PONO - Where Music Lives

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.