MP3, iPod replacement is here

furpile said:
According to some reviews it sounds a lot better than a normal MP3 player even with the same earphones or headphones.
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Definitely!

Very positive review here by the pros - http://www.whathifi.com/pono/ponoplayer/review.

Next I'd like to see a Kickstarter for micro-sized headphone amplifiers. I'd imagine the Pono would drive up to 60Ohm head/earphones, which is about the norm for most head/earphones on the market (30 - 60Ohm).

As an example, my Sennies are 600Ohm, so would require said micro headphone amp.
 
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PostmanPot said:
:D

They'd feel a lot less ripped off if it was FLAC/lossless though, coming from MP3/lossy where the bar has been set. The difference will certainly be discernable on Apple EarPods, which aren't half bad themselves.
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My little iPod earphones ... don't think they come close to the EarPods :o
Think I'm going to try an experiment tonight.... Investigate this loss-less CD ripping vs the usual 128Kb (?) MP3 rubbish I apparently listen to -_-
 
MartyMarts said:
My little iPod earphones ... don't think they come close to the EarPods :o
Think I'm going to try an experiment tonight.... Investigate this loss-less CD ripping vs the usual 128Kb (?) MP3 rubbish I apparently listen to -_-
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It's Apple, they'd still be a cut above the rest. ;)

It also depends on what music you're listening to. Most of the music one hears on the TV and radio these days is quite simple, to say the least.

Let us know!
 
MartyMarts said:
Looks like something from 2005... 128GB of storage will surely become irrelevant if the "high-resolution audio masters" files are large? From where would one purchase these albums anyway? Does it come with "high-resolution audio" headphones too?
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You'd buy them from the Pono Store where, in addition to the player, you can overpay for the music as well... Arcade Fire's Reflektor $11.99 in the iTunes Store, $18.29 in the Pono Store or Jack White's Lazaretro $10.99 in iTunes and $24.99 in Pono.
Most of the albums in the Pono Store are classic albums from the 70s... Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, The Stones, Fleetwood Mac and so on.

EDIT: Could be worse... You could actually be coughing up $1 119.99 for the new Sony Walkman.
 
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There have been lossless players around for ages, better and cheaper than this. This isn't about the player, which is decidedly average, it's not about the content either (you can get lossless tracks from a number of places) ... this is all about Neil Young repackaging it and trying to make people he's reinvented music.
 
bwana said:
That does not look like it's going to be comfortable to carry in a pocket.
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What a design! And that isn't just a tiny player made to look big by tricks of photography. Dimensions of 5x2x1 inch. 1 inch thick, that's up there with an old Nokia Communicator.

It also means there's room for a cylindrical, more efficient battery. The PonoPlayer claims around 8 hours of battery life for continuous music playback.
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Yeah.

PostmanPot said:
Very positive review here by the pros - http://www.whathifi.com/pono/ponoplayer/review.
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That section on sound quality was short and they didn't make references to it sounding significantly better than other sources. The overall tone of the article was positive, but this thing is riding in entirely on sound quality, and all the positives on other bits like features, design and controls are probably better served by just about any regular smartphone.
 
elvis_presley said:
When the pono was announced I Googled around, you can find portable players with the same DAC as the Pono for around $250.
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But, but... the spacing!

This design allows for those better components, and for them to be given enough space to breathe to prevent electrical interference between them.
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Can the DAC in the other portable player breathe?
 
PostmanPot said:
I think the point is that this aims at audiophiles and music aficionados, not your average folk who couldn't tell the difference between 128kbps MP3 and FLAC.
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Well I think the point other posters made is still valid,the HTC One M8 plays FLAC and theres even a special Harmon Kardon edition that plays higher bitrate FLAC.

So if you want lossless rather get yourself an HTC One m8 and it doubles as so many other things rather than a one trick pony.
 
falcon786 said:
Well I think the point other posters made is still valid,the HTC One M8 plays FLAC and theres even a special Harmon Kardon edition that plays higher bitrate FLAC.

So if you want lossless rather get yourself an HTC One m8 and it doubles as so many other things rather than a one trick pony.
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It is far more complex than merely being able to play FLAC.
 
falcon786 said:
Well I think the point other posters made is still valid,the HTC One M8 plays FLAC and theres even a special Harmon Kardon edition that plays higher bitrate FLAC.
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No...I've got an M8 and can play any kind of FLAC file regardless of how much compression was used. Afaik the only difference between the two is that the HKardon edition has different software for processing the audio.
 
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falcon786 said:
Like what?
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FLAC is merely the vessel for the lossless media, and says nothing about the device playing the media. The reason people buy sound cards for their computers when their motherboards already have onboard sound.

Or the reason audiophiles spend thousands on high quality CD players, AV receivers and amplifiers.

It's like saying any car that runs racing fuel will perform equally. Which is a farce, you have different capacity engines, variance in cylinders, turbos, superchargers, etc.

The same applies to sound, sound cards, etc.

DAC for starters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital-to-analog_converter#Audio
 
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