PONO - Where Music Lives

Pono test guy responds to criticism:
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/the-ponoplayer-review-criticism-and-follow-up-110040409129.html

wow i would print out this email and frame it

In the meantime, there’s one more piece of feedback I think I should share. It was an email from Neil Young after the review was posted.

“Thanks for the review,” he wrote. “I really learned a lot from it and my communications with you. Good luck … Neil.”

brilliant.

'i really learnt a lot'

way to make the poor sods who have spent $$$$ on your yellow submarine better.

funny, usually it's the participants that get paid when performing a scientific experiment....

http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/pono-player-and-promises-fulfilled

"Your test was invalid because people these days have come to prefer the compressed sound of phone audio.”

Yes, that occurred to me, too. Maybe, after years of listening to iPod and phone music, that’s the sound consumers have come to know and like.

Still, the question here is, “Which sound do you prefer?”

This critique comes dangerously close to saying, “Your panelists preferred the wrong thing.” I don’t think anyone is qualified to tell anybody else that their preference is incorrect.

I liked the Pogue article, but I think the fairer claim is, “some prefer accuracy, some don’t.” Neither opinion is wrong.

Take that to the Steve Hoffman forum and watch the chaos ensue.

pono got a very positive and level-headed review in the new stereophile. he mostly sidestepped the controversy except to note the willfulness of the anti crowd. he says that tech paper everybody points to to "prove" pono is b.s. has largely been discredited.

Discredited where? And by who? Because things like the sampling theorem are proven science, so it'd be interesting to hear how they can be discredited.

it's a preamp. of course things sound better through it than without a preamp. the questions re: pono are 1) are there other preamps you can put in between your mp3s/aacs & your headphones that do the job as well for less money (yes) and 2) are the pono large files appreciably different than their less expensive peers through comparable systems (pono or x + preamp) (no)

Discredited where? And by who?

don't really know. you'd have to ask john atkinson at stereophile (his review is here). my sense, though, is that the article is flawed because of misdirection. it says people who don't like redbook digital don't understand the sampling theorem, whereas the actual argument against redbook digital does not attempt to discredit the sampling theorem.

i mean the 2007 article is flawed, not the atkinson review.

basically the argument goes that the 16/44 standard forces filtering techniques that cause a distortion in the time domain. it's a perception thing that messes with your brain and is probably responsible for the "fatigue" that people complain about after listing to digital music for a long continuous period. it's also why results of a/b tests are so inconclusive, because it's not the type of difference you're going "hear" (i.e. not a failure of the sampling theorem's ability to reproduce the correct frequencies).

that stereophile review seems pretty good, confirming basically what i thought - it's a very solid portable digital music player that's priced well considering the components in it, in a kind of dumb Toblerone form factor.

it's a shame in a way because it's become such a football in the online wars about audiophilia and whether or not HD matters etc etc & Neil's own odd asssertion that he was inventing something that already actually existed, but either way it looks like a pretty good devce on the whole.

Bill Walton was on our local sports talk station, and the guy asked him what his one "desert island" album would be, and Bill Walton said "I would bring my beautiful new high resolution PONO player that Neil Young gave me and that would sustain me" <3 <3 <3

Also the bright yellow case is good for signalling planes.

good point

walton ended the interview with a reverie about how he was going to sit in front of the speakers at the upcoming grateful dead show in chicago and let the music heal his body

he's the greatest basketball player of all time

basically the argument goes that the 16/44 standard forces filtering techniques that cause a distortion in the time domain. it's a perception thing that messes with your brain and is probably responsible for the "fatigue" that people complain about after listing to digital music for a long continuous period. it's also why results of a/b tests are so inconclusive, because it's not the type of difference you're going "hear" (i.e. not a failure of the sampling theorem's ability to reproduce the correct frequencies).

― Thus Sang Freud, Saturday, March 28, 2015 12:55 PM

I would really like to hear more about this, so I may bump other threads as well - very intrigued, it makes intuitive sense to me as an explanation for listener fatigue re: digital

Dude if Walton is on board, I'm on board.

walton ended the interview with a reverie about how he was going to sit in front of the speakers at the upcoming grateful dead show in chicago and let the music heal his body

he's the greatest basketball player of all time

― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, April 10, 2015 9:50 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He also asked "Dan, have you ever been to a volcano?" semi-apropos of nothing

He also asked "Dan, have you ever been to a volcano?" semi-apropos of nothing

― chr1sb3singer, Friday, April 10, 2015 10:06 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he is the most amazing interview

they always play that clip of him saying "When you walk the streets of Houston, you gotta keep your gun belt tight"

Walton also compared Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan to Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Jimmy Cliff

I would really like to hear more about this

Here's pono designer charlie hanson:

"a) Brickwall filtering creates massive time smear. b) The human ear/brain is already known to be exquisitely sensitive to time smear. c) DBT and AB/X are really only sensitive to differences in frequency response. Using these tools for anything to do with music is like pounding a nail with a screwdriver. Ain't gonna work.

Specifically, one of the massive benefits of a higher sampling rate is not extended bandwidth. Instead, it allows for gentler filters to be used. In the case of the Ayre QA-9 A/D converter, the anti-aliasing filters have zero ringing or time smear for double and quad sample rates. (Only one cycle of ringing for single rates -- something has to give somewhere...)"

as quoted here: http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/pono-player-and-promises-fulfilled

there's also a brief mention of it here: http://www.audiostream.com/content/pono-player

and a heartfelt but not particularly helpful michael fremer rant here:
http://www.analogplanet.com/content/gizmodo-wont-post-my-comment-so-im-posting-them-here

i wish i had more. it intrigues me too.

thank you! very interesting.

food for thought:

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=time%20smearing%20in%20digital%20audio

more from john atkinson on the media war against pono:

I realize now that, in my review, I did not say enough about the compelling nature of music played through the Pono. During the long flight out to the Northwest, and now as I write these words, my attention keeps being drawn to the music in a way that rarely happens with my iPod Classic. This happens not only with hi-rez PCM files (and DSD files, which, with the release of firmware v.1.0.5, the Pono can now play), but with CD rips and even MP3s. Perhaps the best way to characterize the Pono player is to say that for $399, you get a D/A processor almost as good as Ayre Acoustics' QB-9 ($3250), with a 128GB hi-rez media player thrown in for free.

So it was with not a little astonishment that, while writing about the Pono, I read negative reviews of this little gem in the mainstream press. David Pogue, late of the New York Times, wrote for Yahoo.com's Tech pages: "The Emperor Has No Clothes . . . Neil Young and the believers in high-res audio aren't fools, and their hearts are in the right place. But Pono's statement that 'Everyone who's ever heard PonoMusic will tell you that the difference is surprising and dramatic' is baloney" (footnote 1). "Neil Young's PonoPlayer sounds no better than an iPhone—no matter what the audiophiles say," wrote Seth Stevenson for Slate.

Do these writers really not grasp what Pono is about? And do they really hear no improvement in sound quality—not just with the Pono player in particular, but with high-resolution audio files in general?

http://www.stereophile.com/content/access-journalism-vs-accountability-journalism

During the long flight out to the Northwest...

Because there's no better place to appreciate high quality audio than on a plane. What, was he trying to duplicate how everything sounds to Neil?

yeah, the absurdity of using a portable music player on a plane.

he's obviously pointing out how hearing is degraded when in flight due to the ambient noise and the ear popping/etc

also wonder why Atkinson is silent on this article: http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html, which is not the 2007 article that he claims is discredited.

though it *does* source the discredited paper. however, reading Atkinson's comments in the comment section, it seems by 'discredited' that he really meant 'discredited by him' and not...broadly.

atkinson was not reviewing pono on the plane, just enjoying it fer chrissakes. he'd already published his review.

that xiph thing follows pono around like a crazy uncle. the 2007 article at least was published/presented. the xiph thing is just viral internet crap. i suspect that's why he's "silent" on it.

atkin's comments in the comment section says that a later aes paper, which he links to, discredits the methodology used in the 2007 paper.

atkinson rather.

Does Pono have a micro sd lot or are you capped at 128gb?

(Can't believe I'm saying that)

Lot = slot

the kickstarter page says:

"The PonoPlayer ships with a total of 128GB. 64GB of memory is built into the player and another 64GB of memory on a removable microSD card. The expansion slot can accept microSD cards of up to 64GB or SDXC microSD cards of 128GB or higher."

so you can update the 64GB card to a 128GB card (£65 or so on amazon)

Not bad, so up to 192 gb at any one time.

I'm pretty sure I laundered my dragonfly and the motherfucker still works

solid piece of equipment imo

I always think this thread is about Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo".

Got a used x5 from b&h. Love it. Two 128 gb cards onboard of course but what really surprised me is the ability to jack a third one in via otg adaptor.

Man that's cool. Almost enough music...

Yeah it becomes abundantly clear how e'er-receding that horizon is

the xiph thing is just viral internet crap.

xiph.org invented the FLAC file format.

that's a good thing. but regardless, the paper on which the xiph piece is based has been discredited by the audio engineering society. who knows, maybe they're trying to perpetuate the viability of their format in the era of hi-res dsd downloads. but to the extent that they paint the seekers of better sound as a bunch of science deniers, they are just being trolls.

AES published the original Meyer and Moran study too. also really don't feel like that's a fair representation of the Xiph people as well, based on what I've read about them - they're passionate about sound.

I realize AES gave the Robert Stuart study a top award but from what I heard it was a convention paper that wasn't even peer reviewed (whereas Meyer and Moran was), and everybody worked for Meridian that was involved in the testing. So how can Xiph have an agenda and Meridian, who wish to sell audiophile equipment, not?

Not remotely saying I'm an expert, but even the supporters of the Stuart paper are hesitant to use the word "debunked".

yeah "discredited" might be too strong a word. still, this article, linked from the AES home page, sort of lays out where they're at right now:

http://www.aes.org/technical/documentDownloads.cfm?docID=507

it says:

The theoretical and practical influence of filters on sound has long been debated, and a
new test program initiated by Meridian Audio seeks to explore some of the audibility
questions. In an important first paper given at the AES 137th convention, Meridian
authors H.M. Jackson et.al. measured the audibility in double blind tests of
downsampling filters typical of those used in CD preparation when such filters were
applied to a higher resolution stream without decimation and played through a high
quality audio system. Their result disputes that from an earlier paper by E.B. Meyer and
D.R. Moran (J.A.E.S. 55: 775-779, 2007) and provides evidence and a likely mechanism
for an audible distinction between CD and higher resolutions.

so again, perpetuating the notion that redbook cds are as good as we're ever going to get, and that all these people buying high-res files are throwing their money away because they can't hear the difference, is getting old.

i think there was an even more recent paper that shows that trained listeners, i.e. folks who actually know what they're listening for, can reliably tell the difference between normal and high resolution files:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/simple-everything-appears-simple

none of the candidates for presidents - not even jill stein - is talking about this! wake up people!!!

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