[OzarkTom]

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/neil-young-expands-pono-digital-to-analog-music-service-20120927

Young's Pono project has the backing of Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group according to Young's investment partner Craig Kallman, chairman and chief executive of Atlantic Records, reports Rolling Stone.


Flea, from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, told Rolling Stone, "It's not like some vague thing you need dogs' ears to hear. It's a drastic difference."

Here is Neil Young on Letterman with Pono.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GrgTiqZCF0

[Crimson]

I've been keeping my fingers crossed for a few years now. Lets hope it happens.

[SlushPuppy]

I've been keeping my fingers crossed for a few years now. Lets hope it happens.

I'd love to see this become successful, but I wonder how many really care. My daughter has been around some pretty decent sound systems all her life and can easily tell the difference between MP3, CD and hi-rez sound. What does she listen to 98% of the time? Her lossy iTunes rips. Her reply on this topic before heading off to school this morning - "I probably would if it was cheap and I could take it with me".

[SteveFord]

I'm excited about this and hope that it fulfills the promise.
My wife has been around some pretty good sound systems and live concerts and she only puts on music in the car.
Go figure.

[rpf]

Very cool. Hope it happens.

[Thump553]

I'd love to see this become successful, but I wonder how many really care. My daughter has been around some pretty decent sound systems all her life and can easily tell the difference between MP3, CD and hi-rez sound. What does she listen to 98% of the time? Her lossy iTunes rips. Her reply on this topic before heading off to school this morning - "I probably would if it was cheap and I could take it with me".

Maybe she will.  I just finished reading Young's autobiography Wage Heavy Peace (very mediocre BTW) and he talks about Pono a lot in the book.  His demo room is one of his old 1950's cars, he takes people out for a ride then switches on the system.  (I'll leave the pros and cons of using an operating, moving automobile as a discerning listening room to others).  So it sounds like the system will be portable at least.  I suspect it will have an early adopters premium price, but that is just my guess.

[OzarkTom]

I read a couple of raves about the use of Pono at the 2013 CES show. I didn't realize that Meridian's Bob Stuart has a big hand in developing Pono. Pono should be first class.

[jarcher]

Does anyone have more specific technical details - I can't really seem to find any. Got to say that I'm not excited with what I understand so far. I don't want to buy into a new proprietary format and hardware. If that is what this is about, let's just hope that the studios having already invested in remastering or whatever will also offer that work through conventional lossless formats and distributors such as HD tracks or even iTunes - or better yet some kind of streaming service.

[vortrex]

He briefly talked about it on Letterman recently and showed the device.

[lonewolfny42]

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/neil-youngs-pono-plans-take-shape-with-new-trademarks-20121219


http://www.mypono.com/

[TONEPUB]

Had a private listening session at CES of some PONO files, courtesy of Bob Stuart at Meridian.  Under NDA on all the tech stuff, but the sound quality was really impressive.  A few of the albums played, I know to be fairly flat and compressed, yet sounded fantastic, compared to their non-PONO counterparts.

I hope they can pull this off.

[jarcher]

Had a private listening session at CES of some PONO files, courtesy of Bob Stuart at Meridian.  Under NDA on all the tech stuff, but the sound quality was really impressive.  A few of the albums played, I know to be fairly flat and compressed, yet sounded fantastic, compared to their non-PONO counterparts.

I hope they can pull this off.

Is there anything more you can tell, such as whether a proprietary player was required or just a regular PC, etc?

[HAL]

jarcher,
When I watched Neil on David Letterman, he showed the Pono unit as a player.  About a 4" long triangular device with controls that looks like it attaches to headphones.  Seems like a next gen HiRez iPod replacement, not from Apple.

[underdog64]

Does anyone know if Pono will be download ONLY or include a physical disc for whole albums? I thought when I read  in the initial description of it a physical disc was mentioned.If they can include both (physical discs for collectors) as well as  AFFORDABLE downloads for the younger casual listeners,get most if not all the labels involved,and get an appreciable amount of titles out I don't see how it can fail...

[dB Cooper]

Although they are not saying so outright, this reeks of 'proprietary' and 'closed'. While I applaud efforts to raise the bar of SQ and SQ awareness, there are already sources for hi-res music- HDTracks, for instance, has FLAC and ALAC 24/196 files. Are they really claiming this will be better? If that's all it is- another format- then I couldn't care less. Like jarcher, I'm not interested in buying into a new proprietary format and hardware (or another round of the format wars.) And I know a LOT of young listeners, almost none of whom care about SQ. As long as it goes thump thump boom boom, they're happy.

But if it spurs higher quality source material- more hi res titles from places like hdtracks for example- then fine and dandy.

However, this from Rolling Stone article: 'In his book out this week, Waging Heavy Peace, Young writes that Pono will help unite record companies with cloud storage "to save the sound of music." ' If this is a cloud based subscription arrangement, include me out.

[mcgsxr]

Yawn.

There is plenty of ability out there today on a shoestring budget to get excellent sound out of lossless files.

There are plenty of affordable devices that are portable that can replay those same files on the go if you wish.

I will wait for the differentiation that Pono offers before I issue my final decision (not that Neil Young or anyone likely cares about my island of opinion!), but I am seeing nothing new here so far.

[dB Cooper]

Right, mgcsxr. Like I said, sounds like just another round of the format wars or another attempt to force feed DRM, or both.

Re-reading the article, it's definitely cloud based. Absolutely not interested.

[vortrex]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GrgTiqZCF0

[jarcher]

I would welcome and pay for a reasonably priced audiophile quality music subscription service, but not if it requires proprietary hardware to listen to it. At worst this has resulted in the record labels remastering and making available their catalog in a higher quality digital format, and presumably given the cost of this investment they will make this available through Pono or alternative services if pono is not successful. So some good must come of this. There hasn't been a substantially new digital audio file format in over ten years, so I can't help thinking the record companies in the face of declining sales wouldn't welcome some new standard to juice sales, just as they did with the CD vs LP. The real question is whether the broader market will care enough to make it successful. The experience with SACD , DVD Audio, and HDCD is not encouraging. The key will be convenience and pricing. Even HD tracks seems like it caters to a small and we'll heeled audience. At those prices I don't see them reaching critical mass, particularly when CDs are still cheaper. So, will keep hoping, but  the meantime it's still CDs and LPs for me.

[OzarkTom]

If Pono sounds better, count me in. Life is too short.