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Originally Posted by Severian
What is this Pono thing anyway?
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It's been described as "an end-to-end ecosystem":
— The labels and artists go back to their master recordings and come up with high-resolution lossless transfers, 24-bit/192kHz or the highest available (meaning if some cat originally recorded his tunes digitally in CD quality, the files won't be bloated and will stay at 16-bit/44.1kHz).
— The resulting files will be sold at the online Pono Store ($15-$25 bucks per album). The format will be FLAC, but obviously none of this will have any relevance whatsoever if you listen to this shit in your goddamn iPhone with bullcrap earphones. To really appreciate the quality, you'll need:
— The Pono Player, which
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[...] uses circuitry taken straight from Ayre's own top-of-the-line products, costing tens of thousands of dollars, for unparalleled sound quality and unrivaled listening pleasure. [...] The PonoPlayer includes two 1/8 inch (3.5 mm) audio output jacks which offer you four modes of operation:
1) personal listening mode via headphones or earbuds,
2) home stereo or in-car listening mode with fixed volume output,
3) PonoShare mode with two pairs of headphones/earbuds,
4) balanced mode provides ultra-performance for advanced users, separating left and right channel outputs across the two jacks. Great for use with high-impedance headphones, high-end home stereo systems, or professional equipment using balanced XLR input connectors.
Audio files can be loaded onto the PonoPlayer using the Pono Music Center desktop application (soon to be released on Windows and MacOS). The PonoPlayer can also be sideloaded as a USB storage device (Windows, MacOS, Linux).
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Specifications and more
here. I got into this whole shebang when it was still in its Kickstarter phase, so I secured me a limited edish Patti Smith-signed chrome player:
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Originally Posted by Severian
And how long before Apple buys it up and shoves the software into iOS9? Y'know, like they did with Beats formerly by Dre...
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Noooo, dude, fuck all that. I think Pono will be very successful, but not crazy massive among the mookdom like those headphones, which, by the way, are DISMAL unless all you wanna hear is the kick drum.