Pono Music - High fidelity audio porn player for music lovers

[drmike]

Long been a fan of FLAC and similar encoding for preserving rich audio recordings.  Yeah am a fan of bootlegs from live shows and other rare recordings.

Always liked Neil Young and his treasury of music contributions to Americana music.

Pono Music was founded by Neil Young and has a big collection of known musicians and industry heavyweights in their mix.

The player is high fidelity listening using FLAC format.  They did a Kickstarter funding campaign in April and blew the roof off:

18,220

Backers

 

$6,225,354

pledged of $800,000 goal

.... in 35 days.

Give it a look if you are a music lover like I am:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1003614822/ponomusic-where-your-soul-rediscovers-music

http://www.ponomusic.com/

 

[SkylarM]

I read the title as "Porno Music" at first....

 

[drmike]

I read the title as "Porno Music" at first....

I am betting that was part of their naming schema   It's sticky like that.

 

[dano]

A co-worker of mine ordered from the grassroots campaign -- I am happy that another player is getting into the player realm, as it seems all the others out there kinda just died. I almost ordered, but for me and my 'made in the usa' head of the last 4 years, I kinda said to myself..."it can be made in the USA, since it's not, I'll just skip it'. I am most likely a 0.05% of the people who read this board, but for someone as him(Neil Young), who is all about Farmaid, is an "environmentalist"...but yet, the player is going to be made in china?..why again? I am going to pay a premium for the player. that could be made my "XyU Products" from china for half the price, because, your Neil Young? Again, I like this music, am very happy that another music player is out there, but sad that someone as "American" as Neil Young would rather use slave labor to build the Pono Player.

To be fair, it's hard work to get a manufacturing operation going in the states, but for the price that is asked for the Pono, it seems that effort could be made to make a job in the country, that made him a fortune.

 

[matt[scrdspd]]

It looks like you need to buy the music from them and use their player. That makes it less appealing tho a good goal.

 

[blergh]

It's pretty pointless really, especially at that price. Just get an iPod Video 30GB and buy a decent headphone-amp, slap rockbox on it and you have a much better/cheaper solution than what the pono could offer as of now.

As for the PR & artists saying it's "the best they've ever heard" - Which artist doesn't want to appear in a product backed by Neil Young? You can indeed hear the difference between a lossy format such as MP3 and FLAC when listening to say, country or jazz/soul/etc (ie, more dynamic stuff) but that'd also require some semi-decent headphones. It's not like it'd sound "amaaaaaaazing" with your average iPod in-ears, nor does it magically make your song sound "more wide". Seems like a handful of these people have no clue whatsoever when it comes to understanding the difference between lossy and lossless as such.

Oh the irony of listening to record-label hotshots talk about how bad lossy formats are and that this "new amazing player" is the new thing. Too bad it's been done before and those people are the ones to blame for the shitty AAC's even appearing.

Wow, much quality, such depth!

 

[raindog308]

Which artist doesn't want to appear in a product backed by Neil Young? 

Self-respecting ones?  

I could go through life quite happily without hearing "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World", "This Note's For You", "Heart of Gold", "I've been through the desert on a horse with no name", again etc.  Whiny off-key harmonica folk rock horrors every one.

I know, I know, arguing about tastes...from what I hear, despite being a baby boomer, NY is a good guy.  But his music...

 

[blergh]

Self-respecting ones?  

I could go through life quite happily without hearing "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World", "This Note's For You", "Heart of Gold", "I've been through the desert on a horse with no name", again etc.  Whiny off-key harmonica folk rock horrors every one.

I know, I know, arguing about tastes...from what I hear, despite being a baby boomer, NY is a good guy.  But his music...

I suppose it's more about the "brand" Neil Young rather than the artist himself. Just like getting PR from Metallica while Hetfield is a huge dick.

 

[Dylan]

What I don't get is: why the fuck is it shaped like a triangle? How am I supposed to carry this around? There's a good reason every portable device ever is flat.

 

[blergh]

What I don't get is: why the fuck is it shaped like a triangle? How am I supposed to carry this around? There's a good reason every portable device ever is flat.

It's most probably due to the creators wanting separation due to the potential electrical interference that can be caused if circuits are cramped. It all comes down to if one wants to believe it or simply shrug it off as marketing yada-yada.