Pono - the new audio format

karaokeman

Neil Young previously announced that will be a download service, a player and most importantly as an audio format to rival the likes of MP3's, WAV etc.

Apparently the plan is for music to sound exactly as it does during the first studio recording.

Seems it could have advantages and disadvantages for the future of vinyl. To me, it seems it may help the popularity of vinyl, now that the high level of quality will be accessible to a larger majority. Hopefully it won't discourage people from buying them, that is the other end of where this could all go.

SilverScreen

I don't really see any purpose for this since FLAC is already widely used by those who want better digital sound quality. I read the Wikipedia article and it never mentioned what the estimated storage space would be for this proposed format. In order to compete with FLAC or WAV it would have to offer superior sound quality in smaller file sizes. Nobody's going to want to have to download huge files in order to listen to something that's almost indistinguishable from a 320kbps mp3.

EDIT: Here's an article that gives more technical information. The last paragraph gives a good argument against it.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/pono-music-player-ipod-neil-young,19476.html

There is reasonable doubt whether a dedicated music player like Pono can be successful in a time when we expect our mobile phones not just to be music playback devices, but entire entertainment multi-talents that can also play videos and run games that we download from application stores. Music streaming via cellular networks will be out of the question for Pono, given the fact that Young's preferred music format consumes about 300 MB of space for five minutes of audio, which makes the data squeezed into a Netflix SD movie (700 MB) look rather small. Even if you were to use music streaming over a commercial DSl or cable broadband network, you would be brand was an excessive bandwidth user if you were to stream more than 30 songs per day on average. Pono will have to rely on massive local storage that would provide room for about 200 songs in 64 GB of space.

The part I've highlighted in bold is why this will never take off. 300MB for five minutes of music?! Nobody is going to want to have to download that amount of data just to listen to one single song.

karaokeman

+1 on the article, haven't read it but I agree it makes a great counter argument.

300MB for a 5 min song, that's such a ripoff:eek:.

Least with about 7MB per song I can still store MP3's on my iTunes if I want them on my iPod.

Technocentral

I'll stick with vinyl.

Standard Toaster

I'll wait until I actually can hear a sample on decent audio setup before making a decision. Flea got a first-hand demonstration and said "it's not like some vague thing that you need dogs' ears to hear. It's a drastic difference."

Zillah

Surely for most people the quality of their experience is capped by their hardware rather than the format? Like, with normal headphones or speakers you're not going to see any difference between decent mp3 and uncompressed audio.

bullpost

Agree with this . I dont think those who will want this will be interested in streaming their music. They will play it locally and on very high-end equipment. For them storage costs wont be an issue as most of their spend will go on the amp , speakers and player.
So if you're an audiophile with lots of dosh to spend on high-end components I think this may be of interest.

Zillah wrote: »

Surely for most people the quality of their experience is capped by their hardware rather than the format? Like, with normal headphones or speakers you're not going to see any difference between decent mp3 and uncompressed audio.

franktheplank

Zillah wrote: »

Surely for most people the quality of their experience is capped by their hardware rather than the format? Like, with normal headphones or speakers you're not going to see any difference between decent mp3 and uncompressed audio.

Agreed, most likely at this end of things you would need good quality headphones/speakers, amplifier, DAC to justify purchasing it.

That said if the format was that amazingly good it might warrant investment in better gear to hear it. There's been a big move in recent years to portable and smaller sound systems which in most cases give less sound quality. (It's impossible to reproduce very low frequencies accurately without a certain size speaker) plus a lot of these systems are low quality to start with.

I don't really understand this, people are obsessed with bigger and bigger TV's yet smaller and smaller sound systems. I get that it's a necessity for smaller devices but very few people still have a decent sized/quality home listening system.

I think the music industry is crying out though for a new format that would challenge the popularity of streaming and I suspect that this might be the real reason this is being launched. I'll wait to hear it before i decide.

loyatemu

Neil's a great musician but he's been banging on about this audio quality thing for 30 years, and the fact is 99% of people don't give a toss about audio quality. This new format will be a failure, just like Super-Audio-CD, DVD-Audio etc. How many people actually use FLAC? The fact that none of the major download sites offer it as an option suggests there's not exactly huge demand for it...

People want convenience, thats why cassettes killed LPs, CDs killed cassettes and then MP3s killed CDs (& I suspect streaming services will kill MP3s in the long-run)

franktheplank

loyatemu wrote: »

Neil's a great musician but he's been banging on about this audio quality thing for 30 years, and the fact is 99% of people don't give a toss about audio quality. This new format will be a failure, just like Super-Audio-CD, DVD-Audio etc. How many people actually use FLAC? The fact that none of the major download sites offer it as an option suggests there's not exactly huge demand for it...

People want convenience, thats why cassettes killed LPs, CDs killed cassettes and then MP3s killed CDs (& I suspect streaming services will kill MP3s in the long-run)

Maybe I'm old fashioned (ok, there's no maybe about it!) but i still think there should be a place for a decent quality music system in every home. I think it's more that the opposing choice (small, portable) has been marketed heavily, more so than it's not what people want.

Another problem with spending money on a decent system which makes people reluctant, is rapidly changing formats. Nobody wants to cough up for something that'll be obsolete in 2-3 years.

I've got a fairly decent amp and speakers at home, bought them 2nd hand for about 150 euro. I can plug whatever i want through them cd player, laptop, tv, anything with a line out. Makes a huge difference. It's a much more pleasant experience to listen to music through.

You don't have to be an audiophile nerd to appreciate it either, most people that come round comment on it. I could go further and get use a proper soundcard with my laptop, high sample rate formats, etc. but even as it is, it makes a difference.

On a bit of an aside, audio quality is something every music fan should be interested in, anyone here heard of the loudness wars? Very interesting and a bit scary from a music fans perspective.

Irish Guitarist

On Neil Youngs latest album he starts ranting about MP3s in the first song. It goes downhill from there culminating in him singing about getting a "hip hop haircut". The bloody song lasts 27 minutes. He's one of my favourite musicians but this audio quality thing gets annoying, especially when he's using his music to advertise it (he also alludes to his new book in the same song). The music is reminiscent of (but not as good as) things like Down By The River or Cinnamon Girl but the lyrics are excruciating.

I'd much prefer to listen to Harvest or Rust Never Sleeps. I don't need any new fangled audio format either; they sound great on vinyl. Actually they sound great on CD too.

loyatemu

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

On Neil Youngs latest album he starts ranting about MP3s in the first song. It goes downhill from there culminating in him singing about getting a "hip hop haircut". The bloody song lasts 27 minutes.

I actually like that song (I could listen to Neil randomly soloing all day) but he is becoming a bit of a crank lyrically.

franktheplank - I understand what you're saying, I like listening to music on a quality system too, but the market has spoken and most people are using portable devices and cheap headphones (the ones Apple bundles with their products are shockingly bad).

karaokeman

loyatemu wrote: »

Neil's a great musician but he's been banging on about this audio quality thing for 30 years, and the fact is 99% of people don't give a toss about audio quality. This new format will be a failure, just like Super-Audio-CD, DVD-Audio etc. How many people actually use FLAC? The fact that none of the major download sites offer it as an option suggests there's not exactly huge demand for it...

People want convenience, thats why cassettes killed LPs, CDs killed cassettes and then MP3s killed CDs (& I suspect streaming services will kill MP3s in the long-run)

Often when I'm downloading it comes up as an option, but I always choose the music that uses MP3. I much prefer to listen to my music on iTunes rather than VLC Player, that way I can add them to my iPod.

I would get a good sound system but I'm still living with the parents and there's little room in the house for one.

SilverScreen

loyatemu wrote: »

Neil's a great musician but he's been banging on about this audio quality thing for 30 years, and the fact is 99% of people don't give a toss about audio quality. This new format will be a failure, just like Super-Audio-CD, DVD-Audio etc. How many people actually use FLAC? The fact that none of the major download sites offer it as an option suggests there's not exactly huge demand for it...

People want convenience, thats why cassettes killed LPs, CDs killed cassettes and then MP3s killed CDs (& I suspect streaming services will kill MP3s in the long-run)

FLAC is quite a popular medium with some people and it is widely available, but yes still only a small percentage compared to regular mp3 users. I'm a big fan of Neil Young, he's a fantastic songwriter, but no disrespect to him he's no Steve Jobs.

loyatemu

karaokeman wrote: »

Often when I'm downloading it comes up as an option, but I always choose the music that uses MP3.

really? which download service are you using?

karaokeman

loyatemu wrote: »

really? which download service are you using?

Mainly tpb and kat and sometimes isohunt.

When you search for an album you get several results, some users offer the album in mp3 and others have it in FLAC.

Irish Guitarist

loyatemu wrote: »

I actually like that song (I could listen to Neil randomly soloing all day) but he is becoming a bit of a crank lyrically.

I liked the music, especially the acoustic intro and the squealy electric guitar, but I thought the lyrics were among the worst he has ever come out with.

Sugarlumps

That's all he jived on about in his book.

Reebrock

Pono and porno. That's all I'm thinking.

Custardpi

Can't see this going anywhere really. No doubt it's a great sounding format but 300 MB per 5 minutes is insane. I have some 24 bit/96khz FLAC tracks (CDs are 16/44.1) that sound fantastic & I'd be amazed if they sounded any better in Pono. They're about a 3rd of that size so his system would seem to be fairly inefficient. Basically he seems to be answering a question which for 90% of the market hasn't been asked & for the rest has already been answered (though more availability would be nice). Good quality vinyl & HD FLAC are the way forward for the audiophile market for the forseeable future, no need to reinvent the wheel.

Peanut

loyatemu wrote: »

How many people actually use FLAC? The fact that none of the major download sites offer it as an option suggests there's not exactly huge demand for it...

People want convenience, thats why cassettes killed LPs, CDs killed cassettes and then MP3s killed CDs (& I suspect streaming services will kill MP3s in the long-run)

FLAC is a lot more viable now compared to even 2 or 3 years ago since storage prices have decreased (hard disks and microSD) and there are very cheap mobile players (eg. Sansa) that support it. You can fit about 150 lossless CDs on a £40 64GB microSD card.

I expect lossless streaming to get more popular as the bandwidth is coming on line with next-gen mobile networks etc. I think there is a sizable minority who would appreciate the possibility. Although it is a minority..

drunkmonkey

More news on this today, he's hinted at an early 2014 launch, can't want for it personally... Have a few sacd's but running something like pono through the av set up or sonos should be excellent.

Neil Young's Pono might launch early 2014, other details blurry like a hurricane

By Mariella Moon posted Sep 04, 2013 at 8:13 PM

When Neil Young revealed Pono on the Letterman show, he mainly talked about how the high-fidelity music service would work. Now that Young and his team have announced an early 2014 target launch, it's looking more likely that Pono might actually happen. In a statement posted on Facebook, the team says it will launch both its online music store for high-quality audio and its player -- an updated version of the one shown on Letterman -- at the same time.
Young claims the service can replicate the quality of music played in a studio, but we'll have to wait until next year to find out if it can actually deliver. Sadly, Team Pono isn't sharing other details, but we'll keep an eye out for future updates.

[Image credit: CBS]

RikkFlair

Huge fan of Neil Young, and as anyone who's read his biography will confirm, he's a workaholic - never seems to stop releasing albums (I've lost count now) and always has to be doing something.

But this doesn't make much sense to me, the file sizes are way too big....unless this "PONO player" will address that somehow, but I can't see how? There will have to be some form of compression and therefore loss of audio quality.

drunkmonkey

We have a date finally, it's launching in March at the SXSW in Texas!

http://www.bad-news-beat.org/2014pono-to-be-released

Neil Young will launch his new music player PONO at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music conference in Austin, Texas in March. Young was awarded the President’s Merit Award from the Producers and Engineers arm of the Recording Academy and said Pono would be launched at SXSW.

Peanut

RikkFlair wrote: »

But this doesn't make much sense to me, the file sizes are way too big....unless this "PONO player" will address that somehow, but I can't see how? There will have to be some form of compression and therefore loss of audio quality.

Yeah it doesn't seem very workable at the moment for a portable player. Bit of a Zune moment.

But this format seems like something that you would typically just download once and keep on a media centre type setup. 3.5GB for an hour of music doesn't look too bad when disks are close to about 3000GB for €100. On a 20Mbps connection, it would take just over 20 minutes to download an hour's worth of music.

Another problem with the hardware player is that the limiting factor in portable devices is typically the headphones you use and the amount of power the player can supply to more demanding headsets.

iamstop

I wonder if he is trying to somehow get the best of a few formats and make a new one.
The sound quality and tangibility of vinyl with the portable convenience of tapes/CDs but the option to store on hard drives like mp3s.
Interested to see how this pans out.

Herb Powell

iamstop wrote: »

I wonder if he is trying to somehow get the best of a few formats and make a new one.
The sound quality and tangibility of vinyl with the portable convenience of tapes/CDs but the option to store on hard drives like mp3s.
Interested to see how this pans out.

This might be utter bull****, IDK, but I think it's not possible to do this with a digital medium. Digital music is always going to be sampled, regardless of how high the rate it, so it's not the same as analogue.

High quality digital music sounds fantastic, but there is something warm about vinyl that I can't explain.

Like I said, maybe it's bull**** and all in the head, but the effect is strong enough for me to notice anyway.

drunkmonkey

Latest is it's hitting KickStarter on the 15th of March http://evolver.fm/2014/03/09/neil-young-to-launch-pono-music-at-sxsw/ looks like a hefty price tag and limited storage. Worth keeping an eye on as the KickStarter price should be cheaper.

loyatemu

looks like an MP3 player from 10 years ago - that shape is not exactly pocket-friendly either.

drunkmonkey

I'd say if you can afford the headphones to complement the pono you've fairly big pockets.

bullpost

Just reading the website and it seems they will use FLAC i.e. there is no new audio format being delivered here.

Herb Powell wrote: »

This might be utter bull****, IDK, but I think it's not possible to do this with a digital medium. Digital music is always going to be sampled, regardless of how high the rate it, so it's not the same as analogue.

High quality digital music sounds fantastic, but there is something warm about vinyl that I can't explain.

Like I said, maybe it's bull**** and all in the head, but the effect is strong enough for me to notice anyway.