• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Pono Player

#2
I haven't listened to one yet but it's hard to imagine that it would be worth it. The unit itself is $400, more than I paid for my smartphone, which does infinitely more things. Then there's the question about whether you have to rebuy your music collection or if your $400 buys you a membership where you can download your albums. Nothing in the promo material answers that...and if you do have to rebuy your music collection, what will an album cost?

Color me skeptical.
 
#5
I don't think you will find anyone who has actually received one yet. Whether it is worth the price is very subjective considering that there are websites debating the sonic differences between $400 speaker cables.

I pre-ordered one so obviously I think that it is worth the price. A 64G IPOD Touch is $299 and a 128G Pono player is $399. As a dedicated music player I think that it is competitive compared to high end MP3 players and even more so compared to other High Resolution players (Sony NW-ZX1 $700, Astell & Kern AK100 Mk II $900). Sure a smartphone does more things but that is like comparing listening to music in my car versus listening to music on a stereo that costs as much as my car - the car does a lot more but that doesn't mean it sounds better. The Pono player is a dedicated music playing device with discrete digital to analog components produced by Ayre acoustics so if it doesn't sound better than my phone I will be extremely disappointed. I can't debate whether the HD downloads sound better than CD's but I plan on just ripping CD quality FLAC's to the player from my current music collection.

If you are 100% satisfied with the sound quality of your phone or Ipod or whatever then just buy the biggest SD card you can get and rock on.
 
#7
elgecko said:
That's where I get confused. Will your FLACs have the same quality as a Pono file? Also, do you know how much Pono downloads will be? I searched and couldn't find any pricing info.
Click to expand...

FLAC's are uncompressed, they are as good as the source. The High Res files that will be for sale on the Pono site are actually higher than CD quality so anything that I currently own would not be at that standard. Some argue that the vast majority of people cannot hear an improvement beyond CD quality but I can't say because I have never listened to High Res files for comparison. I will say that I have no intention of re-purchasing all of my music in a higher resolution format but if the price is comparable I would consider buying a high res download versus buying something new on CD in the future. If I listen to some HD downloads and 'my soul rediscovers music' maybe I will change my tune. What I am interested in is stepping up from MP3 quality on my phone to CD quality on a dedicated device that doesn't play e-mail notifications in the middle of a song or tell me I should turn the volume down.

Don't get caught up in the 'ecosystem' where you have a pono player and you download all your music from the pono website, it is just a player and you can play anything you want on it. Likewise you could be listening to High Resolution music right now (and re-purchasing all of your old albums) from HDTracks.com or others without buying a Pono player. I would expect download prices to be around $15-$30.

And I am not trying to sell these things or convince anyone, I haven't even heard it yet.
 
#8
Mike_D said:
FLAC's are uncompressed, they are as good as the source. The High Res files that will be for sale on the Pono site are actually higher than CD quality so anything that I currently own would not be at that standard. Some argue that the vast majority of people cannot hear an improvement beyond CD quality but I can't say because I have never listened to High Res files for comparison. I will say that I have no intention of re-purchasing all of my music in a higher resolution format but if the price is comparable I would consider buying a high res download versus buying something new on CD in the future. If I listen to some HD downloads and 'my soul rediscovers music' maybe I will change my tune. What I am interested in is stepping up from MP3 quality on my phone to CD quality on a dedicated device that doesn't play e-mail notifications in the middle of a song or tell me I should turn the volume down.

Don't get caught up in the 'ecosystem' where you have a pono player and you download all your music from the pono website, it is just a player and you can play anything you want on it. Likewise you could be listening to High Resolution music right now (and re-purchasing all of your old albums) from HDTracks.com or others without buying a Pono player. I would expect download prices to be around $15-$30.

And I am not trying to sell these things or convince anyone, I haven't even heard it yet.
Click to expand...

I know about badly ripped, over compressed mp3s but I honestly didn't even know that HD audio was even a thing. I don't doubt that HD audio sounds better, I just wonder how much better. I initially thought HDTV was stupid until I saw it. Now, standard resolution TV just looks weird to me. I wonder if HD audio will become standard like HDTV has become.

BTW, according to Wiki, Pono albums will cost between $15 and $25 per album. When you get your player, you have to at least buy one file and report back on how it sounds.
 
#9
I am skeptical about these players as well, i just dont see the benefit i guess. To me, digital is digital. I don't notice the difference between high bit rate mp3 and flac. Either way my phone plays flac if i need it to. I'm not sure why this player would sound any better than my cell phone, if the file format is the same.
 
#10
I heard of "HD Audio" easily over 5 years ago. At the time it seemed like a gimmick, and all the ads were using it as a reason for the consumer to listen to RADIO, - trying to bring their listeners back. I was like..How can they transmit HD anything over radio waves? I don't remember hearing any difference whatsoever.

Now, I don't know what a flac is or what the Pono is capable of, but I'm skeptical. It would have to be very impressive to win me over. Doesn't the recording of the music have to be different also? Someone correct me but is there any way older albums could sound any better than they already do in the original format?
 
#13
Mike_D said:
FLAC's are uncompressed
Click to expand...

FLAC audio files are compressed, but it's *lossless* compression. No bits are discarded, no audio flaws are artificially masked. When you play a FLAC audio file, it is uncompressed into its original state during playback. It's like ZIP files. Other compression schemes like MP3 use *lossy* compression: Bits are discarded.

HD Radio (FM) uses lossy compression. The codec is similar to Dolby AC3, aka "Dolby Digital". It can sound *very* good.
 
#15
image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: elgecko
#17
It's gonna take some time with it for a fair evaluation. I need to get it connected to a computer, check for updates, give NY some of my money for his magic audio files etc.

First impression, comparing the pono-supplied sample track "There's a World" vs. the same track from my original non-remastered Harvest CD, played on a PS3 through my Pioneer home theater receiver set to Analog Pure Direct mode... Using my best Sennheiser headphones...

The Pono sounds better. Cleaner, closer to the master recording.

To be continued...
 
#18
So the PONO music store has a very wide variety of stuff. I have a thing for albums like Eagles first album and Hendrix Cry of Love, recorded in very clean analog with excellent sonics. Oh and I like the music too.

Eagles is digitally mastered 24-bit at 192Khz sampling rate. Cost: $23.99

image.jpg



Cry of Love is mastered 16-bit 44.1KHz, CD quality. $11.99

image.jpg
 
#19
Progress report (test, test, sibilance...)

Getting either my iMac or Windows 7 PC to reliably recognize the Pono player turned out to be challenging. Long story short: If you get one of these, make sure the firmware is updated to at least v1.0.4. The factory-loaded v1.0.1 didn't work well at all.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate iTunes? I find it unnecessarily cumbersome, complex, non-intuitive, and just plain annoying. However I can make it work, eventually.

PonoWorld Player 20 is possibly worse (it's actually JRiver Media Center, tweaked for Pono). I can't for the life of me figure out how to do simple tasks like set up playlists and transfer them to the Pono. It's baffling. Actually it's infuriating. There is NOTHING intuitive about it. No I'm not going to watch all their how-to videos. The s/w did find my iTunes library and everything is there, but getting it onto the Pono device seems crazy complicated.

OTOH, I'm able to just copy files from my existing iTunes library to the Pono player using Finder or Windows Explorer. Drag and drop. I'll have to manage the content without the "assistance" of their software.

I purchased an album mastered at 192K 24-bit. It sounds really good but the Pono player can't drive my Sennheiser headphones very well. They want more juice. Connecting the Pono's Line Out to a receiver and plugging the 'phones into that works fine and sounds awesome.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back