Kickstarter Project - Pono Music

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**cincydooley**

So this KS is apparently Neil Young's baby:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1003614822/ponomusic-where-your-soul-rediscovers-music?ref=popular

What is PonoMusic?
"Pono" is Hawaiian for righteous. What righteous means to our founder Neil Young is honoring the artist’s intention, and the soul of music. That’s why he’s been on a quest, for a few years now, to revive the magic that has been squeezed out of digital music. In the process of making music more convenient – easier to download, and more portable – we have sacrificed the emotional impact that only higher quality music can deliver. However, the world has changed in the last 10 years – technology has solved some of the underlying problems that forced that tradeoff. You no longer have to choose between quality and convenience when listening to music – you can have both. This is the fundamental idea behind PonoMusic.

Pono's mission is to provide the best possible listening experience of your favorite music. We want to be very clear that PonoMusic is not a new audio file format or standard. PonoMusic is an end-to-end ecosystem for music lovers to get access to and enjoy their favorite music exactly as the artist created it, at the recording resolution they chose in the studio. We offer PonoMusic customers the highest resolution digital music available. PonoMusic is more than just a high-resolution music store and player; it is a grassroots movement to keep the heart of music beating. PonoMusic aims to preserve the feeling, spirit, and emotion that the artists put in their original studio recordings.

We are pursuing this vision by building a system for the entire music listening experience – from the original master recordings to the PonoMusic.com Store to the portable PonoPlayer. So now you’ll hear the nuances, the soft touches, and the ends on the echo – the texture and the emotion of the music the artist worked so hard to create.

I guess it's basically a High Def Lossless music player. The KS is already nearing $3.5MM, so clearly there's a market for it, but I have to be honest: I don't get it. Now, I understand it more than people that collect vinyl (that I really don't get). Are any of you audiophiles that care that much about having the availability of "high def" music so often that you'd be willing to plunk down $400 on a new device AND rebuy all your music? I nearly exclusively stream all my music these days, so I have trouble seeing the appeal.

But yeah, just curious if:

A - Any of ya'll are backing it, and if you are, why?
B - What everyone else thinks of "high def" audio in the first place

Cheers!

**ScootyPuffJunior**

cincydooley wrote:

But yeah, just curious if:

A - Any of ya'll are backing it, and if you are, why?
B - What everyone else thinks of "high def" audio in the first place

Cheers!

A - Nope.
B - I don't care about "high def" audio. The best sounding audio is vinyl. Period.

**Cheesecat**

Did anyone read this thread title as porno music...

**Steve steveson**

Cheesecat wrote:
Did anyone read this thread title as porno music...

Yes.

**cincydooley**

ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
The best sounding audio is vinyl. Period.

Why do you like vinyl?

I can't fathom having all those albums taking up space in my house.

**Cheesecat**

cincydooley wrote:
ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
The best sounding audio is vinyl. Period.

Why do you like vinyl?

I can't fathom having all those albums taking up space in my house.

It's purely for audio quality (and maybe nostalgia).

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also the physicality of it has appeal to some people as well.

**ScootyPuffJunior**

cincydooley wrote:
ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
The best sounding audio is vinyl. Period.

Why do you like vinyl?

I can't fathom having all those albums taking up space in my house.

I like it because the sound is superior to CDs and MP3s (especially MP3, which is akin to listening to music in a tin can). The way in which analog music is recorded allows it to capture the entire sound wave, as opposed to digital, which takes snapshots of the sound wave at a certain rate. If something is recorded in analog and then cut in to a vinyl record, when played back on a turntable you experience the entire waveform that was recorded. That makes the sound more accurate and richer, it is also described as "warmer." Of course, vinyl records are easily damage and have to be well kept or the sound quality will suffer.

Those things that Cheesecat said play a part in it too. There is a certain level of joy that you get thumbing through your record collection to find just the right one, pulling it out and looking at the cover art (which is huge of course), taking it out of the dust jacket and placing it on the turntable, and watching it start spinning. CDs can never replicate that feeling, plus they look so cheap compared to a record.

Don't get me wrong, I love my iPod and the convenience of having my 10,000+ song collection at the touch of my hand, but if I could only choose one, I'd keep my turntable and my record collection every time.

**Ahtman**

Does Vinyl Really Sound Better?

**dementedwombat**

Ahtman wrote:
Does Vinyl Really Sound Better?

Thank you

I took a fundamentals of audio engineering class last semester just because. The first week was all kinds of audio myths like perception bias and equipment fidelity and such. There was one test where a guy took a tube amplifier and an Ipod. He hooked the ipod up to a big speaker and took a real fancy looking analog switch. Wired it into the test cabinet but didn't connect it to anything. Labeled one side "digital" and the other "analogue". Didn't connect the tube amplifier at all.

He invited a few friends in to sample his new tube amplifier and compare it to digital. The self professed audiophile got up there. *clack* went the switch over to "analog", and he immediately started talking about how much "warmer" and "truer" it sounded. The friend who didn't care about audio stuff was invited in. He got up there, *clack* ... *clack* *clack* *clack* ... then his other friend looked at him and said "you sneaky bastard..."

I thought that story was amusing.

**cincydooley**

Ahtman wrote:
Does Vinyl Really Sound Better?

To be fair, citing an article from Pitchfork that begins with "all my evidence is anecdotal" isn't exactly an unbiased source

The idea of rebuying all of my music in this instance just sounds horrible.

But I'd certainly be open to hearing them side by side if given the opportunity to really compare.

**ScootyPuffJunior**

Ahtman wrote:
Does Vinyl Really Sound Better?

That already gets a point against for being a Pitchfork article, but there are truths in it. Digital recording can indeed sound great, but compressed digital audio (like MP3s) pales in comparison to analog and high quality digital recording; that is the trade-off for a smaller file size. I agree that most people cannot tell the difference between the two (my wife for instance) but it makes me a little sad that an entire generation of kids will only know MP3s. Even I don't know remember the last time I bought a physical CD.

**Cheesecat**

cincydooley wrote:
Ahtman wrote:
Does Vinyl Really Sound Better?

To be fair, citing an article from Pitchfork that begins with "all my evidence is anecdotal" isn't exactly an unbiased source

The idea of rebuying all of my music in this instance just sounds horrible.

But I'd certainly be open to hearing them side by side if given the opportunity to really compare.

Well, it depends what you want like if you want a device that can hold hundreds of songs and don't mind the low sound quality go with mp3, if you want decent to great sound quality but still cheaper and more readily available than vinyl go with CD plus you don't have to worry about the needle

degrading the vinyl or the needle skipping if you have too much movement over time with CD as it uses lasers instead of a needle if you want the highest sound quality possible and don't mind the higher prices go with vinyl.

**cincydooley**

I mean, I've listened to FLAC files before and can only tell a tiny difference in the audio. Do I understand correctly that FLAC and vinyl are similiar-ish?

**dementedwombat**

cincydooley wrote:
I mean, I've listened to FLAC files before and can only tell a tiny difference in the audio. Do I understand correctly that FLAC and vinyl are similiar-ish?

Well there is a lot of debate about this kind of thing. My take on it is that vinyl records actually are a very low fidelity way of recording music. In digital terms their "bitrate" is very low. What people like about them is that the analog method of recording audio data associated with records inserts a certain layer of noise into the output that many people find enjoyable.

Honestly all audio tests are done incredibly subjectively and unscientifically compared to pretty much any other discipline out there. And since really all it comes down to is what kind of sound you prefer to lsiten to there really isn't any need to get any more complicated than that.

**insaniak**

dementedwombat wrote:
. What people like about them is that the analog method of recording audio data associated with records inserts a certain layer of noise into the output that many people find enjoyable.

That, and they're just cool.

Most of my music collection is on CD - there's some stuff I have digitally, but I like having an actual 'thing' - but we have a reasonable vinyl collection that slowly grows as we come across good stuff.

The space isn't an issue.... the music collection takes up less space than the DVD collection, and a hell of a lot less than the miniatures and the books

**Ahtman**

cincydooley wrote:
Ahtman wrote:
Does Vinyl Really Sound Better?

To be fair, citing an article from Pitchfork that begins with "all my evidence is anecdotal" isn't exactly an unbiased source

The point of posting the article wasn't that it was to end the debate, but further the discussion.