Pearl Jam limited edition chrome Pono Player

PJ_Soul

I wonder how much the workers in China are getting paid?

demetrios

on2legs said:

I really wish Neil Young would have appeared on Shark Tank with this Pono thing just so Mr. Wonderful could tell him "you're dead to me."

Haven't seen that show before but I do see Dragons' Den http://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/ here in Canada all the time before my CBC evening news. To see Neil Young pitch his Pono Player to the Dragons would of been fun.

demetrios

@PONO Music

Will the $400 Pono Music Player sound like a $27,500 stereo preamplifier? http://cnet.co/1iFOzEs via @CNET

on2legs

demetrios said:

on2legs said:

I really wish Neil Young would have appeared on Shark Tank with this Pono thing just so Mr. Wonderful could tell him "you're dead to me."

Haven't seen that show before but I do see Dragons' Den http://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/ here in Canada all the time before my Hockey Night in Canada.

Fixed that for you.

jlaustin

demetrios said:

@PONO Music

Will the $400 Pono Music Player sound like a $27,500 stereo preamplifier? http://cnet.co/1iFOzEs via @CNET

Reading all the comments to this article made my head hurt!
)

robertstackarmy

I was so excited for this until I saw the size. They really "phoned" that in. It should have been at least 1TB. I know that is huge, but if have over 4k CDs and many more downloads, etc. I need so etching to hold as much as possible.

I hope it does well, so they make a bigger one.

demetrios

I just hope the Pono Music store doesn't go the route as HDtracks.com . Folks outside of the USA can't download many of their HD albums anymore. "This product is not currently available due to region restrictions" is now showing up for many new & older releases. Totally BS!!

CROJAM95

This will be great to get around the time of the US shows

fingers crossed it delivers the goods

demetrios

Project Update #32: Pono Makes CNN's Top 10 Inventions List of 2014
Posted by the PonoMusic Team Black heart (cards) Like

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/06/tech/cnn10-inventions/?hpt=hp_c2

Enjoy!

Your PonoMusic Team

Pono
By Doug Gross, CNN

If you're trying to improve the sound of music, it helps to have a rock 'n' roll legend on your side.

When that legend is Neil Young, with support from other rock royalty like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Sting, you get Pono.

Pono is the triangle-shaped music player, set to be released late this year, that backers hope will bring the quality of hi-fi stereo sound back to the mainstream in the age of the iPod.

And even if its $399 price tag proves troublesome for some consumers, there appears to be, at the very least, a healthy niche market developing. A Kickstarter project to fund the device raised $6.2 million -- the 3rd-biggest campaign in the crowdfunding site's history.

"You have helped to set the stage for a revolution in music listening," Young wrote in a thank-you note to backers. "Finally, quality enters the listening space so that we can all hear and feel what the artists created, the way they heard and felt it."

Digital music sales and online music streaming have crippled the physical sale of CDs in much the same way CDs moved folks past vinyl albums. But with each step, we sacrificed a little sound quality.

For digital music, sound files get compressed to make them take up less storage space, squeezing out some of the music's more delicate details.

In Pono's Kickstarter video, rocker Elvis Costello compares the end effect to looking at a Xerox copy of the Mona Lisa.

Pono will stream music in 24-bit, 192-kHz sound, which is far cleaner than mp3s and even better than CDs.

Young had been a critic of digital music, particularly Apple's iTunes store, for years when he decided to do something about it in 2012. That's when he teamed up with Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur John Hamm, who now serves as Pono's CEO.

A handful of high-definition music players already exist. But they're super-expensive, sometimes going for more than $1,000, and there's very little music available for them. And that, in the end, might be Pono's most practical innovation.

The company says it has agreements with all major record labels to make music available in its online store and that it's working with independent labels to help them do the same.

demetrios

Project Update #33: Pono Update- July 2014
Backer white For backers only Posted by the PonoMusic Team Black heart (cards) Like

Dear Pono Supporters,

We want to give you another update on Pono to let you know how things are progressing.

T-Shirts and Posters

For those that pledged for posters and T-Shirts, we will begin sending them out this week. Below you can see some images of the items. While the posters are beginning to go out this week, as well, some may be delayed a couple of weeks due to Neil Young’s tour schedule in Europe with Crazy Horse. Since Neil signs each individually, it’s taking a little longer than planned – we have about half of these signed and will work diligently to get the rest signed and sent as soon as we get Neil back from tour. For those that ordered both a poster and shirt, they will be sent together.

One of the things we learned is that as popular as Kickstarter is, a majority of those that pledged for Pono were first time Kickstarter backers. So, we’ve received thousands of questions from those still wanting to buy things after Kickstarter ended, to those wondering why they didn’t get their player yet, to many wanting to change their addresses, etc. While this is a great problem to have, we were not prepared for the deluge of backer inquiry after our Kickstarter campaign ended. We apologize for the delays in getting back to you. But please remember we are still a very lean startup primarily focused on developing the products you’ll love. It is challenging to staff and train for this spike of inquiries, and we appreciate your patience as we work our way through the back log.

The best way to reach us is at support@ponomusic.com.

For other inquiries use these addresses:

Press: press@ponomusic.com

Artists: artists@ponomusic.com

Jobs: jobs@ponomusic.com

Kickstarter Exclusive Limited Edition Players

Sales of the limited edition signature series players are over and no more will be sold publicly. Even though you may still see that some show availability on the Kickstarter site, the site is now frozen, and in fairness to all of you who pledged during the campaign, these are no longer for sale. For those limited editions with fewer than 500 sold, we will be producing a lower number that will be shown on the unit but may round that up to an even number for the series. For example, if a player had 390 pledges then the fourth pledge may get an etching that reads “4 of 400”.

PonoMusic Pre-Order Store Will Launch Soon

We are thrilled to announce the upcoming launch of the PonoMusic Store in the U.S. in mid-July. This will allow our supporters who missed Kickstarter to pre-order a PonoPlayer, albeit at full price. Any players pre-ordered through the PonoMusic store will be delivered before December 25, 2014. This store will also allow you to order Pono shirts.

Note: We will also roll out the pre-order store to UK and Canada shortly thereafter.

Kickstarter Backers’ PonoMusic Accounts

We will be automatically creating a PonoMusic account for backers who pledged for PonoPlayers. You will receive an email notification informing you how to login. Your reward will appear as an order under your account (for tracking purposes) once we have your complete and valid shipping info (see below).

Mailing Address & Phone Issues

In order for us to mail your rewards via UPS, we require a valid mailing address as well as a recipient phone number, both of which you will be able to enter or complete on the account page that we will set up for you. Unfortunately, we didn’t ask you to provide your phone number on Kickstarter. Also, Kickstarter does not validate mailing addresses entered and we’ve discovered that some of addresses supplied may be invalid. So once your new account is available, we’ll be asking you to verify your mailing address and to provide us with a contact phone number. All of this information is for shipping your order only, as required by UPS, and the information will not be shared or sold. This is really important and we ask that you pay special attention to confirming a valid shipping address as to avoid additional delays.

Distribution

One of the most frequent questions is: In what countries will the PonoMusic store be available? We are rolling out the product and service in the United States, the UK and Canada in October. PonoMusic will be available in additional territories throughout 2015. Which countries and what dates have not been determined yet. This is primarily due to the intricate licensing arrangements associated with the content rights holders in various countries.

Our priorities for the upcoming locations will be Europe, Japan, and Australia.

In the Press

We were excited to see that CNN selected Pono as one of this year’s top 10 Game-Changing Inventions. (http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/06/tech/cnn10-inventions/) Quoting from CNN, “. A lot of factors must align for someone to invent something that’s truly groundbreaking. Which is why when a lone tinkerer or a team of engineers captures lightning in a bottle, it should be celebrated for the rare achievement it is… As part of our continuing focus on innovation, CNN once again is honoring 10 new inventions in technology and related fields. ….. All have the potential to shake up industries, to save lives, to make our daily existences a little bit easier.”

Special Dinners

For those that pledged for the special VIP dinners with Neil, the dates are as follows:

San Francisco October 21

New York City October 29 and 30

Chicago November 1

Details will be sent to those who pledged for this reward level. Neil is excited to host these gatherings and we look forward to seeing those backers at these events.

demetrios

Player Progress

Over the past six weeks we’ve built over 100 PonoPlayers in the US and in China that incorporate the Ayre audio design. This design uses discrete components rather than off the shelf Integrated Circuits for the amplification stage after the DAC (Digital-to-Analog Convertor). Charles Hansen, founder of Ayre, likes to compare the use of discrete components to baking a cake from scratch versus using a Betty Crocker cake mix.

The use of more than 100 additional components has provided a challenge to fit everything on the circuit board, but with a monumental effort from our Semaphore engineers, we managed to do just that in record time. We are using these units to run a gamut of testing including physical and audio.

One physical requirement we wanted is for the PonoPlayer to survive a 1-meter drop onto a wood floor on all five sides and 6 corners. Unfortunately we didn't quite achieve this in the first set of tests. We went back to our mechanical engineers at Lime Lab, who have made some changes to the mechanical enclosure. In tests just conducted we now survive the 1-meter drop. We don’t believe any of you will ever drop your PonoPlayer from 3 feet on to a hard surface, but we are engineering the case that way regardless!
Testing PonoPlayers for extreme temperatures Part of a comprehensive suite of over 40 tests



We have conducted our preliminary EMI (electromagnetic interference) and ESD (electronic static discharge) tests that need to satisfy the regulatory authorities including FCC and CE. With a few changes that we will implement, we expect our design to pass when we test with production-level models.

Audio experts that include Charles Hansen, Neil Young, Bruce Botnick and others have analyzed the audio quality through listening tests. Based on theirs and our extensive listening testing, we have achieved a level of performance that is everything we have hoped for.

Bruce (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Botnick) conducted his own tests and reported the following:

In my mixing studio, I listen to the best sound every day from Analog to the highest Digital sampling and highest bit rates.

My tests were to take a 30 ips NAB Analog 2 track stereo master and transfer it from a ATR-104 Analog tape recorder with Aria Class A electronics to Digital at 192k/24 bit ProTools XI • HDX, using Ayre and Black Lion professional A/D and D/A convertors.

The first process is to convert the 192k/24 bit WAV music files to 192k/24 bit FLAC and then convert the FLAC music files back to WAV and back into the Pro Tools session.

The second test is to stack the WAV and FLAC music files in Pro Tools, with one format out of phase and see if there is full bit for bit cancelation and the round trip is 100% accurate. There was full bit- for-bit cancellation.

The third step is to play both the WAV and FLAC music program against the original 30 ips NAB Analog 2 track stereo master and do a blind listen for differences in the sonic landscape between formats. That test was superb in that the listeners couldn’t tell which format they were listening to. For the final process we did the previous test, this time against the PONO player. The blind tests were amazing, as again the folks listening couldn’t tell which was which.

Charles Hansen’s no compromise analog circuitry for the PonoPlayer is open with beautifully accurate musical reproduction, excellent imagery with accurate room tone and reverb, true HiFi reproduction without compromise.

Charles Hanson has listened to ten players and he found the performance to be comparable to his own products that cost thousands of dollars.

demetrios

A Message from Charles Hansen

Charles Hansen will be offering some of his comments in these updates to help explain more about the player’s technology. This month he discusses negative feedback, something unique to a portable device and something being used in our player.

99.999% of all amplifiers made in the last 70 years use negative feedback. There is only one thing you have to remember about negative feedback: Negative feedback is a very easy way to improve the measured performance of an amplifier. The problem is that it makes it sound worse....

Specifically, adding negative feedback will lower the steady-state distortion (test equipment measures steady-state signals, but music is anything but steady-state). It will also extend the bandwidth (frequency response). Finally, it will lower the output impedance. All of these things seem like good things, and they are very easy to measure, so everybody uses it.

The problem is that negative feedback makes the circuit sound worse. Nobody really knows why. My best guess is that it messes up the time response, but nobody has been able to measure it, and there are all kinds of mathematical "proofs" that say this is not the case. Negative feedback compares a scaled-down version of the output signal to the input signal. Since no amplifier is perfect, there will be differences. The negative feedback pre-distorts the input signal opposite to the distortion that the amplifier creates so that the final output signal is closer to the input signal.

It is very clever. The problem is that feedback can only attempt to correct a problem after the damage has been done. One cannot go back in time and fix the signal before it is distorted by the imperfect circuit.

Here is the best proof that negative feedback does not work:

IF NEGATIVE FEEDBACK ACTUALLY WORKED, THEN ALL AMPLIFIERS WOULD BE PERFECT, AND ALL AMPLIFIERS WOULD SOUND EXACTLY THE SAME.

Anybody that has ever listened to amplifiers knows that no two amplifiers sound the same. Therefore anybody that has ever listened to amplifiers knows that negative feedback does not work as advertised.

With feedback, it is trivially easy to build an amplifier with any arbitrarily low output impedance that you want. It won't sound very good, but it will have very low output impedance.

That is why no Ayre product ever made has ever used negative feedback. When we started Ayre, there were a few companies that made zero-feedback tube preamplifiers and that was about it.

For more information on this subject and others check out ayre.com.

A Message from John

As the team leader for PonoMusic I just want to say a couple of things – First, thank you again, to our Kickstarter backers for your support, your engagement, and your faith in us, and our mission. As we work diligently to build the PonoPlayer and the Ponomusic.com site and store, we never lose sight of the fact that you made all of this possible. As the name says so perfectly, you “kickstarted” us over the hump to get this product and this whole idea into action so that we could give thousands of people the experience of hearing music as it was created so brilliantly by the artists we all love.

Secondly, as noted in the update above, we are working very hard to make all of this happen, and although we are still a very small team, scrambling a bit to keep everything on track – there are more moving parts to this than we could hope to explain, and we know that consumer expectations are high. We gave ourselves a tall order when we committed to ship the first Players in October and open the store.

So far, (knock on wood), so good… but we have a ton of work to do in a short period of time, and our team is running flat out on all fronts.

Finally, we will ask you, in advance, to remember why we did this – to give you a new experience for the enjoyment of music – that spine-tingling feeling of a fantastic album recorded and mastered as the artist hoped - that feeling that only music at this level of fidelity can produce. We hope that you will focus on the feeling you get when you listen to your Player for a few hours, or a few days at a time. As Norah Jones says in our video, “That music made me feel good, better than I’ve felt in a long time”. We are also hoping that you’ll share the experience with all your friends – we are counting on our Kickstarter backers to be our first sales force – because we know that it is easy to sell something you believe in, and we think you’ll believe in music as you never have before, when you hear the PonoPlayer.

We hope you are all enjoying your summer and we’ll be back to you with another update in late August or early September.

Thanks again,

John

Spags

october22 said:

I accidentally wore my mom's jeans to work one day and was shocked at how small chick pockets are. I got almost nothing done that day with those pants on. I don't think most men appreciate this.

Bit late to this but LOL!

demetrios

Project Update #38: San Francisco Listening Party on August 1 for the first 50 backers that RSVP!
Backer white For backers only Posted by the PonoMusic Team Black heart (cards) Like

Greetings Righteous Pono People!

We cordially invite you to a special Pono listening party here in our San Francisco offices on Friday August 1st, 2014. We are very excited to share the Pono experience as we get closer to the production release of our PonoPlayers, as well as our soon-to-be-released online community (more info to come)!

At our SF listening party, you’ll have the opportunity to listen to the PonoPlayer first hand and then share your thoughts with the rest of our community. We’ll have a Pono set up in a home audio system and a number of players with headphones to allow you to experience Pono in its full glory. Please feel free to bring your own favorite headphones too if you’d like!

This event will be limited to the first 50 Kickstarter backers who RSVP here. (So RSVP NOW!)

It will not open to the press, and in order to attend you must be a Kickstarter backer. We will be taking photos and shooting video of the event for promo purposes. By RSVP’ing to the event, you are giving us your consent to use these images or video recordings.

Here is the link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pono-listening-party-tickets-12386527437

Based on everyone’s feedback and success of this event, we may consider additional listening parties in the future.

Details:

Location: Pono Music Offices

San Francisco, CA

Time: 5-7pm PST

Again, don't forget to RSVP here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pono-listening-party-tickets-12386527437

Much love,

Team Pono

demetrios

whoa!! sold out!! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pono-listening-party-tickets-12386527437

shecky

Here's a cool video of Neil signing the PONO backers' posters:
https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/assets/002/303/541/c157589a9929d89318f06d2a1d11e1b7_h264_high.mp4

demetrios

Welcome to the PonoMusic Preorder Store & Pono Community‏

https://ponomusic.force.com/

pdalowsky

demetrios said:

Welcome to the PonoMusic Preorder Store & Pono Community‏

https://ponomusic.force.com/

proceed with care, I took a look, realised it was way over my head and retreated feeling slightly dumb

demetrios

pdalowsky said:

demetrios said:

Welcome to the PonoMusic Preorder Store & Pono Community‏

https://ponomusic.force.com/

proceed with care, I took a look, realised it was way over my head and retreated feeling slightly dumb

It is a little tricky getting around the website. For those of us who scored a player via Kickstarter few months back, we have to add our mobile phones on this website, or they won't update / sent our Pono Players. There's a step by step on how to update it via the email we received from them last night.

..
Welcome to the Pono Community

We have created the Pono Community as a place for all the Pono & music fans to hang out and discuss music. The PonoPeople.org moderators have carried the torch for us thus far and they have been kind enough to accept moderator responsibilities on the Pono Community. They will also help supporters transition from the Kickstarter forums and PonoPeople.org sites to the Pono Community. We would love for you to come join the Pono movement by following these steps:

1. Once logged in to the Pono Store, click on PONO COMMUNITY menu item in the Store's top navigation bar.
2. When in the community, click on Profile tab next to My Home.
3. Please add a photo of yourself by hovering over the happy face and clicking [Add Photo]. Only do this for your primary Pono account (see section about Multiple Pono Accounts at the bottom).
4. Click on the pencil icon to edit your Contact info.

>> NOTE: Any Contact field with ‘Employees’ setting above it is only visible to Pono staff and hidden from the rest of the community members. Make sure to set your sensitive info to Employees visibility.

>> KICKSTARTER BACKERS: See the section below for explanation on how to populate your Profile in order to get your PonoPlayer reward.

5. When all your info is accurate, click on [Save All]. You are all set to use the community!
6. Review the Community Code of Conduct at: https://ponomusic.force.com/articles/FAQ/Pono-Forum-Code-Of-Conduct
7. Check out the Community Rankings tab. Join the discussion and earn points by getting involved. The more active you are, the more points you earn, and the higher level badges you obtain.
8. Check out the Groups that your PonoPeople moderators have set up for us. Check out the Knowledge base and the Pono Community Q&A.
9. Have fun!

Once the PonoMusic Download Store launches in October, expect to see more music centric discussions added to the community.

----------------------------------------------------
| Pono Support - Have Questions?

If you have difficulty logging into Pono Community by following the instructions above, please email us at: support@ponomusic.com.

Once you have successfully logged into the Pono Community and have any other questions, please type them on the Q&A tab. If the system does not find you a good answer from the Knowledge base, feel free to post your questions for us or other community members to answer.

If you find a helpful answer especially from other community members, please ‘Like’ the answer so both you and the other member earn points towards your next badge. If you find an article that is helpful, please mark it as 1-5 stars depending on how helpful it was. Again, the more active you are within the community, the more points you earn and the closer you get to your next badge.

----------------------------------------------------
| KICKSTARTER BACKERS ONLY

In order for us to ship your PonoPlayer reward by the estimated delivery time, we need you to update your Community Profile’s Contact info. If you have already provided us your shipping info, it should be pre-populated here. In either case, please review the info and make sure it is all accurate.

1. Once logged into the community, go to Profile tab and click on the pencil icon to edit your Contact info.
2. On the About tab provide your First Name and Last Name.
3. On the Contact tab provide a Mobile Phone to be used by PCH for shipping your PonoPlayer.
4. On the Contact tab also provide a valid shipping address in English alphabet:
- Street Address, City, State/Province, Zip/Postal Code, Country.
5. Click [Save All]. You are all set!

Should your Mailing Address be determined as NOT deliverable or if any information is missing, you will receive an email asking you to log back in and correct the problem. Otherwise, within a week the system will automatically generate an order for your PonoPlayer reward. Once this process is complete, you will be able to view this order in the Pono Preorder Store by clicking on MY ACCOUNT | My Orders. As soon as you see your order listed under My Orders, you can feel secure in getting your PonoPlayer shipped to you by the estimated delivery date provided on Kickstarter.

———————
| Multiple Pono Accounts from Kickstarter

If you pledged for more than one reward on Kickstarter, you will likely end up with multiple Pono accounts, one associated with each reward. If this is the case:

- Please login to each account associated with a PonoPlayer and provide your Phone and Shipping Address for each.
- From the Pono Community perspective, please select one account (normally one associated with a PonoPlayer reward) as your primary Pono Community account. To designate your primary account, only add a photo to that account so the rest of the community can easily distinguish it as your primary and communicate with you using this account.

Thanks again for your support.
Your PonoMusic team

pdalowsky

oh I was on about more the chatter in the forum there .....

way way over my head.

I only bought this thing to look at longingly on my shelf.

ha ha