http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/9/5488484/n...r-will-cost-399 (http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/9/5488484/neil-youngs-high-fidelity-ipod-competitor-will-cost-399)
I like the design.
(http://i2.wp.com/allthingsd.com/files/2011/12/triangle_tablet.png)
I wonder why all these tech blogs don't seem to appreciate that like everything else they report on, audio is also studied scientifically.
BTW, the comments, as in all other tech blogs when hi-res is the subject, are a SIWOTI (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Xkcd#SIWOTI_syndrome) trigger.
Placebophiles unite! Your wet dreams have finally come true!
IMO this player seems far more competitively-priced than most others that can't play files with ridiculously high sampling rates.
128 Gb of onboard flash storage is almost unprecedented...especially at this price-point. Furthermore if PonoMusic dot com can deliver on getting all the majors to offer a decent selection (as opposed to a ghost town like HDtracks) perhaps the audiophoolery could persuade the music industry to stop making productions sound so bad. IOW: if making the music really sound better (like they do for some SACDs and a few vinyl releases) is a consequence of offering music at 24/96 or whatever then count me in. Not only do I have the HDD-space to store it but I also have the software to resample and dither it to portable and sufficient standards like Redbook or a decent lossy encode.
You know what would be funny? ..if this new player had to have some proprietary software (like iTunes) to sync it and it sent usage-reports to the devs telling them that most people who bought it were mostly playing their MP3s on it. I would indeed "lol" haha.
IMO this player seems far more competitively-priced than most others that can't play files with ridiculously high sampling rates.
128 Gb of onboard flash storage is almost unprecedented...especially at this price-point.
I agree about the 128GB flash storage, though I'm not sure about the price. Take a look at that tiny screen for example, it doesn't exactly look like they went premium on stuff that's not audio-related, even if that.
Furthermore if PonoMusic dot com can deliver on getting all the majors to offer a decent selection (as opposed to a ghost town like HDtracks) perhaps the audiophoolery could persuade the music industry to stop making productions sound so bad. IOW: if making the music really sound better (like they do for some SACDs and a few vinyl releases) is a consequence of offering music at 24/96 or whatever then count me in.
I think before going too far with these questions, does Young's music production sound good? Not rhetorical, I'm not into his music, I don't know.
...
I think before going too far with these questions, does Young's music production sound good? Not rhetorical, I'm not into his music, I don't know.
I don't know either. Last song I remember hearing from him was Keep On Rocking in the Free World TBH.
I'm speculating but I don't think any of it would depend on his hearing or personal production choices. The few blurbs I've read from him about his audio-related stuff seems to indicate he really doesn't know what he's talking about either.
Edit: now that I think about it you're probably right: the value really isn't so great considering the UI. This SONY (http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/hd-walkman-digital-music-players/nwz-zx1#product_details_default) that I was ripping on in another thread, though priced a bit higher, runs Android.
This SONY (http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/hd-walkman-digital-music-players/nwz-zx1#product_details_default) that I was ripping on in another thread, though priced a bit higher, runs Android.
Man this is hilarious
Image (http://sonyglobal.scene7.com/is/image/gwtprod/730cb486663e3250c6b1685e6692a881?fmt=jpeg&wid=580)
I'd pay up to like $250 for that player though.
This SONY (http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/hd-walkman-digital-music-players/nwz-zx1#product_details_default) that I was ripping on in another thread, though priced a bit higher, runs Android.
Man this is hilarious
Image (http://sonyglobal.scene7.com/is/image/gwtprod/730cb486663e3250c6b1685e6692a881?fmt=jpeg&wid=580)
I'd pay up to like $250 for that player though.
I'm just really relieved that they thought to support ATRAC.
...but seriously, it does look really nice. I don't think it's "£549-nice" either.
Few tech specs are out. What is there to discuss? You guys get off on the prospect of another placebophile audio device? Sorry to break it to ýou, but overpriced gadgets are a dime a dozen.
EDIT: the pic in the original post and the subject title suggest this thread is meant to be nothing but a rant.
...What is there to discuss? You guys get off on the prospect of another placebophile audio device?
...
Yes.
I was thinking "Audio Hardware" was the place to discuss dime-a-dozen gadgets, overpriced or not. Even if this thread was meant to be a rant it's not outside the TOS. We're discussing audio hardware, Ray of Sunshine
Missing the point, rant or not. The "tech specs" aren't the main subject, but the claims behind the device. Young has been beating this drum for what, years now?
Furthermore if PonoMusic dot com can deliver on getting all the majors to offer a decent selection (as opposed to a ghost town like HDtracks) perhaps the audiophoolery could persuade the music industry to stop making productions sound so bad. IOW: if making the music really sound better (like they do for some SACDs and a few vinyl releases) is a consequence of offering music at 24/96 or whatever then count me in. Not only do I have the HDD-space to store it but I also have the software to resample and dither it to portable and sufficient standards like Redbook or a decent lossy encode.
Well, exactly, so who needs a new player?
I guess they could get Toblerone to sponsor it. It makes these...
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=860002 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=104915&view=findpost&p=860002)
...seem quite sensible in comparison.
Tell me, does the next paragraph make me sound like a really grumpy old man?
In a recording studio, someone creates a 24/96 version. That's the master format. They will let me download this for, say, £25. Then they take this master format, ruin it with over-use of dynamic range compression, convert it down to 16/44.1, create a CD master, press some CDs, and will post one of these to my door for £5. What do I "gain" from paying 5x as much? I'm paying them to deliver extra data that I don't want or need. I'm paying them to not deliver a physical item. I'm paying them to
not do things. The only useful thing, though it's perverse, is I'm paying them not to ruin the sound with excessive dynamic range compression. It's like paying a chef extra not to sh1t in your food. Forgive me if I don't feel like this is a fantastic deal.
If you could buy a decent downconversion at the same price as a normal CD, that would be fine. Whether that would hurt their business model, or not, I don't know. In a rational world it would kill it, but I don't think the target audience is rational, so maybe it'll happen.
Cheers,
David.
I guess they could get Toblerone to sponsor it.
(http://i.imgur.com/tIWCc5I.jpg)
if making the music really sound better (like they do for some SACDs and a few vinyl releases) is a consequence of offering music at 24/96 or whatever then count me in.
Me as well. If for once they deliver better sound because they think they have to in order to sell - i.e., offering us less destroyed masters - and the side effect is that they fool nearly all their customers into thinking the difference is in the hi-rez, then the scientist in me will spend five minutes cursing the audiophoolery and the music lover in me will spend the rest of the day blissful.
Fingers crossed that happens (ie, masters finally improve) it would be a side effect as welcome as the one that has been happening to blu-ray releases: they've finally started to wake up to the fact that the higher resolution would deem flaws more obvious than during the DVD era and started to yield better scans (specially for old releases) than ever before.
the fact that the higher resolution would deem flaws more obvious
TOS #8?
the fact that the higher resolution would deem flaws more obvious
TOS #8?
He was quite clearly talking about video. I don't think we need to ABX HD against SD.
I think the problem is that with audio the higher res doesn't make "flaws" more obvious. The only ones complaining about the "flaws" that hi-res would "solve" are the "audiophiles. (<--I ran out of scare quotes.)
the fact that the higher resolution would deem flaws more obvious
TOS #8?
I assumed that meant when and if the hi-rez purchaser realizes, "hey, this sounds just like the [overly compressed, clipping] CD version I had". Only more expensive with little-to-no resale value.
I think the problem is that with audio the higher res doesn't make "flaws" more obvious.
True, but reading the post carefully I don't think includemeout went that far. If he meant that, then julf is right.
Tell me, does the next paragraph make me sound like a really grumpy old man?
In a recording studio, someone creates a 24/96 version. That's the master format. They will let me download this for, say, £25. Then they take this master format, ruin it with over-use of dynamic range compression, convert it down to 16/44.1, create a CD master, press some CDs, and will post one of these to my door for £5. What do I "gain" from paying 5x as much? I'm paying them to deliver extra data that I don't want or need. I'm paying them to not deliver a physical item. I'm paying them to not do things. The only useful thing, though it's perverse, is I'm paying them not to ruin the sound with excessive dynamic range compression. It's like paying a chef extra not to sh1t in your food. Forgive me if I don't feel like this is a fantastic deal.
(http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-golfclap.gif)
True, but reading the post carefully I don't think includemeout went that far. If he meant that, then julf is right.
I am happy to be wrong and let includemeout have the benefit of doubt.
Placebophiles unite! Your wet dreams have finally come true!
Is it a placebo if it winds up bench-testing better, even if the differences are far beyond the limits of anyone's hearing? I'd argue that it might be a waste of money and storage space, but not necessarily a placebo.
But having said that, I did spectral analysis (in Audacity) of my 24/96 HD Tracks music files, and even there, most of the action happens below 10 kHz. What little that I see beyond 20 kHz is both so low (-70 dB or so) and isolated that I wonder if it's just random artifacts that really should be filtered out.
Is it a placebo if it winds up bench-testing better, even if the differences are far beyond the limits of anyone's hearing? I'd argue that it might be a waste of money and storage space, but not necessarily a placebo.
If the signal cannot be resolved by the human senses, then there will be no effect on the brain due to the stimulus. If the listener still hears a difference based on the fact he believes the new format is superior, this can only be due to the placebo effect. Just because something is measurable doesn't mean it has any effect on our senses or brain.
Yes, it was an analogy and I was referring to video when mentioning resolution, not audio.
For the latter, I do stand by my first statement: IMO, its apparently excellent specifications apart, pono is just another club meant to be appropriated by placebophiles/audiophools/well-off, sad middle-aged men to go on flogging lossy encoding (I bet they secretly hope maybe to death, this time around) and carry on playing down proven scientific methods (ie, ABX testing) which would just point out how wrong their perspective is -even more so if we consider the not-so-ideal circumstances such a DAP is meant to be used under.
Oh, and under this same analogy, my sincere hope (or maybe just a pipe dream ) is that the penny finally drops for the likes of Rick Rubin etcetera, and they finally stop this nonsensical loudness war, for starters (Flea, as a fierce advocate of Pono, could grow the balls to tip him off, perhaps?). As unlike 35, 70mm negatives of yesteryear, and as we all know, albums like his for instance, were already doomed from the production stage - so the analogy would only work if they started it over again - assuming the industry finally embraces this "audiophile"* culture. (*this which IMO is the good definition of the word, not the stereotypical one)
I'm skeptical about this whole thing. What's the difference with all the so-called HD formats from previous years? SACD and ADVD even had huge marketing backing. The difference seems to be it's Neil Young promoting it. An old coot by today's music consumers' standards. Whatever you think of his music or the music industry, he's not even very influential right now in his own field, so why would people listen to him in other matters outside his expertise? I think most of the people who are swayed solely by celebrity endorsements don't appreciate Young as a musician, and people who aren't swayed obviously won't listen to him even if they're fans.
What's the difference with all the so-called HD formats from previous years? SACD and ADVD even had huge marketing backing.
For placebophiles (including any wannabe or real celebrity endorsing it) it is obviously night to day!
Wasn't the point of PONO the fact that it processed audio in DSD (effectively sigma-delta chips native language)?
So although all the 'new' masters will be re-converted PCM it acts as a stalking horse for yet another new format.
Which does not have the same universitality of a copy unprotected red book standard.
I'll wait for the Beats Audio version. That'll sound really great.
...
In a recording studio, someone creates a 24/96 version. That's the master format. They will let me download this for, say, £25. Then they take this master format, ruin it with over-use of dynamic range compression, convert it down to 16/44.1, create a CD master, press some CDs, and will post one of these to my door for £5. What do I "gain" from paying 5x as much? I'm paying them to deliver extra data that I don't want or need. I'm paying them to not deliver a physical item. I'm paying them to not do things. The only useful thing, though it's perverse, is I'm paying them not to ruin the sound with excessive dynamic range compression. It's like paying a chef extra not to sh1t in your food. Forgive me if I don't feel like this is a fantastic deal.
If you could buy a decent downconversion at the same price as a normal CD, that would be fine. Whether that would hurt their business model, or not, I don't know. In a rational world it would kill it, but I don't think the target audience is rational, so maybe it'll happen.
Cheers,
David.
The only album I"ve thus far bought from HDtracks was $17.99 USD. Still much less than the vinyl (which was probably cut from it anyway.) It was only a few dollars more than the Best Buy special edition CD (which had one less bonus track) @15 and change. I don't care about the "hi-res" thing so much even though I have a SACD/DVD-A player...this album was 24/44.1 anyway.
I didn't mind paying a few dollars more because the HDtracks version was DR10 to the CD and Mastered for iTunes DR4-5. You can hear it too without the measurements. Not that the album is a flawless production without the added compression*
CDs haven't even gone up with inflation since the eighties that I've seen; they've always been around fifteen bucks. If they charge more that a few dollars more than the CD than I would agree that it's not worth it for me either.
I'm in agreement with what Porcus said earlier in the thread: if it takes audiophoolery to get the music industry to back off on the loudness war I will happily take it. But you're right, David; there's little use for the claims of such a player if I'm going to resample it or run it through the Mastered for iTunes droplet anyway. The amount of space (128Gb) is interesting but one can honestly just use an Android phone/player with SD cards or an iPod Classic if they need that much space. I know the Touch and the iPhone support up to 24/48 for those who think they hear bat-frequencies...I'm guessing the Classic does as well.
*Edit: I don't mean to imply that the stuff you get off HDtracks will normally be a different master or less dynamically compressed than the CD. I doubt that's a norm based on looking at a few in the DR database.
Wasn't the point of PONO the fact that it processed audio in DSD (effectively sigma-delta chips native language)? ...
Given that Ayre (who designed the hardware) and Neil Young himself are not DSD fans, IMHO it's unlikely.
An apropos regarding outlets to buy lossless: There is a webshop search engine at http://flacme.com (http://flacme.com) (and their HD counterpart http://www.findhdmusic.com (http://www.findhdmusic.com) ) - I just stumbled over it.
It has thus far only brought me to expired products and territory-restricted content I cannot buy, but still ... I have discovered lossless retailers I didn't know existed.
CDs haven't even gone up with inflation since the eighties that I've seen; they've always been around fifteen bucks.
Seeing the price labels on my old CDs I'm horrified at what I paid for some of them. Today, unless you're desperate to buy something when it first comes out, most CDs can be had for less than £10 soon enough, and most current pop music seems to have stabilised at £5-£6 delivered to your door.
In real terms this is a huge drop in the cost of music - I assume it's because of Napster etc (which made music free) followed by Spotify and YouTube (which made music legally free), the fact that CDs are on the way out (often downloads cost more!), and typical internet tax-avoidance pricing (compared with the legitimately taxed bricks and mortar shops that used to sell CDs).
But looking at the price labels on my old CDs (this isn't a hobby of mine(!), but I couldn't help but notice them when I was ripping them) it reminded me of a time when a CD was a premium product, and £10 seemed like a bargain. It's understandable that people in the industry are looking for a way to bring back those days - to get into people's minds the idea that "this is worth some money".
When CDs were introduced, there was a genuine audible advance due to the technology. To the average listener, music suddenly sounded better.
Now the improvements we're hoping for have nothing to do with technology, but hinge on care, skill and talent. People have already launched "better than CD" formats (with essentially inaudible technical advantages) and tried to ensure their success by tying them in to care, skill and talent. This is exactly what we're talking about in this thread. But look at HDCD, Gold CDs, DVD-A/SACD, etc - these have all been minimally successful,
and they haven't universally delivered better masters via care, skill and talent. What hope is there that it'll be different this time?
I know I sound 110% cynical, but viewed rationally, the expressions of hope are quite strange too. People are thinking "if the industry manages to make some success of a pointless technical innovation then as a side-effect / marketing trick they might not destroy the sound of the music (at least sometimes). This is a good thing."
Two problems:
1. Analyse that train of thought carefully and it's sounding a bit like Stockholm syndrome.
2. If you accidentally fix a problem as a side effect of something pointless, but most people buy into the pointless part, you can break it again tomorrow. Far better to recognise and fix the problem itself.
Though I have to admit, if the pricing was sensible, and someone I trust on here confirmed that an album I wanted to buy was available in better sound quality in some new DRM-free audio format, I'd be there. Like most people in this thread I've dipped my toe into this several times already, but I've often been disappointed.
Cheers,
David.
...But look at HDCD, Gold CDs, DVD-A/SACD, etc - these have all been minimally successful, and they haven't universally delivered better masters via care, skill and talent. What hope is there that it'll be different this time?
I know I sound 110% cynical, but viewed rationally, the expressions of hope are quite strange too. People are thinking "if the industry manages to make some success of a pointless technical innovation then as a side-effect / marketing trick they might not destroy the sound of the music (at least sometimes). This is a good thing."
Two problems:
1. Analyse that train of thought carefully and it's sounding a bit like Stockholm syndrome.
2. If you accidentally fix a problem as a side effect of something pointless, but most people buy into the pointless part, you can break it again tomorrow. Far better to recognise and fix the problem itself...
You raise some valid points and your admitted cynicism seems rooted in logic and reality. Maybe I am just being wishful.
Honestly it seems pretty improbable that Pono will be any more of a success than other "hi-res" formats and online storefronts. Everyone I know doesn't know or care about technical details; they just want to push play and listen to music...nothing wrong with that. I just offered a friend a "bit-identical" CD-R of Bryan Adams' "Reckless" and explained that it wouldn't be some MP3 CD when she ripped it for her phone. The look on her face told me that, while she wanted the CD, she didn't really know or care what I was talking about.
Just because audiophiles (I'm using the term loosely to include people like us in forums like this) are loud with their complaints doesn't mean they're representative of the concerns of the general population. If your average person bought a "hi-res" album from Pono or wherever they're going to flip out when they realize they can't easily burn it to a CD or get it on their phone.
Hmh ... I recall they made the excuse that CDs were so expensive to produce that they had to charge another £5 over LPs, but of course it was supposed to drop when the format caught on. It didn't much until it was on its way out - except on the releases you had already bought on LP, which was sold to you once again without investing in a new recording.
Nowadays a smaller artist can sell me the album on Bandcamp for a third of the price tag and still gross three times as much. Must have hurt the record officials' cocaine dealers massively.
There's some more detail here (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1003614822/ponomusic-where-your-soul-rediscovers-music).
Reading between the marketing bumpf it appears to be similar to Apple's iPod/iTunes model: a player on the one hand and a store for purchasing music on the other. With better specs for the former and lossless quality for the latter. No mention of a new file format, just FLAC at different resolutions.
To me it seems to be neither fish nor fowl. Too bulky to be portable, and too scaled-down for home use.
No mention of a new file format, just FLAC at different resolutions.
I do not understand this statement. Flac is lossless, it does not come at different resolutions. Different minor compression level, but not resolutions.
Too bulky to be portable, and too scaled-down for home use.
And again, What?
...Flac is lossless, it does not come at different resolutions. Different minor compression level, but not resolutions...
Are you being disingenuous? Of course FLAC can come at different resolutions and it's still, by definition, lossless whether it's a container for "hi-res" 24/96 or a Redbook downsampling of that.
Got an email today from NeilYoung.com notifying me that Neil now has a Kickstarter project to actually manufacture these players. He's essentially asking you to pay $400 up front for a player that only exists as prototypes. If it never happens, you get your money back. If it does work, you get the player plus "two of Neil's favorite Neil Young albums" in Pono format.
What this says to me is that he can't find any traditional investors. The smell of snake oil must be really strong.
(http://i62.tinypic.com/2dilkxh.jpg)
Sabre Dac ES9018 and 64+64gb memory, this is actually decent deal despite being celebrity product. Hopefully fewer people are going to buy that 2.4k iriver player.
Oh god...the "audiophile" section of the Kickstarter site...they've been reading too much TAS/Stereophile
1) Minimum phase digital filters, because normal digital filters sound digital.
2) No feedback at all, anywhere, because it sounds "unnatural".
3) Discrete output circuitry, because opamps are evil.
Another section assures me that the difference between hi-res and well-compressed MP3 is so enormous that I'll feel it in my very soul. Yes, that was the noun employed. At this point I would suggest commenting on this is like shooting disabled fish in a small tray, were it not for the fact that this sort of thing will be reported verbatim in the relevant media publications as if it makes complete sense.
...
Another section assures me that the difference between hi-res and well-compressed MP3 is so enormous that I'll feel it in my very soul. Yes, that was the noun employed...
I wonder which part of Plato's tripartite soul would feel the difference between hi-res and MP3. There's the Logical, the Spirited, and the Appetitive. I'm guessing it would have to be the last part. It's surely not the first part.
"Yaaay!!"
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/nei...-1-day-20140312 (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/neil-young-reaches-800-000-pono-kickstarter-goal-in-1-day-20140312)
Flamboyancy levels nearing those of James Brown's funeral.
2. If you accidentally fix a problem as a side effect of something pointless, but most people buy into the pointless part, you can break it again tomorrow. Far better to recognise and fix the problem itself.
In the video (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/neil-young-recruits-bruce-springsteen-dave-grohl-for-pono-kickstarter-20140311) where Neil Young showcases the differences between MP3, CD and Pono to a bunch of fellow musicians, it kinda sounds like he's comparing some brickwalled, very compressed version (as in Dynamic Range Compression) to a very dynamic one. That's what I got from many of the comments of those artists, who mention stuff like "hitting a wall", "drums no longer sound like drums" about MP3, and stuff like being able to tell where instruments are located, about Pono.
Maybe, just maybe, if they start appying excessive compression again, it won't "sound like Pono" and they'll reject such masters. Wishful thinking, maybe?
2. If you accidentally fix a problem as a side effect of something pointless, but most people buy into the pointless part, you can break it again tomorrow. Far better to recognise and fix the problem itself.
In the video (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/neil-young-recruits-bruce-springsteen-dave-grohl-for-pono-kickstarter-20140311) where Neil Young showcases the differences between MP3, CD and Pono to a bunch of fellow musicians, it kinda sounds like he's comparing some brickwalled, very compressed version (as in Dynamic Range Compression) to a very dynamic one. That's what I got from many of the comments of those artists, who mention stuff like "hitting a wall", "drums no longer sound like drums" about MP3, and stuff like being able to tell where instruments are located, about Pono.
Maybe, just maybe, if they start appying excessive compression again, it won't "sound like Pono" and they'll reject such masters. Wishful thinking, maybe?
One of the big excuses for loudness mastering that I always hear is "it's often artistic choice." But I've spoken to a few very successful rock musicians who all seemed to be completely hands-off regarding production. More than one seriously thought dynamic range compression was the same as MP3 compression.
Am I reading the Kickstarter page right or did he not already surpass the 800,000 goal? That was fast. I wonder why he even needed a kickstarter with all the celebrity endorsement.
In that first video, the underwater analogy had me in fits of laughter/distress. How grossly misrepresented..
EDIT: Oh I see the RollingStone article now, thanks includemeout.
I love the video. So many famous people being bowled over it makes you believe it.
Until someone from RHCP tells you that the music is no longer destroyed. What, no longer like Californication?!
Seriously, it does make you interested. What were they hearing? Fantastic marketing.
Let's hope for some fantastic recordings.
Cheers,
David.
i wonder who will be using kickstarter next? maybe apple need financial help for the next iphone or microsoft need funds to develop windows 9.
I love the video. So many famous people being bowled over it makes you believe it.
Yes, I definitely want to hear his car stereo after that!
Until someone from RHCP tells you that the music is no longer destroyed. What, no longer like Californication?!
Are they really blaming a codec or are they blaming a codec that represents mastering-for-the-portable device/CD-market? Sometimes I wonder what they're really implying. Are they saying
Californication would have been different had they produced for 24/192 flac? I don't get it.
I love the video. So many famous people being bowled over it makes you believe it.
Until someone from RHCP tells you that the music is no longer destroyed. What, no longer like Californication?!
Seriously, it does make you interested. What were they hearing? Fantastic marketing.
Let's hope for some fantastic recordings.
Dave Grohl was interviewed by Marc Maron on his WTF podcast. IIRC he bought the soundboard of the studio Nirvana and other famous artists used to record. The theme about its sound was analog vs. digital although from a bit of googling he at least seems to recognize (http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/01/31/how-sound-city-studios-changed-dave-grohls-life-part-1/) that his loud music playing has in fact affected his hearing.
i wonder who will be using kickstarter next? maybe apple need financial help for the next iphone or microsoft need funds to develop windows 9.
There's some positive things (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/anomalisa/charlie-kaufmans-anomalisa) that have come out of famous people using Kickstarter. I think the KS-produced new Veronica Mars movie is out already.
But I've spoken to a few very successful rock musicians who all seemed to be completely hands-off regarding production. More than one seriously thought dynamic range compression was the same as MP3 compression.
Oh God! No wonder them embarking on this senseless cruzade against poor old MP3 then.
Let's hope for some fantastic recordings.
You never can tell.
...
Another section assures me that the difference between hi-res and well-compressed MP3 is so enormous that I'll feel it in my very soul. Yes, that was the noun employed...
I wonder which part of Plato's tripartite soul would feel the difference between hi-res and MP3. There's the Logical, the Spirited, and the Appetitive. I'm guessing it would have to be the last part. It's surely not the first part.
(can't believe it I'd missed on this)
Then audiophoolz get on a strop when we dismiss them as blindly-faithful
fanatics.
If this doesn't border religious
fanatism, I honestly don't know what else does.
One of the big excuses for loudness mastering that I always hear is "it's often artistic choice." But I've spoken to a few very successful rock musicians who all seemed to be completely hands-off regarding production.
Many artistic decisions are NOT made by the musician(s). The artist usually does not have "creative control", especially in a 1st contract. In most cases you probably don't
want the artist in charge (especially if they don't know the difference between file compression and dynamic compression). Just because you know how to make music doesn't mean you know how to make a good recording.
It could be a marketing or business-
driven decision, but they are going for a particular sound and that's "art".
....There's a cool scene in
Ray (the Ray Charles movie) where he's making a musical departure (I forget what the change is) and someone from the record company says he can't do it. He quotes the section of his contract that gives him full creative control!
I wonder why he even needed a kickstarter with all the celebrity endorsement.
I wonder
if he ever needed Kickstarter, or if that is just a way to organize pre-sales in a way that generates extra attention.
I guess attracting everyone's attention at this early stage is his product very tour de force given that the sooner it amasses a huge following, then the more difficult it is going to be for its detractors to unmask all the hot air and 'old novelties' behind its spec sheet and dismiss it as just another attempt at snake oil peddling or at cashing in into people's desire to have the best, whatever it costs.
And what better way to do that than getting a truckload of (mostly) ageing, tinnitus-suffering music industry celebrities to back it up as the next end-all holy grail of sorts, swearing by their bibles that, "Hell, now we finally hear the difference! So, aren't you going to join our ranks and listen to it too?"
...a truckload of (mostly) ageing, tinnitus-suffering music industry celebrities...
Who, perhaps, have an interest in selling yet another format to add to the half a dozen they've gauged on. A fan and his money...
A few things.
First, can people stop talking about the 'death' of cds. We've had online audio since the late 90's, iTunes since what 2001? If the audio cd were to die, it would have done so in the last 13 years. Those of us who still buy cd's nowadays aren't going to stop buying them tomorrow. Or next year. Or 2012 when they were 'supposed' to cease being sold. I'm pretty sure the market can support both. (as well as vinyl)
Second. Does the flac format have any type of drm built in? According to Wikipedia, pono is going to be a flac based music store. If so, I don't see any reason to hate on it, I am not a proponent of high resolution audio myself, but I have no issue with purchasing drm free lossless audio that hasn't been downsampled in any way. Of course if they charge the same stupid prices as hdtracks, then forget about it. No excuse for exorbitant price increases just for a few more bits.
Third. If this was really an ipod killer, wouldn't it have come out a decade ago?
Third. If this was really an ipod killer, wouldn't it have come out a decade ago?
The iPod killer came out years ago, it's called the iPhone.
A few things.
First, can people stop talking about the 'death' of cds. We've had online audio since the late 90's, iTunes since what 2001? If the audio cd were to die, it would have done so in the last 13 years. Those of us who still buy cd's nowadays aren't going to stop buying them tomorrow. Or next year. Or 2012 when they were 'supposed' to cease being sold. I'm pretty sure the market can support both. (as well as vinyl)
Second. Does the flac format have any type of drm built in? According to Wikipedia, pono is going to be a flac based music store. If so, I don't see any reason to hate on it, I am not a proponent of high resolution audio myself, but I have no issue with purchasing drm free lossless audio that hasn't been downsampled in any way. Of course if they charge the same stupid prices as hdtracks, then forget about it. No excuse for exorbitant price increases just for a few more bits.
Third. If this was really an ipod killer, wouldn't it have come out a decade ago?
Death of CDs? DRM?
For better understanding of this post's train of thought, could you please precise
whose post precisely you're replying to?
...a truckload of (mostly) ageing, tinnitus-suffering music industry celebrities...
Who, perhaps, have an interest in selling yet another format to add to the half a dozen they've gauged on.
Yes, when hearing the enthusiastic celebrity endorsements of the sound quality, the cynic in me wondered whether immediately before off camera they'd really been sat in Neil's car listening to great audio,
or they'd just been told "you get to charge 5x as much for the music, and we take a much smaller cut of the sale price than iTunes - are you in? Now, say how nice it sounds..."
A few things.
First, can people stop talking about the 'death' of cds. We've had online audio since the late 90's, iTunes since what 2001? If the audio cd were to die, it would have done so in the last 13 years.
Tried buying a CD single recently?
Second. Does the flac format have any type of drm built in?
You can wrap anything with DRM - but the pono website says it's DRM-free.
Of course if they charge the same stupid prices as hdtracks
The pono website already list prices. Seems comparable to HDtracks.
Cheers,
David.
A few things.
First, can people stop talking about the 'death' of cds.
I don't think anyone here is talking about the death of CDs unless you're referencing the Pono press release. However, CD sales have been on a steady decline and we reached a point in February where digital downloads represented a little more than 50% of music sales in the U.S. CDs are still at a nice selling point but it's clear that the market is slowly shifting to digital distribution. After all, the iTunes Store has been around since 2003, it has taken it 11 years to reach this point by becoming the most popular "music store" (even compared to the likes of Amazon, Target, Walmart, and Best Buy) in the U.S.
Second. Does the flac format have any type of drm built in?
FLAC doesn't and neither does Pono. That doesn't stop a company from coming out with their own proprietary technology wrapping FLAC in DRM though. They dropped DRM support so that, as of now, their music store will sell unprotected FLAC files. The higher prices might not be too bad. Not for the higher resolution, ZOMG this is much better sound quality but rather for the convenience of downloading unprotected FLAC files from home. I would personally like to see the offerings of the Pono Music service along with their prices. I don't believe all the celebrity endorsed hype but I am intrigued with an online store that offers DRM-free lossless. If they can compete with HD Tracks in terms of price (an album shouldn't cost $18!), I could see using it to purchase some titles. I am more interested in seeing how the competition (i.e. Amazon mp3 Store and iTunes Store) handles this if the Pono Music store really takes off (highly doubtful). The only reason I continue to buy CDs it to obtain a lossless version of the tracks for digital archiving. I open the CD, rip it once, and never open it again. I would support an online music store that offered DRM-free lossless files at competitive prices ($9.99-$14.99).
Now being reported in mainstream media...
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertai...ay-9187151.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/neil-young-reaches-kickstarter-target-to-fund-new-music-player-within-a-day-9187151.html)
Answers to most questions are already here...
http://www.ponomusic.com/#faq (http://www.ponomusic.com/#faq)
Cheers,
David.
I'm most interested to see how exactly the web storefront will differ from the likes of HDTracks, Qobuz, etc. It was stated somewhere that all the major labels are behind this so maybe the selection will be better. Still, the pricing structure...
High-resolution digital albums at Ponomusic.com are expected to cost between $14.99 -$24.99, and there may be exceptions.
...will keep my away unless they're shown to be better sounding masters. I'll keep buying used CD's for $.01 + shipping and die with my archaic optical disc format.
Yes, when hearing the enthusiastic celebrity endorsements of the sound quality, the cynic in me wondered whether immediately before off camera they'd really been sat in Neil's car listening to great audio, or they'd just been told "you get to charge 5x as much for the music, and we take a much smaller cut of the sale price than iTunes - are you in? Now, say how nice it sounds..."
No doubt this is as close to reality as it gets.
It was stated somewhere that all the major labels are behind this
$urprise, $urprise!!
Good old Sir Elton. Always good for a quote. Not content to have put Putin on the spot over gayness he has this to say on another matter of global importance..
Sir Elton, ...<snip>..... in a video, said: “I haven’t heard a sound like that since vinyl. It was wonderful.”
Good old Sir Elton. Always good for a quote. Not content to have put Putin on the spot over gayness he has this to say on another matter of global importance..
Sir Elton, ...<snip>..... in a video, said: “I haven’t heard a sound like that since vinyl. It was wonderful.”
His memories of his vinyl days maybe somewhat distorted through a cloudy white haze.
[…] maybe they don't think [high resolution audio] matters, because producers have told them, people can't hear that! There's a lot of knowledge and misinformation about the whole thing. But, really, it's not about science, it's about listening.
I would never put on an MP3 player in my car and drive around. If I'd turn it up, it would hurt my ears, because the dynamics are so flattened out, it's like an assault!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6292ZaPD_4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6292ZaPD_4)
There's a lot of knowledge and misinformation
being spread
...mostly by unknowledged and misinformed people like ol' Neil here...
However I WILL give them credit for at LEAST adhering to industrys such as flac and microusb...are you listening, Apple?
[…] it's not about science, it's about listening.
I would never put on an MP3 player in my car and drive around. If I'd turn it up, it would hurt my ears, because the dynamics are so flattened out, it's like an assault!
I honestly fail to see how on earth a musician (regardless of how long or sucessful his carreer is) finds himself in the priviliged position to doctrinate other people that the new order now is
not to take science so seriously, but trust his pinch of magic and/or abracadabra, which also seems to have miraculously improved his ageing hearing system 10-fold!
“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”
? Neil deGrasse Tyson
Seeing the price labels on my old CDs I'm horrified at what I paid for some of them. Today, unless you're desperate to buy something when it first comes out, most CDs can be had for less than £10 soon enough, and most current pop music seems to have stabilised at £5-£6 delivered to your door.
In real terms this is a huge drop in the cost of music - I assume it's because of Napster etc (which made music free) followed by Spotify and YouTube (which made music legally free), the fact that CDs are on the way out (often downloads cost more!), and typical internet tax-avoidance pricing (compared with the legitimately taxed bricks and mortar shops that used to sell CDs).
It has to be said that those very low music prices seem to be an oddity specific to the UK, which is not exactly a place known for low living expenses otherwise. I'm blaming it on fierce competition among the gazillions of artists there. Combine the two, and you get loudness war level mastering (often using outdated brickwall limiters), sloppy studio work, and pressings done as cheaply as possible (often in Eastern Europe) and not uncommonly a bit dubious in quality. That's my experience anyway. And then I'm supposed to pay full retail over here. Well, UK import is an option these days, and usually 1/3 cheaper or so.
Contrast this with Japan, a country with what seems to be a huge music industry. CDs are a fairly expensive business over there, with full retail ranging up to about 3000 yen (that's over 21 EUR, vs. 15.99-18.99 over here), or about half that for older "value" discs. Mastering levels tend to be even higher there, but otherwise the contrast in quality could not be stronger. Very few things that I've heard were of significantly less than impeccable recording quality (some people are joking that most any garage band over there manages to sound "pro"), and while levels already were very high a decade ago and things could sound correspondingly awful, the application of better limiters has worked wonders since then. (Apparently people in Japan do have ears.) The few CDs I have imported so far all were of impeccable quality. (I tend not to do this too often, as this is no cheap fun, and if things get stuck in molasses, err,
customs, you can wait for up to 4 weeks rather than 9 days or so. Patience may be a virtue but is not a particular strength of mine when it comes to buying stuff.)
Now the improvements we're hoping for have nothing to do with technology, but hinge on care, skill and talent.
Which are things that require education plus time and money.
It's a bit like the social sector (arguably just as important for society but far less publically appreciated). If people are chronically overworked and underpaid because money in the system is notoriously tight and most expenses are for personnel, eventually quality does go down, and those who have to suffer the consequences are the ones who least deserve it.
I moved the initial post by frenzic and all replies to the appropriate forum (Recycle bin). Everyone, please try to stick to the topic at hand.
“It raises the consumer-level quality of music to where it was pre-1980,” says Young.
So, why didn't everyone just keep buying vinyl then? No one forced consumers to buy CDs.
Anyway, despite the subtitle of this thread, it's not actually out until October, so we (or it) will have to wait a little longer to be blown away.
“It raises the consumer-level quality of music to where it was pre-1980,” says Young.
Yes, bring back cassettes and 8-tracks too!! Wouldn't you love to subject the audiophool crowd to massive abx and abc/hr tests? Oh wait, those tests would prove nothing because you can't measure what one feels in the "soul" when listening to music.
we (or it) will have to wait a little longer to be blown away.
Needs moar RMAA.
“It raises the consumer-level quality of music to where it was pre-1980,” says Young.
Yes, bring back cassettes and 8-tracks too!! ...
Not to get too far OT but cassettes have already made a small comeback in in some "underground" metal circles. A lot of bands on non-major metal labels are doing limited cassette releases...and selling every copy.
I grew up with tapes mostly and wouldn't look forward to going back to them but I guess they would be fun to collect as a physical format now for many. I just couldn't see the point in actually listening to them in this century.
“It raises the consumer-level quality of music to where it was pre-1980,” says Young.
Yes, bring back cassettes and 8-tracks too!! Wouldn't you love to subject the audiophool crowd to massive abx and abc/hr tests? Oh wait, those tests would prove nothing because you can't measure what one feels in the "soul" when listening to music.
Actually, I'm awaiting with popcorn the 300 pages that will erupt on head-fi as Skamp goes to war with the subjectivists over this one. Although I doubt after three locked Altmann Tera threads hes got anything left in the tank. Yes I spent three days reading those and have never been so heartily entertained!
Although I doubt after three locked Altmann Tera threads hes got anything left in the tank.
Oh yes, I'm done with that. I'm all relaxed now
(http://i.imgur.com/zqaKy75.jpg)
Actually, I'm awaiting with popcorn the 300 pages that will erupt on head-fi as Skamp goes to war with the subjectivists over this one. Although I doubt after three locked Altmann Tera threads hes got anything left in the tank. Yes I spent three days reading those and have never been so heartily entertained!
I think we should have a "banned from the most audiophile sites" award
“It raises the consumer-level quality of music to where it was pre-1980,” says Young.
So, why didn't everyone just keep buying vinyl then? No one forced consumers to buy CDs.
That in itself doesn't prove much. Consumers jumped on LCD tv's when CRT's were obviously better quality. (Even before HD arrived.)
“It raises the consumer-level quality of music to where it was pre-1980,” says Young.
So, why didn't everyone just keep buying vinyl then? No one forced consumers to buy CDs.
That in itself doesn't prove much. Consumers jumped on LCD tv's when CRT's were obviously better quality. (Even before HD arrived.)
Quality conscious consumers didn't - they went for plasmas.
Broadcasters didn't - they looked on in dismay as broadcast quality monitors became harder and harder to get.
As LCDs have caught up somewhat, both these factors have declined.
Whereas when CDs came along, there were no contemporary accounts claiming they were poor quality. The broadcast audio and video world dumped analogue and embraced digital as quickly as funds would allow*.
That's the difference between a real inferiority (early LCDs were shockingly bad), and an imagined inferiority hyped up when it's time to sell the next generation format.
Cheers,
David.
* = uncompressed digital
production; compressed digital
broadcasts to consumers replaced analogue for reasons that, in most territories, have little to do with quality!
The CRT argument is a stretch. You could get very good CRTs that were better than early TN LCDs, but the average CRT was not nearly so good. I had a early-2000s HD CRT until recently, and by modern standards it was quite poor. I think the average person upgraded from a CRT to a moderately better LCD while people who had very nice CRTs shelled out for plasma.
Altmann Tera
Well I had to google "Altmann Tera" and one of the top images is this one (https://www.google.com/search?q=Altmann+Tera&espv=210&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&imgil=xCQq9VlQ5q1QLM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcQwZpwCOinNnbhx7sBERLyO2qIn-_gnJpOsNXM1OaRxOJBaf-7_Xg%253B612%253B792%253BALluz9hKziF5HM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fvozforums.com%25252Fshowthread.php%25253Ft%2525253D3380264&source=iu&usg=__uSVp8DO6MgwI7ITCiNLku7Y8IKo%3D&sa=X&ei=ffckU53dLsP_oQT5qYCYAw&ved=0CD0Q9QEwBQ#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=xCQq9VlQ5q1QLM%253A%3BALluz9hKziF5HM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fi.imgur.com%252FbL6Fti3.png%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fvozforums.com%252Fshowthread.php%253Ft%253D3380264%3B612%3B792). Which leads to a Vietnamese forum. Didn't someone here actually make it? If so, good work!
(http://i.imgur.com/bL6Fti3.png)
What's better than a brick? A triangular brick.
Surely the best design ever conceived.
I can buy this and die happy now.
What's better than a brick? A triangular brick.
Surely the best design ever conceived.
I can buy this and die happy now.
But it's available in
yellow! Sometimes people just want to buy a shiny new celebrity-endorsed tech toy or feel like they're somehow a part of something larger?
I just checked into the Kickstarter page and note that 1706 people have contributed but aren't actually getting a PonoPlayer, just a thank-you, a sticker, a shirt or a signed poster! That's right, as of Sunday evening:
1706 people have pledged a minimum of $88,385 for nothing more than token gifts.
Meanwhile another 60 folks have pledged a minimum of $300,000 to participate in a "Listening party hosted by Neil Young".
Of those who have actually signed up to get a PonoPlayer minus listening party, just 1624 people are simply getting the player, while a whopping 6670 chose the higher-cost "Signature Series" models. I wonder how many of those are destined to remain unused as collectables or be immediately flipped on eBay?
Didn't someone here actually make it? If so, good work!
Our very own Kohlrabi. (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=99104&view=findpost&p=824561) And now it's come full circle!
The CRT argument is a stretch. You could get very good CRTs that were better than early TN LCDs, but the average CRT was not nearly so good. I had a early-2000s HD CRT until recently, and by modern standards it was quite poor. I think the average person upgraded from a CRT to a moderately better LCD while people who had very nice CRTs shelled out for plasma.
Even my cheapo Sharp tv looked better than those early LCD's (and even today's LCD's, aside from resolution, flickering, a slightly bend surface and a high pitched beeb). In laptops my newest laptop with IPS screen is the first one to match my old B&O (read Philips) tv. In the stores, the CRT's were tucked away so you couldn't compare them directly with LCD (like they do with Bose hifi).
But I guess this is getting off topic and I have no objective tests to offer. Though a look at contrast specs tells part of the story.
So, any insightful comments about its audio hardware yet? How does it compare to the competition in that regard (HiFiMan et al.)?
I'm guessing no RMAA tests so far since it's not released (is it?). Sorry, I'm unexpectedly lazy today.
So, any insightful comments about its audio hardware yet? How does it compare to the competition in that regard (HiFiMan et al.)?
I'm guessing no RMAA tests so far since it's not released (is it?). Sorry, I'm unexpectedly lazy today.
Well, I can't help but think that they chose the ESS 9018 (http://www.esstech.com/PDF/ES9018%20ES9012%20Product%20Brief.pdf) because it was one of the most expensive DACs they could find. Around $55 dollars apparently (though likely cheaper by the 1000).
Being an 8-channel DAC its target market seems to me to be 7.1 AV receiver market and not the typical music market so overkill just to crank up the price. I could be wrong though.
Being an 8-channel DAC its target market seems to me to be 7.1 AV receiver market and not the typical music market so overkill just to crank up the price. I could be wrong though.
Because a higher number is better! Do you not get what Neil Young is trying to tell us?
So, any insightful comments about its audio hardware yet? How does it compare to the competition in that regard (HiFiMan et al.)?
I'm guessing no RMAA tests so far since it's not released (is it?). Sorry, I'm unexpectedly lazy today.
Well, I can't help but think that they chose the ESS 9018 (http://www.esstech.com/PDF/ES9018%20ES9012%20Product%20Brief.pdf) because it was one of the most expensive DACs they could find. Around $55 dollars apparently (though likely cheaper by the 1000).
Being an 8-channel DAC its target market seems to me to be 7.1 AV receiver market and not the typical music market so overkill just to crank up the price. I could be wrong though.
I think it's meant to increase the precision of the DAC process, not to handle 8 discrete channels.
It's all bullshit, of course.
Because a higher number is better! Do you not get what Neil Young is trying to tell us?
He's sure to strike gold then. As this "mine is bigger than anyone else's" approach is sure to find a place in many an audiophool's (AKA: middle-aged, Harley-Davidson/Bentley owning, who's-the-boss-now, middle-aged men with serious self steem issues) heart.
“It raises the consumer-level quality of music to where it was pre-1980,” says Young.
So, why didn't everyone just keep buying vinyl then? No one forced consumers to buy CDs.
According to audiophile mythology, regular consumers were forced to buy CDs when retailers stopped stocking (or restocking) LPs.
I started selling off my 1000+ LP collection about year after I obtained my CDP-101, got good prices for them, and used the money to reimburse the cost of the CD player and replacement and new CDs. People who started the same process a year or two later didn't do nearly as well.
So, any insightful comments about its audio hardware yet? How does it compare to the competition in that regard (HiFiMan et al.)?
I'm guessing no RMAA tests so far since it's not released (is it?). Sorry, I'm unexpectedly lazy today.
Well, I can't help but think that they chose the ESS 9018 (http://www.esstech.com/PDF/ES9018%20ES9012%20Product%20Brief.pdf) because it was one of the most expensive DACs they could find. Around $55 dollars apparently (though likely cheaper by the 1000).
ESS is the new chipophile/audiophile favorite brand because they publicize their product directly to audiophiles.
Being an 8-channel DAC its target market seems to me to be 7.1 AV receiver market and not the typical music market so overkill just to crank up the price. I could be wrong though.
If you build your DACs so that they produce uncorrelated noise their dynamic range improves by about 3 dB every time you double the number you mix the outputs of. They're probably using all 8 sections that way to obtain an approximate 6 dB reduction in noise.
Sounds sweet. Wonder what's the headphone amp they're using with this. Could be a great Rockbox platform, don't you guys think?
Sounds sweet. Wonder what's the headphone amp they're using with this. Could be a great Rockbox platform, don't you guys think?
Nah, even if it will ever be, there are cheaper alternatives.
What's better than a brick? A triangular brick. Surely the best design ever conceived.
I believe the idea may have been to make it purposely un-pocketable so onlookers would have no trouble identifying the player. Apple used a similar technique with their signature white earbuds.
Apple's idea, of course, was a good one. Neil Young's...not so much.
I believe the idea may have been to make it purposely un-pocketable so onlookers would have no trouble identifying the player. Apple used a similar technique with their signature white earbuds.
Apple's idea, of course, was a good one. Neil Young's...not so much.
You might be onto something. I was looking to see if the player had some sort of clip or belt loop attachment but I couldn't find anything on their flashy website. It looks like the player is designed to be carried around and then, when not in use, put on one of its flat sides. It might be a ploy just so people have to keep it out when sitting it down since they can't put it in their pockets. There's a reason why DAPs have been flat and rectangular for years (what, about 13 years now?), that makes them easier to carry and stow away in a bag or pocket. Who would want to hide such a beautiful, yellow triangle?
It looks like the player is designed to be carried around and then, when not in use, put on one of its flat sides. It might be a ploy just so people have to keep it out when sitting it down since they can't put it in their pockets. There's a reason why DAPs have been flat and rectangular for years (what, about 13 years now?), that makes them easier to carry and stow away in a bag or pocket. Who would want to hide such a beautiful, yellow triangle?
If it's not inconvenient, it's not audiophile.
Nah, even if it will ever be, there are cheaper alternatives.
Which of them you're talking about? Last I checked, virtually all the DAPs at the upper end of hardware class (HiFiMan, Astel & Kern, Colorful, etc.) cost upwards of 400$, except probably iBasso DX50 which allegedly has a less powerful headphone amplifier. Most of them also seem larger than Pono. Those who consider a prismatic shape inconvenient has forgotten how iriver players looked in mid-2000s.
I'm in the potential market for a high-quality DAP as it becomes progressively harder and more expensive to upgrade and reanimate my ancient heavily modded H320. Over its lifetime I'd spent over 500$ on its parts and donor bodies to replace whatever was breaking down or wearing out. It's not going to become any cheaper as time goes. Unfortunately, none of the better DAPs are, as far as I'm aware, a target for Rockbox—something that is a deciding factor for me. Thich limits my options to pretty much none. If Pono became such a target, it could be a nice potential option, as I expect it to remain around for a reasonably long time.
ESS is the new chipophile/audiophile favorite brand because they publicize their product directly to audiophiles.
This makes me leery. I owned an ESS Audiodrive, way back when. I've never been so underwhelmed with any audio hardware purchase.
This makes me leery. I owned an ESS Audiodrive, way back when. I've never been so underwhelmed with any audio hardware purchase.
The ODAC uses the ES9023, and it measures fine (https://outpost.fr/rmaa/O2_ODAC.htm), so I wouldn't worry.
ESS is the new chipophile/audiophile favorite brand because they publicize their product directly to audiophiles.
This makes me leery. I owned an ESS Audiodrive, way back when. I've never been so underwhelmed with any audio hardware purchase.
Really? A mod on an objective audio forum like this and you judge a current product by a company on your experience with a 20 year old product from said company? Isn't that like deciding not to buy a ford focus cause you once had a pinto? XD
Serious backlash: Despite Pono's promise, experts pan HD audio (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57620489-93/sound-bite-despite-ponos-promise-experts-pan-hd-audio/)
Game over?
This is a bit of an unfortunate quote:
"From a scientific point of view, there's no need to go beyond," said Bernhard Grill, leader of Fraunhofer Institute's audio and multimedia division and one of the creators of the MP3 and AAC audio compression formats. "It's always nice to have higher numbers on the box, and 24 bits sounds better than 16 bits. But practically, I think people should much more worry about speakers and room acoustics."
Serious backlash: Despite Pono's promise, experts pan HD audio (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57620489-93/sound-bite-despite-ponos-promise-experts-pan-hd-audio/)
Game over?
It's a good article, well written to its target audience. It
mostly gets the technicalities right and covers the important parts. It quotes the "right" people.
I like the fact that they're putting heavy accent on room acoustics and loudspeaker quality, but that does look a little weird in an article inspired by a DAP—a device one typically uses with headphones. Voila, the "weakest link" is thus "eliminated".
Game over?
I wound't put all my money on that. Specially if you consider the fact that a big chunk of their target market consists of people who insist on being sold something
they think they need and go on dismissing ABX tests for instance, as nothing but a hindrance to their constant wild goose chase.
Nah, even if it will ever be, there are cheaper alternatives.
Which of them you're talking about?
The widely-rockboxed Sansas (Fuze, Clip...) for instance.
Last I checked, virtually all the DAPs at the upper end of hardware class (HiFiMan, Astel & Kern, Colorful, etc.) cost upwards of 400$, except probably iBasso DX50 which allegedly has a less powerful headphone amplifier.
I'm in the potential market for a high-quality DAP
If not sound quality (which, as you obviously now, must be claimed with care over here), what would make you deem this or that DAP as being high-end? It isn't just the price tag, I suppose?
Late edit: doubled pronoun.
As I understand it, 1 db is regarded as the quietest volume the human ear can perceive, ergo the 96 db dynamic range means that in order to maximize it you'd need to record sounds at 95 simultaneously with those at 1. And be able to hear both at the same time. And assume your transducers can handle it. And live in an anechoic chamber. And be listening to your music at 96 db at all times. Seriously is anybody listening to the 1812 overture at 96 db? And do you hear paper shuffling or flies sneezing while the cannon shots are going off?
Which of them you're talking about? Last I checked, virtually all the DAPs at the upper end of hardware class (HiFiMan, Astel & Kern, Colorful, etc.) cost upwards of 400$,
Just because they are expensive doesn't mean that they are good. Please backup your claims with RMAA results. For example, look at the sad RMAA results (http://anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54879) of the HiFiMan.
Really? A mod on an objective audio forum like this and you judge a current product by a company on your experience with a 20 year old product from said company? Isn't that like deciding not to buy a ford focus cause you once had a pinto? XD
A bad analogy for me. How many times has Ford launched an ad campaign of basically, "Quality... we got it right this time!"?
Some rating groups assess reliability/quality with initial defect counts. Consumer Reports surveys only cover 5 years. I won't believe until I see a high percentage of their cars reaching 200,000 miles, and at least a moderate percentage to 300,000. When they have that history, which will take 10-20 years, I'll consider current models.
If I buy a PORNO it isn't the music I care about being in high definition.
Really? A mod on an objective audio forum like this and you judge a current product by a company on your experience with a 20 year old product from said company? Isn't that like deciding not to buy a ford focus cause you once had a pinto? XD
Hey, come on now, one data point is better than none! Once bitten, twice shy, and all.
I have a preference for German vehicles, anyhow. I'd only buy a Ford if for some inconceivable reason I had the inkling to buy a truck.
My complaint had nothing to do with audio quality but lots to do about compatibility claims and driver quality and whatnot.
This is getting brutally off-topic, however, and as a mod I must now check myself before, as they say in the vernacular, I wreck myself.
Serious backlash: Despite Pono's promise, experts pan HD audio (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57620489-93/sound-bite-despite-ponos-promise-experts-pan-hd-audio/)
Game over?
"From a scientific point of view, there's no need to go beyond," said Bernhard Grill, leader of Fraunhofer Institute's audio and multimedia division and one of the creators of the MP3 and AAC audio compression formats.
Of course he would say that, he's a shill for Big Lossy.
Seriously, I'm surprised this was on CNET. Also I don't like the false analogy to 4K TVs. Of course there is a difference there. Also, there is still a visible difference between the 318ppi of the Nexus 4 and 415 ppi of the Nexus 5 (1080p 5-inch). With visual resolution it obviously depends on how close you're looking and/or how big is the display.
Serious backlash: Despite Pono's promise, experts pan HD audio (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57620489-93/sound-bite-despite-ponos-promise-experts-pan-hd-audio/)
Game over?
Absolutely not. The xiph response didn't make any difference, and it was not the first to point out the weakness of the "HD" camp.
Surely,
High-Definition Music is not even a technical term? There are sampling rates, and bit depths, but no "definition." Not a technical term, but an invention of the marketing men, pandering to those who get tingles at words like definition and resolution.
Whether it has any basis or not, the phrase now decorates the advertisements for, and the front panels of, hifi kit, whether it be for the pocket, the desktop or the hifi stack. Whether it has any basis or not, it is now part of the language.
The audiophile/marketing nexus will ensure that the game is
not over: it may never be over.
Also I don't like the false analogy to 4K TVs. Of course there is a difference there. Also, there is still a visible difference between the 318ppi of the Nexus 4 and 415 ppi of the Nexus 5 (1080p 5-inch). With visual resolution it obviously depends on how close you're looking and/or how big is the display.
Like you said, the point is that with audio we are now (well, decades ago, since CDs came out decades ago) at the limits of human hearing. With video, not so much, since both refresh rate (of movies) and resolution/pixels per inch/pixels per degree are noticeably worse than what our eyes/brain can resolve. So the analogy doesn't quite fit. Both audio (at least in the consumer market) and video still have challenges with proper spatial reproduction, though I guess this should also be easier to treat for audio than video.
If I buy a PORNO it isn't the music I care about being in high definition.
Hm, in what English dialect would that "r" make the least difference to the pronounciation? (That is "least ABX-able difference" to this forum I guess.)
Anyway, time to dig up
that quote:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/SPICE+GIRLS+...l...-a060991832 (http://www.thefreelibrary.com/SPICE+GIRLS+ARE+THE+ANTI-CHRIST%3B+Porno+music+is+better,+says+Phil...-a060991832)
Surely, High-Definition Music is not even a technical term? There are sampling rates, and bit depths, but no "definition." Not a technical term, but an invention of the marketing men, pandering to those who get tingles at words like definition and resolution.
Whether it has any basis or not, the phrase now decorates the advertisements for, and the front panels of, hifi kit, whether it be for the pocket, the desktop or the hifi stack. Whether it has any basis or not, it is now part of the language.
*speculative*
What I think happened, the audiophile vinyl vs CD debate had a lot of people in the vinyl camp, insisting that vinyl as a medium was inherently better. When it became clear that the sounds they actually loved so much was an artifact of the vinyl and not a superiority of analog vs digital, it was hard for them to save face, they had to continue to insist vinyl was superior, moving to digital wasn't something they could do and save face.
High definition audio gives them an opportunity to embrace digital and save face, because they continue to claim that vinyl was better than CD but that high definition captures the "warmth, air, richness" that they have long spouted CD lacks.
This is evidenced by statements such as "I haven't heard music this good since vinyl" (quoted earlier in this thread)
so-called HD audio gives them an opportunity to move to digital while still saving face and continue claiming their claims about vinyl > CD had merit.
HD audio is about feeding/preserving audiophile pride.
In my opinion.
Like you said, the point is that with audio we are now (well, decades ago, since CDs came out decades ago) at the limits of human hearing. With video, not so much, since both refresh rate (of movies) and resolution/pixels per inch/pixels per degree are noticeably worse than what our eyes/brain can resolve. So the analogy doesn't quite fit. Both audio (at least in the consumer market) and video still have challenges with proper spatial reproduction, though I guess this should also be easier to treat for audio than video.
With video you also can make the screens bigger and bigger until every pixel gets visible. With audio you can't play back louder and louder to hear more bits because with dithered 16bit the human ear is pretty much maxed out already. No pointless noisefloor listening of course.
High definition audio gives them an opportunity to embrace digital and save face, because they continue to claim that vinyl was better than CD but that high definition captures the "warmth, air, richness" that they have long spouted CD lacks.
Interesting theory. If anything, it shows how shoddy audiophools' reasons to back up their vague & subjective claims are.
I think the visual comparison would be apt if they were advertising ultraviolet and x-ray capable tv's. What's a little cancer when you can see all those awesome high frequencies. Watch TV naked and get a nice tan!
Actually something similar did happen when DSLR manufacturers started advertising 14-bit ADCs up from the usual 12. People started seeing "smoother gradients" all over, while actual engineers were only finding noise in those extra 2 bits.
BTW, this topic made this week's Skeptic's Guide http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/454 (http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/454) They mention (and base the segment) primarily on Monty's now page at xiph.org.
If I buy a PORNO it isn't the music I care about being in high definition.
Hm, in what English dialect would that "r" make the least difference to the pronounciation? (That is "least ABX-able difference" to this forum I guess.)
Anyway, time to dig up that quote:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/SPICE+GIRLS+...l...-a060991832 (http://www.thefreelibrary.com/SPICE+GIRLS+ARE+THE+ANTI-CHRIST%3B+Porno+music+is+better,+says+Phil...-a060991832)
Was just thinking about that...would it be Boston? Pronounced "PAH-noh" either way?
BTW, this topic made this week's Skeptic's Guide http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/454 (http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/454) They mention (and base the segment) primarily on Monty's now page at xiph.org.
It would be nice to tell whoever is interested that the real action starts at ~28 minutes into the podcast.
Great, balanced coverage for a non-specialized podcast btw. Specially with the x-ray vision-vs.-golden-ear-hearing analogy.
In your face audiophools!
Edit: also, great analogy when they compare an audiophool's dodgy jargon when defying what they think they seem to listen to to that of an enologist, when describing what only they seem to be capable to taste in wine, whereas ordinary people cannot.
And yes, I've started writting these last two posts while still listening to it - hence the edit. But I hope you find it as interesting and elucidating to the great public as I did.
Edit II: but andy o, I couldn't, for the life of me, hear where exactly they mentioned this very thread!
Great, balanced coverage for a non-specialized podcast btw. Specially with the x-ray vision-vs.-golden-ear-hearing analogy.
In your face audiophools!
Did they mention x-rays?
The SGU is a very good podcast, very entertaining also. Should appeal to most of us in this board though it's the first time I've heard them talk about "hi-res" audio. BTW, I think "audiophool" was coined by James Randi, who is a frequent guest there very close to the hosts. He even used to have a regular segment ranting about whatever was in his mind.
Edit II: but andy o, I couldn't, for the life of me, hear where exactly they mentioned this very thread!
I didn't say that, sorry for the confusion. I said the topic of this thread, which is N. Young's player and the attention it's getting. Although, I thought it might be a good idea to email them resources available on this board, like the Meyer/Moran thread where they actually showed up.
Unfortunately she's wrong about several things, she mixes up sample rate and audio frequency, for example. - one of the guys tactfully corrected it.
Great, balanced coverage for a non-specialized podcast btw. Specially with the x-ray vision-vs.-golden-ear-hearing analogy.
In your face audiophools!
Did they mention x-rays?
Yes, and in their own way, in a manner that turns any audiophool's claims totally unfounded and child-like.
Edit II: but andy o, I couldn't, for the life of me, hear where exactly they mentioned this very thread!
I didn't say that, sorry for the confusion. I said the topic of this thread, which is N. Young's player and the attention it's getting.
No you didn't, actually. My bad for having such high expectations and therefore reading too much.
Although, I thought it might be a good idea to email them resources available on this board, like the Meyer/Moran thread where they actually showed up.
Did they? Under which usernames? Now that tells me why their claims (though as AliceWonder's mentioned, sometimes equivocated but usually corrected straight away by another member) are always voiced with warnings that they are not audio engineers or the like.
Unfortunately she's wrong about several things, she mixes up sample rate and audio frequency, for example. - one of the guys tactfully corrected it.
That teaches me that trying to listen for a specific HA mention (that never was) in a podcast, whilst writing two posts and transferring songs from my PC to my DAP at the same time, was way beyond my lame multitasking skills!
I think only one of the authors showed up http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=57406 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=57406)
None of the SGU people are experts, or apparently were very well read regarding audio. I'd been listening to most of the shows since the beginning, and I always thought audio would be a good topic to cover but they never did till now. The main guy (Steve Novella, who added the bit about frequencies) is a neurologist at Yale, his analyses on medical stuff are great. The woman (Rebecca Watson) was assigned the news item, and she got most of her info from Monty's page. To me it speaks to their ability as nonexperts to actually wade through the BS and get to the real info even when you initially don't understand the topic very deeply.
BTW, this topic made this week's Skeptic's Guide http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/454 (http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/454) They mention (and base the segment) primarily on Monty's now page at xiph.org.
It would be nice to tell whoever is interested that the real action starts at ~28 minutes into the podcast.
There's another topic in that podcast that I found intriguing. It's about "deja-vu", from about 06:23-16:14. At 09:13 the (apparently knowledgeable) panelist explains that measured (fMRI) neural activity is identical when comparing real experiences and the memory of that experience. If that is true, wouldn't that imply that we don't need "perfect or lossless" stimuli to provoke identical sensations compared to those of the past (e.g. live concerts)?
This is a bit of an unfortunate quote:
"From a scientific point of view, there's no need to go beyond," said Bernhard Grill, leader of Fraunhofer Institute's audio and multimedia division and one of the creators of the MP3 and AAC audio compression formats. "It's always nice to have higher numbers on the box, and 24 bits sounds better than 16 bits. But practically, I think people should much more worry about speakers and room acoustics."
add
under certain circumstances and it passes HA muster.
fromt hat CNET article
"Monty is wrong. Twenty-four bits does matter -- but for a very small sliver of the music business," said Mark Waldrep, an audio engineer who's founder and chief executive of AIX Records and iTrax.com and who focuses on high-resolution audio -- including efforts of his own to debunk some claims.
It's been awhile since I watched xiph's videos, but doesn't he note somewhere the utility of 24 bits in *recording and production*?
"It's always nice to have higher numbers on the box, and 24 bits sounds better than 16 bits.
I'm going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt and consider this a comprehension issue.
The number 24 looks better when printed on the box.
"It's always nice to have higher numbers on the box, and 24 bits sounds better than 16 bits.
I'm going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt and consider this a comprehension issue.
The number 24 looks better when printed on the box.
It tends to make the price look a bit higher as well.
I'll keep buying used CD's for $.01 + shipping and die with my archaic optical disc format.
I was about to ask where you were getting CDs so cheap, but then I noticed you said "used". Still, I have to wonder who's selling their CDs for only a penny plus shipping. Sounds better than bulk rate.
I was about to ask where you were getting CDs so cheap, but then I noticed you said "used". Still, I have to wonder who's selling their CDs for only a penny plus shipping. Sounds better than bulk rate.
You can pick them up for that on amazon marketplace
*speculative*
What I think happened, the audiophile vinyl vs CD debate had a lot of people in the vinyl camp, insisting that vinyl as a medium was inherently better. When it became clear that the sounds they actually loved so much was an artifact of the vinyl and not a superiority of analog vs digital, it was hard for them to save face, they had to continue to insist vinyl was superior, moving to digital wasn't something they could do and save face.
High definition audio gives them an opportunity to embrace digital and save face, because they continue to claim that vinyl was better than CD but that high definition captures the "warmth, air, richness" that they have long spouted CD lacks.
This is evidenced by statements such as "I haven't heard music this good since vinyl" (quoted earlier in this thread)
so-called HD audio gives them an opportunity to move to digital while still saving face and continue claiming their claims about vinyl > CD had merit.
HD audio is about feeding/preserving audiophile pride.
Pretty good analysis of a big part of the market for HD tracks.
A lot of it is based on ignorance, pure and simple.
The stories that are told to jusitify HD can
sound scientific...
I was about to ask where you were getting CDs so cheap, but then I noticed you said "used". Still, I have to wonder who's selling their CDs for only a penny plus shipping. Sounds better than bulk rate.
You can pick them up for that on amazon marketplace
Yes, even though I have Amazon Prime, I can't resist shopping for used. This is best case scenario pricing but I've probably bought around a hundred or more at around this price. Some would call it an addiction.
Back to PONO, I might consider it if there's a snarky interactive AI, like a virtual record store clerk/Hi-Fi salesman.
fromt hat CNET article
"Monty is wrong. Twenty-four bits does matter -- but for a very small sliver of the music business," said Mark Waldrep, an audio engineer who's founder and chief executive of AIX Records and iTrax.com and who focuses on high-resolution audio -- including efforts of his own to debunk some claims.
It's been awhile since I watched xiph's videos, but doesn't he note somewhere the utility of 24 bits in *recording and production*?
Yeah, I got a bit miffed at that statement because Monty does specifically state 24 bits is useful on the production end. Then I thought maybe the interviewer just told him an incomplete summary and the guy responded to that, but he owns a website that whose whole premise is the idea that "high resolution" is meaningful. Maybe he means that it's only suited for some genres which are comparatively a small segment of the business. I think I went to his site a long time ago and he stated plainly that he didn't think anything recorded analog should be called high-res (a respectable view, but then he doesn't consider 16/44.1 to be high-res either) which would further limit the segment of the music business for which 24 bits matter.
fromt hat CNET article
"Monty is wrong. Twenty-four bits does matter -- but for a very small sliver of the music business," said Mark Waldrep, an audio engineer who's founder and chief executive of AIX Records and iTrax.com and who focuses on high-resolution audio -- including efforts of his own to debunk some claims.
It's been awhile since I watched xiph's videos, but doesn't he note somewhere the utility of 24 bits in *recording and production*?
Yeah, I got a bit miffed at that statement because Monty does specifically state 24 bits is useful on the production end.
I do a fair amount of production and I opine that Monty gives the 24-bitters way too much slack.
I am of the opinion and experience that a well-trained recordist can probably preset levels for no clipping while recording with 10 dB or less headroom. Especially true if there is a rehearsal. If you have 16 bits properly noise shaped there will never be audible noise in a real world situation.
I do a fair amount of production and I opine that Monty gives the 24-bitters way too much slack.
The "problem" for 24-bitters is that there's nothing between 16 and 24. 16 can be a bit tight and 24 is mostly overkill. But there are no 20-bit recorders (anymore), so we use 24.
A few years ago I had to record airplanes and I was glad to have a 24-bit recorder. There's not always a soundcheck
It's true that 16-bit can definitely yield great recordings, there are some from the '80s and '90s and I've heard home studio productions done entirely at 16-bit that sound great. Of course it would take a lot of processing or amplification to create noise levels similar to tape hiss and we still managed with that for several decades. Nonetheless, I don't begrudge using 24 bits in recording and production so I'm okay with Monty not either. Perhaps though it would be worthwhile as a means to dispelling some mysticism that might unintentionally be aided by his treatment of 24-bit if he would mention that there have been great recordings done with 16 bits and name some favorites like Brothers in Arms.
(...) there have been great recordings done with 16 bits and name some favorites like Brothers in Arms.
An early album which BTW, is one of the dynamic range & clean-cut production kings of all time, IMHO.
Oh good grief...
http://www.t3.com/reviews/sony-walkman-nwz...Battery-Verdict (http://www.t3.com/reviews/sony-walkman-nwz-f886-review/Sony-Walkman-NWZ-F886-Sound-quality-Battery-Verdict)
Sony Walkman NWZ-F886: Sound quality
It's only when you come to listen to music on the Sony NWZ-F886 that it becomes apparent why someone might buy this rather than simply listening to their smartphone. The sound quality is slightly better than an iPhone 5 in every respect.
Even MP3s are improved by Sony's Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE) HX, with more depth and scale to the soundstage, so your music seems to fill your headphones with an expansive sound. Certainly it is louder, but also clearer and punchier through Sony's ear buds. There's less hiss too thanks to the Digital Noise cancellation.
The Sony NWZ-F886 really comes into its own when you load up some lossless 192KHz/24bit files. You'll need to enter the esoteric and often expensive world of hi-res audio music to find them, but Sony's High Resolution Audio Hub [http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/high-resolution-audio ] will point you in the right direction.
Swapping the unremarkable Sony earbuds for reference-quality Sennheiser HD800 headphones you can really hear the lossless versions of the same songs soar. There's a wider dynamic range that delivers more detail in the treble and more impact and weight to the bass, while vocals and mid-range instruments stand out in a much more realistic way. Be warned, you might find it had to go back to compressed MP3 files after tasting the delights of such audiophile-grade encodes.
(that's page two - feel free to go back to page one, but it's page two where it gets silly.)
Cheers,
David.
I'm hesitant to even look at the comments -- someone please do it for me
Neil Young's Pono: 192kHz 24-bit music player produces sound quality that is wasted on human hearing. So why pay the extra for it? (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/05/pono-neil-young-24bit-192khz-review)
I'm hesitant to even look at the comments
Don't worry, apart from the occasional "I can hear a difference" and "Vinyl sounds better", most responses would pass the HA TOS
I'm hesitant to even look at the comments -- someone please do it for me
Neil Young's Pono: 192kHz 24-bit music player produces sound quality that is wasted on human hearing. So why pay the extra for it? (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/05/pono-neil-young-24bit-192khz-review)
Is Are
this these enough?
Trust me you will hear the difference, I'm a music producer and I can hear a difference between 24 bit and 32 bit float so a jump from 16 bit to 24 bit should make the difference, 192khz May not be bearable but engineers will often use this to hear more and then bounce it down to 16 bit 44.1 khz ...Why would it be there as an option to producers and audio engineers if it did not make a difference ??? Go learn something
Еven the best reproducing audio device is very very far from what we hear naturally.
I am amazed that all these artists and "engineers" never stop to wonder how soundtrack and classical music engineers manage to make proper use of 16bit/44.1kHz audio CDs. I'm perplexed that they fail to notice the difference. I mean, upon hearing such a CD, the first question should be "what am I doing wrong?", no? Especially if you call yourself an "engineer".
Not all the publicity is quite so informative.
Pono naysayers miss the point: It’s not about HD Audio, it’s about what’s inside (http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/hd-audio-naysayers-missing-point-hardware-audio-files/#!C5TCW)
They appear to be changing the marketing focus. It's not the hi-rez that makes it magic anymore. It's the quality of the player itself.
Is Are this these enough?
Trust me you will hear the difference, I'm a music producer and I can hear a difference between 24 bit and 32 bit float so a jump from 16 bit to 24 bit should make the difference, 192khz May not be bearable but engineers will often use this to hear more and then bounce it down to 16 bit 44.1 khz ...Why would it be there as an option to producers and audio engineers if it did not make a difference ??? Go learn something
Еven the best reproducing audio device is very very far from what we hear naturally.
Oh god! "I'm a music producer": fallacy appealing to authority.
I think I'm gonna puke.
I am amazed that all these artists and "engineers" never stop to wonder how soundtrack and classical music engineers manage to make proper use of 16bit/44.1kHz audio CDs. I'm perplexed that they fail to notice the difference. I mean, upon hearing such a CD, the first question should be "what am I doing wrong?", no? Especially if you call yourself an "engineer".
Or, they actually do.
As I very much doubt most of them don't enjoy the odd classical album: it's just good olde hypocrisy at its best, for the sake of keeping up with the loudness war, that's all.
Not all the publicity is quite so informative.
Pono naysayers miss the point: It’s not about HD Audio, it’s about what’s inside (http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/hd-audio-naysayers-missing-point-hardware-audio-files/#!C5TCW)
They appear to be changing the marketing focus. It's not the hi-rez that makes it magic anymore. It's the quality of the player itself.
Such an original take, someone should invent a new category of logical fallacy for it. Wait, no (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts).
Neil Young's Pono: 192kHz 24-bit music player produces sound quality that is wasted on human hearing. So why pay the extra for it? (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/05/pono-neil-young-24bit-192khz-review)
That is a stunningly technically accurate article to appear in such a mainstream newspaper. I wonder if it was in the print version?
Cheers,
David.
Pono naysayers miss the point: It’s not about HD Audio, it’s about what’s inside (http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/hd-audio-naysayers-missing-point-hardware-audio-files/#!C5TCW)
Some of the gear I have is so good, it makes everything sound awesome
Everything is awesome?!
Seriously, really good audio gear makes different recordings sound different, and some of them really aren't awesome!
Cheers,
David.
Neil Young's Pono: 192kHz 24-bit music player produces sound quality that is wasted on human hearing. So why pay the extra for it? (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/05/pono-neil-young-24bit-192khz-review)
That is a stunningly technically accurate article to appear in such a mainstream newspaper. I wonder if it was in the print version?
Cheers,
David.
Read some of the comments on that article. Something that was brought up that I've seen before in these types of discussions is that CDs were a compromise because of storage capacity. Actually, CDs were about double the capacity of vinyl and there was a struggle to figure out what to do with that extra capacity. Filling up a CD vs a vinyl record was a shift that never got made completely in released albums. Kind of a moot point these days when many producers or consumers don't care about the "whole album experience".
Some artists may have released more material at a slower rate, but mostly we just get filler material or remixes so they can get the product out and sold.
Read some of the comments on that article.
No, don't make me do that.
Something that was brought up that I've seen before in these types of discussions is that CDs were a compromise because of storage capacity. Actually, CDs were about double the capacity of vinyl and there was a struggle to figure out what to do with that extra capacity. Filling up a CD vs a vinyl record was a shift that never got made completely in released albums. Kind of a moot point these days when many producers or consumers don't care about the "whole album experience".
Some artists may have released more material at a slower rate, but mostly we just get filler material or remixes so they can get the product out and sold.
Do any artist albums fill 74 minutes?
Ok, I know some must, but the full (74-80) minute CDs I have are almost all compilations. Artist albums are almost always 30-60 minutes.
A ~50kHz sample rate was chosen because it was sensible, 44.1kHz to write easily to video tape, 16-bits because it was sensible, 8 wasn't enough and even then people wanted mod(8).
It's true that a no-compromise future-looking format (in 1983) would have been 48kHz 20-bits, but 44.1kHz 16-bits is hardly a serious compromise over that.
If you're looking for faults in the CD format: pre-emphasis, the joke of a surround sound mode, index marks and the lack of on-disc metadata were the real "mistakes" in hindsight, but not that bad. With more hindsight you'd add perfect ripping and/or full track error detection and/or a filesystem - but not in 1983. All these things got worked out one way or another.
At what point did people really start suggesting that the audio quality of the format wasn't good enough?
Cheers,
David.
At what point did people really start suggesting that the audio quality of the format wasn't good enough?
I'd bet a tenner not even the same audiophools who would later on flog CD as the new antichrist, did then.
Talk about following tendencies.
I think some in the recording industry now see the CD as a mistake, because it is already at the limits as far as audio quality goes, and it can be copied perfectly. They lost control at that point.
Perhaps if Sony hadn't insisted on 16-bit (instead of Philips' 14-bit) for CD, SACD could have been a success.
OTOH, CD might not have been successful at 14-bit.
Apparently Young has been doing the rounds defending himself/Pono
http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/07/neil-yo...pono-interview/ (http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/07/neil-young-on-pono-interview/)
There's a terribly written article, not just because its complete uncritical assertions (it's cute how they try to appear skeptical: "Sure, six to 30 times the resolution of MP3s looks great on paper, but will we really be able to hear the difference?"), but also it's not clear what the source is. Googling the quotes, it only leads to that blog post, and they don't say Engadget themselves interviewed him.
"the best reproducing audio device is very very far from what we hear naturally."
That one is kind of correct actually. Our best audio systems still aren't recreating the original sound in 3D space. It has nothing to do with CD vs high rez though.
There's a terribly written article, not just because its complete uncritical assertions (it's cute how they try to appear skeptical: "Sure, six to 30 times the resolution of MP3s looks great on paper, but will we really be able to hear the difference?"), but also it's not clear what the source is.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought this. Not to derail the topic but I think engadget has gone downhill ever since Josh (and others) left to form The Verge. The comments in the engadget article, like all others, are pretty humorous. There is one person saying they prefer WAV over FLAC because WAV sounds better. Someone explained, multiple times, how lossless works and what you can do to check lossless rips but that person still stuck their head in the sand. Others even came to their defense.
I am going to enter a comment as an HA regular that goes something like this...Why are we debating whether or not high resolution audio provides audible benefits. Aside from the fact that I don't get a physical hard backup, I am not against record companies selling "straight from the studio" audio. Is there any reason to be AGAINST this? Monty's explanation is fine enough as to why 192 could be detrimental to audio, but what if said audio was 192 to begin with? Is it wrong to actually know that you are getting audio straight from the source, unfettered? What I have a major issue with, is hdtracks, selling audio that skips the downsampling part, but charges more?! Can somebody entrenched in the music industry explain to me how skipping downsampling to our mediocre cd audio quality somehow costs you MORE, hence the prices?
https://pay.reddit.com/r/PonoMusic/comments...te_what/cgn3i4h (https://pay.reddit.com/r/PonoMusic/comments/22gfqb/question_will_the_ponomusic_store_indicate_what/cgn3i4h)
I guess all of it is good: https://pay.reddit.com/r/PonoMusic/comments..._indicate_what/ (https://pay.reddit.com/r/PonoMusic/comments/22gfqb/question_will_the_ponomusic_store_indicate_what/)
I would truly love for the 'transients above 20khz' people to eff off and die. It's such a tired old argument. The impediments to hearing anything at 20khz or beyond go beyond the source of the recording. Besides the obvious, "your headphones can't do it" and "your speakers can't do it". No matter what these nutjubs tell you, you don't have the cilia to detect it. Period. No matter how expensive that DAC from Zanden audio is, you have a scientific, physical barrier that cannot be broken. Please go away.
What I have a major issue with, is hdtracks, selling audio that skips the downsampling part, but charges more?! Can somebody entrenched in the music industry explain to me how skipping downsampling to our mediocre cd audio quality somehow costs you MORE, hence the prices?
Well that's the thing, ain't it? It's hard to not think by now that all these "HD" formats are just cynical ploys to bilk more money out of audiophiles.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought this. Not to derail the topic but I think engadget has gone downhill ever since Josh (and others) left to form The Verge. The comments in the engadget article, like all others, are pretty humorous. There is one person saying they prefer WAV over FLAC because WAV sounds better. Someone explained, multiple times, how lossless works and what you can do to check lossless rips but that person still stuck their head in the sand. Others even came to their defense.
Color me surprised, Gizmodo apparently has been pretty critical of Pono and HD audio in general, since the beginning. http://gizmodo.com/what-is-high-resolution...3/+marioaguilar (http://gizmodo.com/what-is-high-resolution-audio-1252637824/1541582373/+marioaguilar)
I think we all remember their article where the reporter went to Fremer's house or something about "why we need audiophiles"?
Is there any reason to be AGAINST this?
It propagates gross misinformation and consolidates audio myths among the masses. It's a huge waste of bandwidth and storage, and possibly CPU power for downsampling the end product to something sane.
Edit: and, it could make artists, producers and everyone else believe that all they need to do in order to improve sound quality, is to record and release at 24 bit, 192 kHz. So we might end up with brickwalled recordings yet again.
BTW, could we maybe change the title of this thread to something that we'd prefer to see showing up in Google results?
Monty's explanation is fine enough as to why 192 could be detrimental to audio
IIRC that part of the explanation is incorrect, wrt the audible range - and also incorrect wrt actual A>D and D>A implementations which run at neither 44.1kHz nor 192kHz natively. Using 192kHz doesn't make the audible range worse.
Cheers,
David.
I would truly love for the 'transients above 20khz' people to eff off and die. It's such a tired old argument. The impediments to hearing anything at 20khz or beyond go beyond the source of the recording. Besides the obvious, "your headphones can't do it" and "your speakers can't do it". No matter what these nutjubs tell you, you don't have the cilia to detect it. Period. No matter how expensive that DAC from Zanden audio is, you have a scientific, physical barrier that cannot be broken. Please go away.
Apparently my speakers can reproduce up to 50kHz. Why? I have no idea, and it's not like they're marketed towards audiophiles. They're studio monitors, black ugly boxes with LEDs on the front, active crossovers, tone controls that can't be bypassed and class-D amplification, everything an audiophile doesn't want.
I mean yeah, the treble is wonderful in the audible range (up to ~17kHz in my case), so what does it even matter that the speakers' response range is so ridiculously extended?
What I have a major issue with, is hdtracks, selling audio that skips the downsampling part, but charges more?! Can somebody entrenched in the music industry explain to me how skipping downsampling to our mediocre cd audio quality somehow costs you MORE, hence the prices?
That's exactly what Pono Music is going to do as well. The price range for albums from their storage has already been released, I believe albums will be $14.99-$24.99 on average. As previously stated, you are essentially paying more to have them do less. That's if the FLAC files that Pono Music sells are actually from the studio masters. Some believe that HDtracks sells 16-bit, 48KHz content that has been sourced from the audio CDs (16-bit, 44.1KHz) yet "upscaled" during the ripping and encoding process. Frampton Comes Alive (Peter Frampton) is an example of an album that was upscaled on HDtracks. They originally sold it as a 24-bit, 96KHz download but a lowpass filter had been applied at 22KHz. It was later relabeled to 24-bit, 48KHz. There have been other cases of 24-bit, 96KHz downloads from HDtracks having a lowpass filter at 22KHz. Maybe that's why they charge more? The process of taking the CD and ripping it to 24-bit, 96KHz FLAC files adds extra steps to the process. Until it starts, whose to say that Pono Music won't do the same thing?
I don't inherently see anything wrong with obtaining digital downloads (I could really care less about having a physical copy these days) direct from the studio masters. However, as pointed out by skamp, these services give into the audio myths that audiophools have been spitting out for decades. Instead of offering reasonable 16-bit, 44.1KHz/48KHz lossless files from the studios, services like Pono are giving into audiophool mindsets and blowing things out of proportion. They are taking bloated lossless files, selling them at an equally bloated price, all while pushing out typical placebophile jargon.
Unless I'm grossly mistaken, this thread is about most of their claims being totally shattered to pieces under any ABX test worth its salt, not whether we should embrace high resolution audio or not.
As said claims cannot survive that crucial step (which, if I'm not wrongly assuming again, is one of the very pillars of this community's foundations), we carry on with our every-day rant, as whatever their claims are, they're just another truckload of audiophile BS begging to be unmasked. And we, as usual, are more than happy to oblige.
Monty's explanation is fine enough as to why 192 could be detrimental to audio
IIRC that part of the explanation is incorrect, wrt the audible range - and also incorrect wrt actual A>D and D>A implementations which run at neither 44.1kHz nor 192kHz natively. Using 192kHz doesn't make the audible range worse.
The usual explanation is that some amplifiers might become unstable when fed with that material, lots of noise at high frequencies. Non-linearities with not very well build amplifiers could fold back into the audible range. Still, 192kHz PCM is much better than DSD in that respect, so that's probably not a sound argument either.
I am going to enter a comment as an HA regular that goes something like this...Why are we debating whether or not high resolution audio provides audible benefits. Aside from the fact that I don't get a physical hard backup, I am not against record companies selling "straight from the studio" audio. Is there any reason to be AGAINST this? Monty's explanation is fine enough as to why 192 could be detrimental to audio, but what if said audio was 192 to begin with? Is it wrong to actually know that you are getting audio straight from the source, unfettered? What I have a major issue with, is hdtracks, selling audio that skips the downsampling part, but charges more?! Can somebody entrenched in the music industry explain to me how skipping downsampling to our mediocre cd audio quality somehow costs you MORE, hence the prices?
There is an interesting side effect to the HD audio market. In the regular audio market, albums are mastered to compete with other albums and to accommodate a big range of listening situations. Cars, crappy PA's, radio stations and so on. The sound is mastered to sound louder than everything else and commercial thinking has taken over the mastering process. Some people would prefer 'director cut' masters; in other words, masters made only to sound great, not bound by commercial demands, targeting quiet listening rooms. With the 'HD' moniker a sort of solution has been found; now we have regular, commercial mastered, audio and we have 'HD' audio. Yes, the 24-bitness is audiophool nonsense, but the real point is that these tracks are simply mastered better. And because people are willing to pay for that and because the market is smaller, they are more expensive. They are 'HD' because the master provides more depth. Not because the bitness provides more depth. (Though audiophools think the extra bits provide more depth.)
A double blinded test designed to test if SACD's sounded better than CD's came to this conclusion. No, SACD's aren't better because of their resolution. They are better because the masters are better. And they can be better, because these SACD's don't need to compete in a crowded market, screaming for attention. Instead they have their own little, but expensive, HD market.
Here is the test: http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=70893.0 (http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=70893.0)
Yes, the 24-bitness is audiophool nonsense, but the real point is that these tracks are simply mastered better.
That assumption has not been proven to any effect, yet. I think people are way too optimistic regarding artists and producers which have only disappointed time and time again over the recent years. The blind assumption that engineers suddenly take more care of their releases because the delivery medium is 24bit is pretty naive. But of course we can hope.
I don't know if the measurements on the dynamic range database (http://dr.loudness-war.info/) really work for 24bit sources, or if they can be believed, but there are several HDTracks releases which have poorer DR than older 16bit CD releases.
No, SACD's aren't better because of their resolution. They are better because the masters are better. And they can be better, because these SACD's don't need to compete in a crowded market, screaming for attention.
How do you explain that we also have "hot" albums in niche markets without any pressure, which see no commercial airplay at all, and where the competition is minimal? My assumption is that artists and producers simply don't know better, and/or don't care. The Loudness war is a
human error which isn't solved by scapegoating the problems onto the delivery format. CD audio
is sufficient, but simply not used to its full potential. Or, the other way around, there is no reason to believe that they will not simply continue the Loudness War at 24 bits.
The blind assumption that engineers suddenly take more care of their releases because the delivery medium is 24bit is pretty naive. But of course we can hope.
It's not a blind assumption, since I pointed to an experiment that found this conclusion, but ok, it was a blind test
The engineers don't take more care the release because of 24 bit, but because of the market for which the release is created.
Of course this isn't a black and white thing. There is nothing stopping anyone making a crap HD release. And yes, loundness seems to be an addiction.
Monty mentioned the old "DDD" label on CDs, and I remember when I was a kid my older nerdy cousin telling me that those were the better sounding CDs. I didn't understand what he meant at the time, but maybe now we just need an "HD" label on CDs which would stand for "high dynamic range". We'll skip the "R" for marketing purposes, of course.
maybe now we just need an "HD" label on CDs which would stand for "high dynamic range". We'll skip the "R" for marketing purposes, of course.
Highly Dynamic. Duh.
Not all the publicity is quite so informative.
Pono naysayers miss the point: It’s not about HD Audio, it’s about what’s inside (http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/hd-audio-naysayers-missing-point-hardware-audio-files/#!C5TCW)
They appear to be changing the marketing focus. It's not the hi-rez that makes it magic anymore. It's the quality of the player itself.
Yes, there was noise indicating some people had been contacting the Department of Consumer Affairs relating to claims that "high definition" sounded better because of the extra samples and bits, and it seems within the last few weeks several things have been carefuly re-worded as several web sites as a result.
I think they realize the danger in making claims that can't be backed up, no one want a federal investigation, now it seems that a lot of these web sites are making their claims referencing MP3 and trying to avoid specifically stating the audio sounds better than CD.
Personally I have no problem with them claiming their audio sounds better than MP3, as it almost certainly does.
Personally I have no problem with them claiming their audio sounds better than MP3, as it almost certainly does.
I guess that depends on the bit rate of the mp3.
Personally I have no problem with them claiming their audio sounds better than MP3, as it almost certainly does.
No it doesn't. Many of us on here can't ABX high bitrate (or even lower) MP3 from lossless. What makes you think having a higher bitrate and sampling frequency will somehow make it better? If it's better mastered, using MP3 makes no difference, it's encoding a source.
Personally I have no problem with them claiming their audio sounds better than MP3, as it almost certainly does.
No it doesn't. Many of us on here can't ABX high bitrate (or even lower) MP3 from lossless. What makes you think having a higher bitrate and sampling frequency will somehow make it better? If it's better mastered, using MP3 makes no difference, it's encoding a source.
I didn't say anything about higher bitrate or sampling frequency making it better. Don't put words in my mouth.
The unfortunate reality is that many mp3s out there are encoded with low quality encoders or poor settings. Even many encoded today are encoded with outdated encoders.
The music they are selling will sound better because it hasn't been degraded by poor MP3 encoding, not because it is high bit depth or sample rate.
The music they are selling will sound better because it hasn't been degraded by poor MP3 encoding, not because it is high bit depth or sample rate.
You said:
Personally I have no problem with them claiming their audio sounds better than MP3, as it almost certainly does.
You didn't mention poor MP3 encoding anywhere. Do most online shops do bad jobs at MP3 encoding these days? I don't think they do.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/geek-wav...-life-amplified (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/geek-wave-your-mobile-life-amplified)
Similar price to Pono; integrates with smart-phone. Even bigger numbers!
(http://geek.lhlabs.com/images/geekwave/igg/comparison.jpg)
32 bits! That would be like upgrading your old Super Nintendo to a Sega Dreamcast... if they ended up looking the same.
32 bits! That would be like upgrading your old Super Nintendo to a Sega Dreamcast... if they ended up looking the same.
I assume that is 32 bit floating point - with pretty much the same precision as 24-bit fixed point.
The blind assumption that engineers suddenly take more care of their releases because the delivery medium is 24bit is pretty naive. But of course we can hope.
It's not a blind assumption, since I pointed to an experiment that found this conclusion, but ok, it was a blind test
That is *a* statement in the Meyer/Moran paper, but they don't mean that
every SACD/DVD-A is mastered better than every CD. In fact, 'loudness wars' mastering has been found on all of those formats. I have 'seen' it myself in rips of DVD-As that I own.
24-bit sourcing/mastering, in itself, does NOT automatically mean that engineers take more care of their releases.
The unfortunate reality is that many mp3s out there are encoded with low quality encoders or poor settings. Even many encoded today are encoded with outdated encoders.
The music they are selling will sound better because it hasn't been degraded by poor MP3 encoding, not because it is high bit depth or sample rate.
How do you know, really?
Are iTunes store lossy downloads encoded poorly, for example?
The unfortunate reality is that many mp3s out there are encoded with low quality encoders or poor settings. Even many encoded today are encoded with outdated encoders.
That's a sweeping generalisation which, true or not, would be hard to prove. There's a great deal of music out there, have you any figures to support the claim?
The music they are selling will sound better because it hasn't been degraded by poor MP3 encoding, not because it is high bit depth or sample rate.
There's an old saying "you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear". There is no guarantee that a "high res" track will be sourced from a superior master and a poor master, inevitably, means a sub-par track. "Poor mp3 encoding" might, conceivably, mask some aspects of poor mastering and result in something more (subjectively) appealing. The only thing you can realistically state is that a "high-res" track is
technically closer to the master, whether that be audibly so or not.
The unfortunate reality is that many mp3s out there are encoded with low quality encoders or poor settings. Even many encoded today are encoded with outdated encoders.
That's a sweeping generalisation which, true or not, would be hard to prove. There's a great deal of music out there, have you any figures to support the claim?
Agreed.
Specially as, the way I see it, this seems to be the exact kind of generalization we've been fiercely fighting against, so far in this thread.
The music they are selling will sound better because it hasn't been degraded by poor MP3 encoding, not because it is high bit depth or sample rate.
Not poor encoding but "poor old" MP3: alas, many a speech's favourite scapegoat, whenever they fall into the same category as the aforementioned one.
The output impedance of the Pono DAP has been changed (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1003614822/ponomusic-where-your-soul-rediscovers-music/posts) from nearly 0Ω to 5Ω at the last minute. Audiophiles won't be too happy about this.
has been changed (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1003614822/ponomusic-where-your-soul-rediscovers-music/posts)
Ah, the good old feedback-is-bad argument
All products designed by Ayre (since its inception 21 years ago) have no negative feedback. This results in a more natural sound because feedback can only attempt to correct for an error after it has occurred -- clearly an impossibility. If negative feedback actually worked as people claim, then all products would sound the same because the negative feedback would eliminate the errors. But not all amplifiers sound the same, so feedback is clearly not the answer!
All the raving and SIWOTI-behaviour about promoting 24-bit and high-res music, this is actually much worse IMO. I wonder whether there's a Delta-Sigma DAC in there, which is AFAIK intrisically a feedback design... that would render their point moot. Especially the last part, on amplifiers (not) sounding the same, is saddening.
I like this better than Pono: http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/hd-walkm...players/nwz-zx1 (http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/hd-walkman-digital-music-players/nwz-zx1)
I like this better than Pono: http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/hd-walkm...players/nwz-zx1 (http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/hd-walkman-digital-music-players/nwz-zx1)
At the price!? Does it brew coffee too?
I like this better than Pono: http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/hd-walkm...players/nwz-zx1 (http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/hd-walkman-digital-music-players/nwz-zx1)
At the price!? Does it brew coffee too?
No, but it does "restore the high-range sound lost in the compression process." Isn't that wonderful? All that bits that were lost are miraculously returned!
The Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE) upscales your compressed digital music files (MP3, ACC, ATRAC, and WMA) to CD quality. By restoring the high-range sound lost in the compression process, DSEE reproduces your digital music files in rich, natural sound, closer to the quality of the original recording.
That's why this is better than the Pono. It also doesn't look like a toblerone.
It's hard to understand how a 400$ device will change the way that people listen music.
An engineers are capable to make a difference. Like NwAvGuy.
He has opened his designs and educated people. Manufacturers take him seriously. Now that's what really counts.
Neil is trying to re-invent a wheel which is already here.
Fiio production http://www.fiio.com.cn/ (http://www.fiio.com.cn/) is very popular among an audiophiles and people who like a good quality of sound.
They really know how to make a good and affordable audio devices.
Now try to beat that performance/price.
It's hard to understand how a 400$ device will change the way that people listen music.
It is easy to understand how it will
not.
Neil is trying to re-invent a wheel which is already here.
He isn't, he's just figured out a way to make more money
Neil is trying to re-invent a wheel which is already here.
Fiio production http://www.fiio.com.cn/ (http://www.fiio.com.cn/) is very popular among an audiophiles and people who like a good quality of sound.
They really know how to make a good and affordable audio devices.
Now try to beat that performance/price.
True. And their new X5 already looks like something Pono still wants to be:
http://www.fiio-shop.de/FiiO/FiiO-X5.html (http://www.fiio-shop.de/FiiO/FiiO-X5.html)
Neil is trying to re-invent a wheel which is already here.
He isn't, he's just figured out a way to make more money
And in the process, perhaps make sure he will definitely not be forgotten by the time he's gone, as the ones who will not then be able to name one of his songs, will at least recall the time he tried to topple MP3 off its throne with that toblerone-like, expensive thingy.
And to think the term 'iPod killer' at least, has been in use way back in the noughties (http://www.tomsguide.com/us/sony-nw,review-189.html):
http://m.noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/what-p...noiseytwitteruk (http://m.noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/what-pono-is-doing-to-the-music-industry-nothing?utm_source=noiseytwitteruk)
The author of this article isn't pulling any punches with his criticism of Neil Young and the Pono. He's calling out the Pono effort for the profiteering and snake-oil that is likely behind the effort.
http://m.noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/what-p...noiseytwitteruk (http://m.noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/what-pono-is-doing-to-the-music-industry-nothing?utm_source=noiseytwitteruk)
The author of this article isn't pulling any punches with his criticism of Neil Young and the Pono. He's calling out the Pono effort for the profiteering and snake-oil that is likely behind the effort.
Thanks for sharing the link, LedHed8. I think the author makes a very strong argument about the redundant nature of Neil Young's Pono. So, nope, no Pono for me. Not to sound at all saintly (hear hear, Pono is Hawaiian for "righteous"), I'm always happy to righteously support my favourite independent artists on Bandcamp, buying their music in various high quality formats. They aren't 24/192 masters or other silly so-called ultra-high resolution audio formats but they sound brilliant on my Klipsch Image One headphones, thank you very much.
I'll wait for the Beats Audio version. That'll sound really great.
Neil Young's Twitter account hacked (http://mashable.com/2014/06/07/neil-young-twitter-hacked/).
Let it be said that this "SLUT FOR THE D" person is way cooler than the real Neil Young, especially for not talking about any of this Poon nonsense.
Not as popular as expected from the looks of it.
“Lack of resources” keeps Neil Young’s Pono Player from expanding
10,000s of players and 100,000s of tracks apparently sold, but money is a problem.
Neil Young's oddly shaped MP3 player has apparently found a small niche, regardless of whether listeners can actually hear the difference between its 24-bit, 192kHz songs and music streamed or downloaded from the likes of Apple or Spotify. In a Facebook post last week, Young indicated that "tens of thousands of players and hundreds of thousands of tracks" had been sold and that the Pono Players manufactured so far had a three percent failure rate.
That said, the company is still running into trouble stemming from its lack of resources, suggesting that it has spent the bulk of its $6.2 million Kickstarter haul from last year. Young wants Pono to expand into Canada, Great Britain, and Germany, among other countries, but it doesn't currently have the funding. The company also continues its hunt for a "proven business leader" to serve as CEO, a role Young stepped into when former CEO John Hamm (not to be confused with actor Jon Hamm) left in July of 2014.
[..]
Ars Technica: “Lack of resources” keeps Neil Young’s Pono Player from expanding (http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/lack-of-resources-keeps-neil-youngs-pono-player-from-expanding)
In a Facebook post last week, Young indicated that "tens of thousands of players and hundreds of thousands of tracks" had been sold and that the Pono Players manufactured so far had a three percent failure rate.
3%? Isn't that like six billion sigmas? Maybe they have a deranged orangutan running amok in their manufacturing facility...
Not as popular as expected from the looks of it.
“Lack of resources” keeps Neil Young’s Pono Player from expanding
10,000s of players and 100,000s of tracks apparently sold, but money is a problem.
Neil Young's oddly shaped MP3 player has apparently found a small niche, regardless of whether listeners can actually hear the difference between its 24-bit, 192kHz songs and music streamed or downloaded from the likes of Apple or Spotify. In a Facebook post last week, Young indicated that "tens of thousands of players and hundreds of thousands of tracks" had been sold and that the Pono Players manufactured so far had a three percent failure rate.
That said, the company is still running into trouble stemming from its lack of resources, suggesting that it has spent the bulk of its $6.2 million Kickstarter haul from last year. Young wants Pono to expand into Canada, Great Britain, and Germany, among other countries, but it doesn't currently have the funding. The company also continues its hunt for a "proven business leader" to serve as CEO, a role Young stepped into when former CEO John Hamm (not to be confused with actor Jon Hamm) left in July of 2014.
[..]
Ars Technica: “Lack of resources” keeps Neil Young’s Pono Player from expanding (http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/lack-of-resources-keeps-neil-youngs-pono-player-from-expanding)
All the kids are moving to vinyl.