Yes that is my iPhone reflecting in the pono display in the photo…
http://ponomusic.force.com Today, after months of waiting my Pono player arrived via UPS. I had an email yesterday telling me about the tracking number and a link which allowed me to download the beta software for my computer. I should start at the beginning of the story.
Many months ago I was reading on the internet and heard about a Kickstarter funding project for a new music player being developed with Neil Young as CEO. https://www.kickstarter.com/hello?ref=footer As I read this article I was already familiar with what was being discussed. Neil has always been about the fidelity of the music and I knew he really did not like MP3 formats and the cd format in general for the loss that happened trying to reproduce music as it was really recorded. I remember he even released his music collection once on blue ray dvd to try to make sure all of the sound spectrum was there from the original tapes. I have been an audiophile from my very early days. I had crap systems when I was a kid as I would frequently inherit console stereo cabinets from my Dad’s finance business in Mississippi. People were forever borrowing money to buy the latest huge wood thing complete with AM FM and record players as they called them back then. When they would not pay for them the “repo man” would intervene and then they would end up in a storage area…I would sometimes visit my Dad at work and go look at the “stereo collection.” Sometimes I would beg to get one of them for my bedroom to listen to my growing music collection. As I started to make more money in my college years I moved into audio “separates” as the technology advanced, then later I started haunting the high end audio shops and buying the ultimate listening toys. I laugh as I was called a purist once by this attractive saleslady…I was and I still am, especially with my passion in life which is music. Back to Neil, when I read what he was getting ready to do I signed in and committed in the first 24 hours. There were no players, no demo, no web site, nothing but blind faith, pun intended. I know enough about Neil that I knew this project would not fail. Long story short, the project reached 778% funding at $6,225,354 on tax day, April 15, 2014 with most of that in the first 48 hours as I remember it. You could buy a limited edition player laser signed by of one of your favorite artists to help the company get the capital to start-up and within a few days the limit of 500 players per sponsoring artist was disappearing fast. There was also this very cool signed by Neil concert poster that arrived at my house back in the Summer. By July I had a Pono Music t-shirt I was proud to wear to Farm Aid this year and various live shows I have attended. I was fortunate to get a great photo with Jimmy Buffett’s entire current band wearing my Pono shirt in Key West. I wanted to spread the word about this fabulous invention and still do. Neil has put a ton of work into this business and I echo his passion for it.
I am not going to give you the technical specifications on this device as there are others who have that all spelled out on the internet. I am sure there will be lovers and haters of this device. I will share my thoughts of my experience from the last two hours of opening the shipping box. This was an emotional experience for me. It is really cool to be avery small part of something you believe in. It is very cool to feel like maybe you are a very small part of changing something for the better. That concept always makes me happy. As I write this I am listening to Crosby, Stills, and Nash through my Pono player and it sounds like I am in the studio with them. This is very high resolution music. The player name derives from pono, a Hawaiian word for “righteousness” It is just that, music quality we should have been listening to all along instead of the compressed files we normally listen to. Life is too short not to have great sound reproduction.
I won’t bore you with my review of this player. I have had it out of the box for a couple of hours and had only one question. I wanted to be clear with the proper stereo cable to connect it to my listening room system without damaging the device. I knew the answer but I wanted to call customer service anyway to ask. Some of the reason for the call was to see what the customer service was like. It was prompt with no waiting! After a quick question the female voice on the other end asked if I needed anything else and I paused. I then said “Can I tell you something to pass along with the people you work with?” She said ‘Sure.” I went on to tell her how I was so glad I participated in this. I said this player and the tracks I was listening to on the software were totally awesome. She said “Yeah we are hearing that over and over.” It was about that point that tears of joy went down my face. Like I said it was an emotional experience and that rarely happens to me. The player and the remastered tracks all over the Pono site are astounding. I was listening to Davie Bowie last night and heard some tracks in my studio that were so pure it was crazy. I just kept cranking them up. The player seems pretty solid and I like the simple controls and the touch screen. This product is not for everyone especially those who have “i everythings” and don’t want to buy high resolution recordings. One thing is sure, I know I will never regret being a small part of a sound revolution where we took music reproduction to where it should have been from the beginning. Even if Pono never makes money long term the game has changed. I hope this is a new beginning where sound reproduction quality improves even further. That is the nature of things. ‘Nuff said,
Yeah my blog is behind…I’ll catch it up soon…Until next time I’ll see you, down the road.