On Pono

No, I didn't drop an "r" there.  We're talking Pono, as in Pono Music and Pono Player.  Supposedly translates as "righteous" in Hawaiian.

These days the Pono discussion seems to be really heating up.  That's undoubtedly because Neil Young's Kickstarter project, targeted at $800K, has already raised some $4.8 million.  And because of NY himself and his name/fame.

I actually haven't followed the Pono thing much since a couple of years ago, maybe, when it was being tossed around in audiophile circles and Neil Young was making pronouncements about the sad state of recorded music.  (Let's not dwell on the fact that some of Neil's more recent releases seem to exhibit some dynamic range compression not exactly consistent with what one would expect to be a more optimal striving for max quality ...)

So when I first heard about Pono, I had the impression that NY had in mind a new format that would eclipse everything else out there.  Now I see that Pono seems more simply to be (1) a portable music player that will play existing high-resolution formats, primarily FLAC and (2) a music store where you can supposedly download the highest quality selections that Pono can add to its roster, but in the usual high-res formats, again, like FLAC.

Despite dissing by commentators like Bob Lefsetz who seem to be emphasizing the Marketing angle on all this and CNET writers who seem to be arguing that high-resolution music doesn't really improve the listening experience significantly in comparison to the usual MP3 thing, I have to conclude at this point that it is a good thing that Neil Young can use his celebrity to bring some awareness that there is better listening to be had. (I guess I will have elaborate on this somewhere else, later on, because not everybody may agree that MP3s aren't good enough.)

While I often find myself in agreement with Lefsetz in many things, I think he goes a bit too far here.  Yes, a look at the Pono site finds it wanting, particularly in terms of technical detail that an audiophile, say, might want to discover, and it really does seem to be marketing extravaganza.  (And it is an up-to-the-minute "responsive" design, aimed largely at handheld devices and a modern marketplace, hitting the expected frothy marketing-hip bullet points, bringing into question that style vs. substance equation.)

There have been players for some years now capable of playing hi-res music: HiFiMan, Cowon, Astell & Kern, etc.  Heck, even the lowly and inexpensive Sansa Clip can play FLACs-- and that thing, in my book (I have one), can play MP3s with better sounding output, all else equal, than an off-the-shelf iPod or iPhone. Or you can mod an old iPod to play FLACs, if you want. The Pono Player, which I have yet to experience in person, of course (I think deliveries start in late 2014), and may never, "looks" like it might be a little bigger and clunkier than I would want in a portable device, but it does seem to be keeping the interface simple, a good thing.  Will there be a Bob Dylan Signature edition? (I think the NY Signature copies are already taken.)  Maybe I could get someone to get me that for my birthday, if so.

High-res music is available all over the place, well, sort of.  HDTracks may be the best known (and controversial for its sketchy and cavalier reputation for what constitutes a proper "master", etc.), but there are many other purveyors of high-resolution/high-definition downloads, here and abroad.  I download stuff, usually as FLACs, sometimes as WAVs, maybe even AIFs, from a number of sites (HDtracks, eClassical, ClassicsOnline, Bowers&Wilkins Society of Sound, et. al.), including directly from artist sites if possible.  But perhaps none has the cachet that Neil Young's own PonoMusic might present.  We shall see if it succeeds.

So, in answer to a number of my friends and acquaintances who are asking, I'd say: go ahead and buy a Pono Player if you want it for the Nei-Youngness of it all, and if you can afford it, because you will be able to play readily-available music on it.  And I will tell you how to rip your CDs and DVDs to FLAC and other high-quality formats that will preserve the quality better than MP3 rips will do, if you don't know.

And just wait and see how PonoMusic works out.  I think it doesn't hurt at all to have another source of FLAC and such, just know that this is nothing special or new, technically or audio-wise, unless your whole world is and has always been 128 bit-rate MP3s.

By the way, I like Neil Young's music.  Mostly.  I still listen to it from time to time.  It was important to me in my younger, Wooodstock-era days. I still listen to it once in a while.