January 29, 201511 yr Yahoo hates it too. https://www.yahoo.com/tech/it-was-one-of-kickstarters-most-successful-109496883039.html This thing is going to be a complete flop.
January 30, 201511 yr It may or may not be any good, I don't really care, but yahoo isn't a marker of anything anymore.
January 30, 201511 yr Looks like a shit load compression to me. If the 20 second lead in is compared, very slight increase in amplitude, almost nothing. The main content after 20 seconds is compressed to high heaven. The modern compression sickness that's like the bubonic plague. Gotta keep the main demographic (and profit group) happy, kids walking around in noisy environments with portables. Pono player, well it's going to maybe sound better than other portables, but it's never going to be pro or hi-end. It's full of op-amps, feedback and no class A and no class full stop.
January 30, 201511 yr It may or may not be any good, I don't really care, but yahoo isn't a marker of anything anymore. Futility? Irrelevance? Obdurate cluelessness?
January 30, 201511 yr yahoo isn't a marker of anything anymore. While I agree with you that Yahoo in general is increasingly irrelevant, many of the individual writers (in this case Pogue) are still very widely read.
January 31, 201511 yr Just read the Yahoo review. It's no surprise that an iPhone may sound better than a Pono. Most analogue design by big corporations, if you can call using a semiconductor manufacturer's application notes "design", these days usually only sounds good by accident. I have a box full of earphones, some $99 Philips ones in there also with all the bragging rights from the marketing gurus, with a set of earphones that came with a $60 Sagem FM radio with no bragging rights that blows them all into the weeds. It is with great trepidation that I buy headphones, earphones, speakers based on price. With speaker it's usually better to build a set. Edited January 31, 201511 yr by CraigBuckingham
January 31, 201511 yr While I agree with you that Yahoo in general is increasingly irrelevant, many of the individual writers (in this case Pogue) are still very widely read. Widely read is not equal to relevant No shit. Hmmm .... Then I guess a post implying such is what? Just fucking stupid? Edited January 31, 201511 yr by morphsci
February 1, 201511 yr I pretty much gave up and went back to vinyl - phono rather than pono Edited February 1, 201511 yr by Craig Sawyers
February 2, 201511 yr The guy on Yahoo! seems like a reasonable human being. That he actually got results in his blind test is interesting. And contradictory to his very reasonable assumption that that it's had to hear the difference between lightly compressed material and uncompressed material. And to his also reasonable argument that remasters should sound better and that should swamp the difference in the files. Most such exercises just return null and the high priests tell us that null isn't really null if you truly believe. (My doctor lately seems to enjoy laughing at the stupidity of the results of blind and meta drug studies, which is a little concerning, such drugs are qualified with such tests in the first place.) Could maybe the choice of transducers have dictated Yahoo! Guy's results? Like maybe there was less brightness with the phone? And then there's dumb luck. Or the burning desire to debunk anything that can be debunked for the clicks. "Yeah, it works, but it's not 'disruptive' " isn't the sexiest steely line ever.
February 2, 201511 yr I just don't think the success or failure will be determined by whether it's verifiably better. I also don't know how many devices have to sell to make it worthwhile. Either way, I'm not the market. But if Pogues article is the death nail then I've misjudged him.
February 3, 201511 yr bit of an ars review.http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/pono-player-review-a-tall-refreshing-drink-of-snake-oil/ Edited February 3, 201511 yr by Grahame
February 10, 201511 yr "• Support is slow and questionable" http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/portable-audio/portable-audio/pono-music-player-review/all-pages.html but maybe the HiFi-Skÿn is the answer
February 10, 201511 yr While I like the general idea of the HiFi Skyn, I dislike the idea of something custom made for a phone that may be replaced much sooner than the amp/DAC.
March 21, 201511 yr “Fuck Neil Young,” he snapped, “and fuck his records."http://m.fastcompany.com/3043685/this-is-what-happened-when-neil-young-tried-to-make-peace-with-steve-jobs
May 14, 201511 yr Meanwhile Pono Reveals PonoRevealer https://www.ponomusic.com/ccrz__CCPage?oId=a201500000BtIph&pageKey=product&type=Update Meanwhile testing reveals, all is not what it would seem Fig.3 Pono PonoPlayer, frequency response at –12dBFS into 100k ohms with data sampled at: 44.1kHz (left channel cyan, right magenta), 96kHz (left green, right gray), 192kHz (left blue, right red) (0.5dB/vertical div.). http://www.stereophile.com/content/pono-ponoplayer-portable-music-player-measurements Edited May 14, 201511 yr by Grahame
July 15, 201510 yr Neil Young pulls his music from streaming services. Says quality is worse than 8-tracks, AM radio, wax cylinders, etc.
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