PONO - Where Music Lives

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.