David Letterman clip of Neil describing his audio thing inside spin.com link

(knowing Neil got high standards, this could be something)

http://www.spin.com/#articles/neil-young-pono-music-service/

(also in Rolling Stone, too)

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/neil-young-to-launch-21st-century-music-service-ponomusic-this-week-20140310

Neil Young Kickstarts PonoMusic Service for Audiophiles
High-resolution digital devices will retail for $399

By Dan Reilly

March 10 2014, 12:01 PM ET

While Dr. Dre and Trent Reznor's Beats Music attempts to put the emotional connection back into your music-listening experience, Neil Young's Pono Music is all about the quality. The rock legend just announced his new online store and iPod-like device that's aimed at true audiophiles.

Young is a longtime critic of what he sees, or hears, as lackluster quality in digital music, says he's bringing studio-level sound to portable devices. According to Wired, he even claimed that late Apple exec Steve Jobs preferred listening to vinyl records instead of his company's iTunes MP3s. With Pono, the name of which is derived from the Hawaiian word for "righteousness," he aims to fix all that at a reasonable cost for consumers. "It's about the music, real music," he said in a statement. "We want to move digital music into the 21st century and PonoMusic does exactly that. We couldn't be more excited about bringing PonoMusic to the market."

Pre-orders for the device, which retails at $399, will begin on March 15 via Kickstarter. The player itself has a memory capacity of 128 GB, which the company says can hold 1000 to 2000 high-resolution albums, and the memory card can be switched out for people with larger libraries. The songs and albums will be available sometime soon at PonoMusic.com, along with recommended earbuds and headphones.

For more on Pono, check out Young's 2012 appearance on Letterman, where he shows off a prototype and explains why it's different from your average digital player.

I love the idea and may even purchase but the truth is...people just don't care *that much* about quality.

Sure, current mp3 aren't the best quality but they're not bad by any means to the average listener.

No one cares that the Beats headphones sound like shit.

Neil's my boy and I applaud his effort and will support...but the majority just doesn't care.

The battle is in making them believe the quality matters.

(like that comment from "Droppo" in the RS article link)

so, who knows where the next step in "higher" quality may lead......

So they never were trying to steer people away from earbuds either, just make people think they were giving people better sound than the real audiophile headphones.

http://www.tekserve.com/astell-kerns-ak100-portable-high-fidelity-music-player.html

I got to demo this with some kick ass headphones last year. Sound is phenomenal. Didn't buy but really appreciated that it existed. Big question though is how big of a lossless library. They couldn't really tell me about that then, just that 'stuff is out there'.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

Neil's making a good bet, though obviously Neil isn't as popular as he once was.

Whether I (we) like it or not, this doesn't fit into the current model of listening which isn't shitty quality mp3's but shitty quality streams. There's no way to stream hq files, and as such this will not break beyond the audiofile market which the previous product all ready taps into.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

yep

...but some ain't good enough to make kids & adults with money to waste to switch to a new format when 99% of the music they like are on mp3's, distributed by mp3, and usually made with mp3's, even wave files are much better and most artist's music is mastered in that format.

But getting Neil to sway their opinion is nothing but a longshot, personally Neil doesn't even make great music or the fact nobody cares how good his music should sound to their ears, couldn't they just buy his physical cd (or a SACD version if it's available) instead of buying some new device and paying high prices for re-issued music that's probably cheaper to buy since most old music is owned by so many people already?

this is going to fail

Beats headphones were so successful because of the ability to get athletes to buy in and wear them EVERYWHERE.

NBA All-Star Game a few years ago, it felt like EVERY athlete was rocking a free pair.

Not to mention, design-wise they make a cool fashion statement (not for me), but that's what the kids are buying into right now, NOT the quality.

Wearing a cool pair of Beats is like wearing a dope pair of Jordans for a lot of the younger generation.

and NIKE or whoever had USA sponsorship locked up was pissed.

It was genius tho..

also had BEATS in the swag bag at Fashion week in 2009 or 2010.

This is a waste..

streaming has won.. and I already have an all-in-one device called a phone for that..

this isn't intended to be a mass consumer item, it's for people that care about sound quality
considering you're a producer, I'm a bit alarmed by your stance on this

I make records for TV, Radio the internet and shitty iphone headphones right..

TV fucks up your tunes forcing them into mono in a lot of cases.. radio squashes them even more with its compression... most clubs are playing songs in mono.. streaming from youtube destroys quality..

But this is what the people want. They don't want pristine audio because they don't even know what that is.

I would love for people to hear my tunes in amazing systems. But those people are far and few between and don't buy enough music to make this a sustainable business.

My preferred choice would always be lightly mastered (retain dynamics) and on vinyl

EDIT: Here is the OTHER issue. If you are a true audiofile then you also better invest in these http://hifiheaven.net/store/Audeze-LCD2-Planar-Magnetic-Headphone?language=en¤cy=USD

because this isn't about either of you
make your own thread for that if you feel the need to, but neither of those are what this is about

ha..

well I will say that he'll most likely make his kickstarter goal.. so if you copped one..

enjoy

great library for his new service, gladly.....or should I say, hopefully......?

I trust Neil, too.

Can't compare Neil to Dre. Dre produces, got the urban market on lock, advertising on lock, rock isn't as hot with the youth as rap so neil doesn't have the clout where it counts, people with disposable income who buy dumb shit to look cool.

it's an alternative for bullshit ass sound quality, with a machine that can properly support and play it
the rock industry is behind this, this isn't nigger shit like those Ludacris and 5o Cent headphones

kickstarter was a smart move for this

I don't think it will ever be released.

Now if this is even better quality then I'm all in!

I said it won't be profitable in the long run. Wouldn't mind being proven wrong though.

and therefore just has to be successful with a smaller number of people
it's not unheard of for a new device like this to be pushed for that price, happens all the time

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

just in that everyone that matters in rock n roll is endorsing the hell out of this thing's quality.

Spotify and some good headphone/speakers meet all my needs at the moment.

http://www.spin.com/#articles/neil-young-pono-music-service-sxsw/

by Garrett Kamps

March 12 2014, 8:04 AM ET
When Neil Young tells you that there's something out of whack with the way you're listening to music, then you can't help but listen, which is what those of us who had assembled in the main hall of the Austin Convention Center were doing on Tuesday afternoon as the legendary rocker paced the stage, eerily resembling Steve Jobs during one of the Apple guru's famed keynotes.

"There was really something wrong," Young said, recounting the period in the '80s when the industry crossed over from analog to digital. "And it was that we were selling shit. And people were still buying it because they liked music – but they were buying wallpaper, they were buying background sounds, they were buying Xeroxes of the Mona Lisa."

Therein lies the sales pitch for Young's new music service, Pono: For years now, thanks to the advent first of digital recording, then MP3s, then — heaven forbid — streaming, we music fans have been missing out on 95 percent of the information contained in an analog recording. Choosing the convenience of digital over the quality of analog, consumers have been systematically and, to hear Neil tell it, somewhat conspiratorially denied access to the soul of music. Not only has this destroyed the experience of listening to music, it's wrought havoc on the entire industry.

(see link for rest of article)

Don't know exactly how this gibes with the downcast vibe of the Spin.com article linked in reply #27

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/neil-young-reaches-800-000-pono-kickstarter-goal-in-1-day-20140312


By Jason Newman
March 12, 2014 12:10 AM ETWell, that was fast.

At 11:00 p.m. EST Tuesday night, less than 10 hours after launching a Kickstarter page to raise money for his new digital music service PonoMusic and its accompanying player, Neil Young surpassed his goal of $800,000. Young and the PonoMusic team had set an expiration date of Tuesday, April 15th to raise the necessary funds.

Watch 10 stunning videos from Neil Young's epic Carnegie Hall run

Per Kickstarter rules, project organizers keep any funds raised past the required amount. As Kickstarter notes on their FAQ, "Most of the time, what seems like 'extra' money isn’t extra at all. Ten times the funding often means 10 times the backers. More rewards have to be produced and distributed, and creators need that funding to do it (and sometimes some of their own money too).

"Sometimes when a project is overfunded it lets the creator put that money back into the project to create something better for the backers and themselves. More songs on an album, additional game elements, better materials, etc. In other cases, overfunding leads to better margins and the creator may even profit from the project. This often also means that the creator can continue the project beyond Kickstarter and backers are part of that story."

Young offered multiple rewards for financial contributions, including a "VIP Dinner & Listening Party" with the singer and limited edition Pono players signed by Arcade Fire, Pearl Jam, Beck, Foo Fighters and others. All 500 limited edition players with Young's signature laser-engraved on the device were sold for a minimum of $400 each.

The singer reached out to many of his musician peers for a testimonial video that accompanied the Kickstarter page. Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, David Crosby, James Taylor, Tom Petty, Sting and a slew of other musical icons provided glowing recommendations for the service.

The player, which has a suggested retail price of $399, will contain 128 gigabytes of memory and can store between 1,000 and 2,000 high-resolution songs, depending on the resolution and length of the recording. The device will also accept memory cards, which can hold more music and playlists.

Go ahead and read through this. I'm not even gonna swipe it because it's long and has pretty pictures.

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

i'm not an audiophile but I do like listening to music.

I have a pair of relatively good earbuds (Klipsch) and a pair of Sony over the ear headphones.

whether its basic conditioning of my ear due to listening to average fidelity music or simply because of age, the only time I can tell a difference in fidelity is if the difference is a FLAC ripped from a CD to a 192Hz MP3. Even then the difference seems more placebo and just the inflexibility of my tastes.

Since most of new music is simply made on digital equipment that has different and in many cases lower fidelity than equipment used in the 70's - 90's, the difference just isn't going to be noticeable.

In 15 - 20 years, there will be a greater need for recordings in higher fidelity because the recording equipment will be much better than today, but the Pono seems that it will be more hype than a must-have product.

THE HOME OF BOOK-NESS:
http://www.thisisbooksmusic.com/
http://twitter.com/thisisjohnbook
http://www.facebook.com/book1


http://i32.tinypic.com/kbewp4.gif
http://i50.tinypic.com/hvqi4w.jpg

dude

just an excerpt from larger interview - see link for full interview

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/neil-young-on-pono-his-new-album-and-using-lps-as-roof-shingles-20140314

By Gavin Edwards

March 14, 2014 9:22 AM ET

What does success look like for Pono?
Success is more people finding out about good-sounding music and music choice, whether it's Pono or some other company that decides to do the same thing and beats us because they've got millions and millions of dollars to work with — but we're first.

What's surprised you about Pono?


It's been pretty predictable, because I'm a musician and I know how musicians feel about sound. The record companies made some bad choices and did not realize how big this tech was going to be. And when that happened, there was no alternative to the cheap sound. Smartphones can do anything, but they do it all at the same kind of level. It's a little above a Fisher-Price level: it's a toy stove. So if you want an MP3, and that's what you can afford, and that's what you like, and you really don't think you want anything else, that's fine. But now you have a chance to hear something else, that you didn't before, unless you were an audiophile and you went through all these hoops to get it. We're going to be able to play records back just like the artists made them — with absolutely no magic sauce, no DRM, no encoding, decoding, none of the things that screw with the sound and make it an intellectual property.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/neil-youngs-pono-kickstarter-raises-over-6-million-20140415

Neil Young's Pono Kickstarter Raises Over $6 Million

More than 18,000 people back musician's high-end audio player

By Kory Grow

April 15, 2014 1:35 PM ET

The Kickstarter campaign to fund Neil Young's PonoMusic player reached its goal of $800,000 less than 10 hours after it went live. Now, the campaign has ended after earning nearly eight times that figure. It is officially the third highest-funded campaign in Kickstarter history.

The campaign closed out at over $6 million on April 15th with full backing on several pledges tied to rewards, including signature series Ponos bearing pre-loaded music and autograph inscriptions by Metallica, Tom Petty, Pearl Jam and, of course, Young. Two of the rewards for the top-priced $5,000 pledge levels – dinner and a VIP listening parties with Young in California and New York City – also sold out. In total, 18,220 people backed the campaign, pledging $6,225,354. Kickstarter's rules say that project organizers can keep money raised above and beyond the initial funding threshold.

After years of planning, Young announced Pono in March at South by Southwest. The Pono music player and service allows users to listen to music at a much higher quality than the typical smartphone. To support his Kickstarter campaign, Young also recruited a number of his famous friends – including Beck, Norah Jones, Rick Rubin, Jack White, Arcade Fire, Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Dave Grohl, Elvis Costello, Beastie Boys’ Mike D, Elton John, Jackson Browne, Dave Matthews, Patti Smith, Kid Rock and Mumford & Sons’ Marcus Mumford – to appear in a video and offer testimonies to the player's sound quality.

In an interview with Rolling Stone in March, Young said he was not surprised by people's reactions to Pono. "It's been pretty predictable, because I'm a musician and I know how musicians feel about sound," he said. "The record companies made some bad choices and did not realize how big this tech was going to be. And when that happened, there was no alternative to the cheap sound. . . We're going to be able to play records back just like the artists made them — with absolutely no magic sauce, no DRM, no encoding, decoding, none of the things that screw with the sound and make it an intellectual property."

The player has a suggested retail price of $399 and contains 128 gigabytes of memory, which can store between 1,000 and 2,000 high-resolution songs. The device will also accept memory cards to hold more music and playlists.

Yea I mean I knew it would reach it'd goal. Exceeding it definitely wasn't planned but a testament to Neil and Kickstarter model.

Obviously not a mass market item but I think that it's kinda cool that things can be funded on a small level for niche groups. Certain items wouldn't exist (Pebble Watch, Veronica Mars Movie) otherwise.

I just don't like it when think pieces about "saving the industry" or the "next big thing" exist because none of these items are going to move the needle in any big way.