shown through the office whilst we were sat there coding. was quite surreal. said golden ears has, i notice, a pic of him and neil as his linked-in photo)

"Large Technology Company" i guess also owns the record collection we bought and did nothing with (every chart single ever, or something. certainly there were a lot of roxette cd singles in the one box i looked at)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/11638862/Massive-record-collection-to-be-publicly-exhibited.html

it just sat on the floor of a locked, unused office for a year or so.

(neil young visited us once, was shown through the office whilst we were sat there coding. was quite surreal. said golden ears has, i notice, a pic of him and neil as his linked-in photo)

fancy s/w office visisted by NY is indeed a visual mish mash.

oh, and that story re record collection is just, ummmm, weird.
but hey, your boss had a cool hat to wear.

Tidal streams at CD quality and it sounds really good

Checking it out now (via a trial subscription) -- seems you need to pay $20/mo. for "HiFi" (CD) quality streaming?

That said, the regular ("High") quality Tidal stream does seem to sound slightly better, when played from the desktop app thru my (not great) headphones, than Spotify & YT Music sound. Tidal's audio comes through somewhat quieter than the others, I need to adjust the volume levels to compensate, but there seems to be a little more detail? Idk, maybe it's in my head

Spotify does some level adjusting unless you tell it in settings (advanced?) not to. Also have to manually set Spotify to give you its best quality, iirc

Ah - the best quality that Spotify will let me choose w/out a subscription is "High"... I'm sure "Very High" (Premium only) sounds better. But Tidal's "High" def. beats Spotify's "High" (I just did some 1:1 comparisons).

aside from farting around myself with various services and codecs, this site for live A/B testing is handy.. http://abx.digitalfeed.net

for me it was a total crapshoot for anything over 320kbps

I've now had an opportunity to A/B Spotify at "Very High" quality (by logging in to my wife's account) and Tidal at "High" quality... and I still swear Tidal still sounds. I'm not some Hoffman Forums type; just going by my ears, using R.E.M.'s Out of Time (25th Anniversary Edition) for the test.

*still swear Tidal sounds better

That Qobuz service is going exclusively hi-res, lowering subscription price: https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/qobuz-kicks-mp3s-to-curb-hi-res-audio-1203398479/

Would be interested to do the trial and see if its catalog is even remotely comparable to the major services (especially for new releases).

I decided to do the Qobuz trial, just for kicks. It does sound good -- significantly better than YT Music (my crappy-sounding default) -- but probably not worth the extra $5/mo. over Tidal or Spotify (at least when played over my cheap bluetooth headphones).

The bass in some of these streams is actually boosted a little too much for my taste...

Ooh - there's a switch in the settings to bump up the quality to "Hi-Res 24-Bit / up to 192 kHz" (for supported recordings). Damn, that really does sound good. (You can toggle between the four settings as you play a track, to compare on the fly.)

hold the phones.. Bluetooth? surely it's using LDAC then? I've never bothered with it, but I think any other sort of Bluetooth compression is going to severely limit this lossless experiment

I mean, I can definitely hear the difference between at least the top tier and the lower ones (unless someone with real tech knowledge insists that's not possible, and I'm falling prey to severe power-of-suggestion).

I mean yeah it’s impossible for Bluetooth to reproduce that, it doesn’t have the bandwidth to even do CD quality audio, let alone 24 bit.

You probably can hear a difference though because I strongly suspect the services that offer 24bit audio EQ those streams differently to help you believe it does sound better.

Hmm... yeah, the bass doesn’t seem as jacked; highs & mids sound more clear. Maybe YouTube Music is just really crappily EQ’d(?)

MY PONONO