Neil Young to sell $399 PonoPlayer music device...

[stubbsonic]

WRT fidelity, we live in an age where there are limited excuses to compromise fidelity in music audio. The cost and availability of special players, and the extra bandwidth needed to access media are the two biggies. The latter would need to be handled at an industry level, where distributors make lossless files available. The former requires the right kind of hardware to play files without cheap, bad sounding DACs.

The fact that the player can be made quite small, even portable shouldn't surprise anyone. The fact that it is not super tiny and flat shouldn't be a deal breaker, either. We don't need a media player to be the size of an 80's VCR anymore.

WRT music therapy, etc. unless we are talking about double-blind, placebo controlled studies, we are dealing with many biases that are hard to account for. It is possible that the therapists own biases about digital music were affecting the observation and the results.

WRT the pono player, it is a odd name choice. Hard to imagine them missing the obvious similarity problem (perhaps it was deliberate?) But yea, that's dumb. I think THE LOSSLESS PLAYER would have been ok. Perhaps CLARITY PLAYER is already taken.

I imagine mastering guys are pretty excited about the idea that more of their hard-work could actually make it to the end user. Vinyl has its signature sound, cassettes were noisy, CDs were pretty good, MP3s were a step in the wrong direction, fidelity-wise, especially at the ubiquitous 128 rate.

I still don't have a blu-ray player, but don't judge.

[nick danger]

In interviews I've heard of Neil Young, he seems to be lamenting the ubiquity of MP3 type formats in displacing the analog formats and recording systems that he came up with in the 60's, 70's and 80's.

While the limited fidelity in MP3's is undeniable, even at 128 they aren't that much of a step-down from the playback systems that the vast majority of listeners were using to listen to Young's music back in the goodle days. So while the original source material may have been recored with much greater fidelity, and well-pressed vinyl played on the best systems may have been very superior to what most people listen to on their iPods today, the percentage of people who fell into that audiophile or near-audiophile class was relatively small.

[stubbsonic]

Cassettes & vinyl have their strengths and weaknesses, as do MP3s; and listening systems all add their own coloring to the sound as well. But it's not like you can lump all of those weaknesses into one bucket. Some are more objectionable than others, and it is all pretty subjective, I guess.

However, it seems like all audio "flaws" will eventually be treated with nostalgia by future listeners. It didn't surprise me that 8-bit came back. In 10 years, kidz will be running audio through an MP3-ifier plugin to get back the 90's (or "aughts?") sound.

[toodamnhip]

http://bgr.com/2014/03/12/ponoplayer-mu ... ate-price/

here is the full video with a whos who of guest artists speaking about the product as well as Neil, fascinating,,,hope it catches on

[James Steele]

WRT fidelity, we live in an age where there are limited excuses to compromise fidelity in music audio.

Well, as always, (and I know this is obvious), but what ultimately decides is consumer demand. If the general, unsophisticated public can't be convinced that compressed formats aren't adequate, then lossless players won't move forward. For years in day to day conversations, I've tried to educate "regular people" I come into contact with and explain why a CD will sound better than an MP3, etc., and I try to tell them just WHAT to listen to to hear it for themselves, like the crispness or clarity of hihats or crash cymbals for example.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it's too bad vinyl had to disappear. Analog was the best music copy protection ever devised-- we just didn't realize it at the time!

[Guitar Gaz]

http://bgr.com/2014/03/12/ponoplayer-mu ... ate-price/

here is the full video with a whos who of guest artists speaking about the product as well as Neil, fascinating,,,hope it catches on

Fascinating video - and the artists interviewed are not nobodies - so there is something in this. Anyone who thinks mp3's are not that bad really need their ears tested. Do a side by side even with CD's and you can hear it. And Neil Young isn't odd - he is driven but its all about the music. And James is correct about vinyl being good copy protection.

[toodamnhip]

WRT fidelity, we live in an age where there are limited excuses to compromise fidelity in music audio.

Well, as always, (and I know this is obvious), but what ultimately decides is consumer demand. If the general, unsophisticated public can't be convinced that compressed formats aren't adequate, then lossless players won't move forward. For years in day to day conversations, I've tried to educate "regular people" I come into contact with and explain why a CD will sound better than an MP3, etc., and I try to tell them just WHAT to listen to to hear it for themselves, like the crispness or clarity of hihats or crash cymbals for example.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it's too bad vinyl had to disappear. Analog was the best music copy protection ever devised-- we just didn't realize it at the time!

It will be a sad test case if the public doesn’t get into higher quality and buy this product. It will be a clear message that they don’t give a damn and if the public sends that type of message, it will be time to re-group for producers and mastering guys, and musicians.
But I don’t think it will not be a death blow to the goal of higher eventual quality.
I think there are TWO major factors-
1) Higher quality- this is where the public is shaky and probably ignorant and might drop the ball and not buy Pono....and if this happens, will any of us really be surprised?

2) Presentation- If Pono fails, someone, somewhere will find another way to present high quality audio that is more clever, more interesting...come with a free can of coke ...etc....what have you. And the public will buy. Not because they really cared about audio quality or understood it, but because it was marketed in a way that made them buy it.

Music is in danger of becoming a side product that cannot be marketed on it’s own without quickly running out of steam. It is starting to need to be connected to merchandise, and other incentives. This started with MTV and videos most likely. Before MTV, music stood on it;s own. Then, people started getting used to silly, ridiculous plots , (pictures), going along WITH their music. How many people sit down, close the door, put on a record and listen?...

Not many. Those people care about audio quality. But when the music is on in the background while a cutie is putting her make on, or doing dishes etc, do they really care about audio quality?

Thus, it may take a second ingredient, some thing that comes WITH the music, to make people buy higher quality. Music by itself is more rare every year.

[bayswater]

How many people sit down, close the door, put on a record and listen?...

Not many, and fewer do it in a place designed for the purpose. And if they do, is the Pono really a better alternative? Is any portable player going to make a difference? Aren't the room and the speakers a lot more important than the bit and sample rates of the player?

[stubbsonic]

It will be a sad test case if the public doesn’t get into higher quality and buy this product. It will be a clear message that they don’t give a damn and if the public sends that type of message, it will be time to re-group for producers and mastering guys, and musicians.

...

1) Higher quality- this is where the public is shaky and probably ignorant and might drop the ball and not buy Pono....and if this happens, will any of us really be surprised?

2) Presentation- If Pono fails, someone, somewhere will find another way to present high quality audio that is more clever, more interesting...come with a free can of coke ...etc....what have you. And the public will buy. Not because they really cared about audio quality or understood it, but because it was marketed in a way that made them buy it.

Music is in danger of becoming a side product that cannot be marketed on it’s own without quickly running out of steam.
...

Music by itself is more rare every year.

Those are great points, TDH. It is hard for the public to put a dollar value on a subtle improvement in sound that they don't know they are missing. Once MP3s tacked the frequency range and noise problem, it had enough clarity to carry the "information" of the music, without complete transparency.

My older TV has a box to receive digital over-the-air broadcasts. For the most part the picture is ok, but there are many times when I can see that they have to represent a dark area of the screen with 4 colors, so I see this weird artifact. Or the picture just glitches altogether and is digital pixel hash. But enough of the signal gets through to provide the mind-destroying entertisement I crave from time to time.

Back to the concept of music a la carte; it is a dark time in some ways. The concept of "selling out" is all but meaningless to kidz of a certain age. But I am hopeful because the mojo of music will prevail and ultimately will always transcend the marketing mechanisms that arise around it.

[Michael Canavan]

I found it odd that the test environment for this better quality player (in the video) was presented in a vintage car? Not at all the best environment even if there's a great sound system in it. Plus his thing will not hold half the songs that an mp3 player will.

The argument for 24 bit 192khz sound is an interesting one, but one has to wonder if some of the interest isn't driven by a greater profit margin for the artists? IE people re-buying classic recording etc. Not the worst thing, but IMO definitely a factor.

[BKK-OZ]

What do you all think about the sales model for Pono?

(Sales for the music, not the player.)

I have come to dislike iTunes for a number of reasons. Only one of those reasons is fidelity, and that isn't the main one - most listening occurs in sub-optimal situations (headphones at work, in the car, etc.) and AAC is sorta OK, so I don't really have too much issue with those formats. I dislike the business model around the closed iTunes ecosystem, I much prefer a model like Bandcamp.

How do you think the Pono music sales model will go?

[stubbsonic]

Yea, that is a critical point.

While I can see potential piracy problems as artists are essentially providing better-than-glass-masters to every person who buys their record.

But that is also the strength. The listener gets 100% of what the masterer wants them to hear.

I continue to resist the iTunes/iPad ethos. I do have a iTunes acct. But refuse to use any Apple branded portable for music. My iPad has never launched iTunes. My MP3 players are always 3rd-party Finder-mountable volumes. I manage the files manually. None of this sync'ing horse$#!+. But I digress.

Does BluRay have any potential for this level of fidelity?

[James Steele]

While I can see potential piracy problems as artists are essentially providing better-than-glass-masters to every person who buys their record.

What about cases where albums were tracked with 24 bit but only 44.1k data rate? Or maybe they tracked at 88.2k? If Pono is 24/192k which I think someone mentioned, they can't exactly put INTO a master resolution that which wasn't there to begin with really, can they? I mean I suppose you could convert your original tracks to a higher sample rate and then remix at the higher rate and maybe gain something?

Seems like in an odd way not much would be gained if you didn't track the project at the 192k rate to begin with. Or if you did it on analog and did a track by track transfer at 24/192k and then mixed. Or mixed down to analog and transferred? I dunno. Otherwise it seems similar to taking a graphic file that was created in Photoshop at say 150dpi, and then resizing it to 300dpi. It would just be using interpolation. No real NEW data is there.

[bayswater]

What about cases where albums were tracked with 24 bit but only 44.1k data rate? ... No real NEW data is there.

True, but if you're going to put a standardized production procession place, for this product, it's good to use the highest common denominator, rather than the lowest. I don't think it would hurt to use the higher rate, just a waste of media space.

[stubbsonic]

You're right, of course.

It seems pointless for artists to do anything special for the player or the pono store for that matter. Ideally it will be cool to think-- well, no matter how I master it, the player will handle it. But I don't know if the player will be a closed ecosystem as well, not allowing us to freely drag files to it. Doesn't matter much to me. I don't see myself getting one any time soon.