This should be required reading for anyone in this discussion: https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
The Pono Player and Promises Fulfilled
11–20 of 38 posts
Re: The Pono Player and Promises Fulfilled
#12For a counterpoint, based on actual science, make sure to read [Daniel Rutter's excellent "Righteous Bits"]( http://www.dansdata.com/gz143.htm ), and his [responses to the responses]( http://www.dansdata.com/gz145.htm ). I listen to MP3s, I listen to AACs from the iTunes store, I listen to FLAC (concert bootlegs), and I listen to vinyl with a tube amp. I cannot tell the difference, even on quality studio headphones,…
> I can tell a difference with vinyl and the amp
Here are a few possible differences:
- RIAA EQ curve on the vinyl compared to the mastering on digital music
- Vinyl is not exactly a precision format, it's very noisy and you're getting a lot of audio that isn't even part of the recording
- Tube amps inherently distort sound. This is the "tube warmth" that people talk about; it's just the amp not being very accurate at all.
These aren't "bad" things, but they're also not exactly something to point to for superiority of a medium.
Re: The Pono Player and Promises Fulfilled
#13For a counterpoint, based on actual science, make sure to read [Daniel Rutter's excellent "Righteous Bits"]( http://www.dansdata.com/gz143.htm ), and his [responses to the responses]( http://www.dansdata.com/gz145.htm ). I listen to MP3s, I listen to AACs from the iTunes store, I listen to FLAC (concert bootlegs), and I listen to vinyl with a tube amp. I cannot tell the difference, even on quality studio headphones,…
I love vinyl not for the audio quality but for the ritual and commitment of putting the needle down on a side and listening to the whole thing. It's a really nice, anti-add way to listen to music.
Interesting that I always preferred LPs because of the random access they afforded. When I really got into music in late 70s I could deep dive my parents vast collection by moving the tone arm to different tracks and quickly assess if I was interested in hearing more.
Re: The Pono Player and Promises Fulfilled
#14"In terms of its sound, I would say that for me it's without equal in the realm of hand held portable players in terms of pleasurable listening...When I compare it side-by-side in blind tests with other players I find its smooth yet resolving treble to be its stand-out characteristic. " " This test pitted the Pono Player against a Galaxy Note 4 and an Apple iPad Air. This was actually the hardest test to get a reliab…
> "Usually it would take me 5-15 minutes of listening and slowly switching back and forth between sources before I could determine which was the Pono Player."
Yes, I'm not clear on how his blinding setup works, but this sounds like the sort of activity that could easily unblind oneself.
Re: The Pono Player and Promises Fulfilled
#15"In terms of its sound, I would say that for me it's without equal in the realm of hand held portable players in terms of pleasurable listening...When I compare it side-by-side in blind tests with other players I find its smooth yet resolving treble to be its stand-out characteristic. " " This test pitted the Pono Player against a Galaxy Note 4 and an Apple iPad Air. This was actually the hardest test to get a reliab…
Self-deception is the hardest thing to contend with in these kinds of listening tests. An edge case might be this person's experience with self-deception in a hearing test:
Re: The Pono Player and Promises Fulfilled
#16"In terms of its sound, I would say that for me it's without equal in the realm of hand held portable players in terms of pleasurable listening...When I compare it side-by-side in blind tests with other players I find its smooth yet resolving treble to be its stand-out characteristic. " " This test pitted the Pono Player against a Galaxy Note 4 and an Apple iPad Air. This was actually the hardest test to get a reliab…
> "Usually it would take me 5-15 minutes of listening and slowly switching back and forth between sources before I could determine which was the Pono Player." Yes, I'm not clear on how his blinding setup works, but this sounds like the sort of activity that could easily unblind oneself.
Well that and if this device is so great that it will save music and we need to send $500 and re-purchase our entire music library from the Pono Store, then you should be able to tell the difference between it and a tablet pretty easily without 15 minutes of intense concentrated listening.
Re: The Pono Player and Promises Fulfilled
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I started listening to vinyl a few years ago and bought some albums I've listened to dozens (if not hundreds of times) on digital. Horn sections I didn't even know existed showed up on tracks; instruments were so crisp and distinct it was like I could go to a part of my room and grab the sound out of the air. The effect is less jarring for stuff I haven't been able to acclimate to over such a long period of time, but…
Assuming the digital copies had an adequate bitrate, it's possible that the differences you're hearing between vinyl and digital are attributable to 'loudness war' brick-wall limiting. Some studios choose to use different masters for vinyl and digital which can make vinyl sound better. To quote Daniel Rutter: "[B]etter-mastered music will sound better on cassette than badly-mastered music would at a zillion bits per…
This really isn't even a 'choice', it is practically a requirement for the medium. Some examples:
The outer grooves have relatively more fidelity (needle moving faster) than the inner grooves, so the master may be progressively tweaked to add more high end as the content gets closer to the inner groove. The closer you get to the inner groove, the lower the playback fidelity.
12" Singles have larger groove spacing so you can slam them way harder than an LP. There is a greater margin of error and less chance of the cutting lathe skipping or hopping during cutting the master.
The process for creating stereo vinyl recordings is pretty much a compromise that allows stereo content while maintaining compatibility with mono playback equipment. This results in another series of compromises/limitations in the mix, like severely limiting the amount of truly stereo content. Extremely loud or bass heavy content that is panned wide would cause the cutting lathe to skip, etc.
Re: The Pono Player and Promises Fulfilled
#18I almost get a kick out of the cries of "science" debunking the Pono player.
Yes, a 192k playback sampling rate is a joke and maybe even superstitious. There's not much of a reason for anything to play back at over 96k and many argue 41k is sufficient for mixed/mastered material. Point granted.
However good engineering is most definitely not a joke. Using higher quality DAC's (digital-to-analog converters) and better designed circuitry, spending the extra few pennies and dollars here and there to get the parts with lower tolerances, designing the shape of the product around the circuits instead of cramming circuits into the shape of the product, these are the exact things I would expect to see in a better music player.
Re: The Pono Player and Promises Fulfilled
#19I almost get a kick out of the cries of "science" debunking the Pono player. Yes, a 192k playback sampling rate is a joke and maybe even superstitious. There's not much of a reason for anything to play back at over 96k and many argue 41k is sufficient for mixed/mastered material. Point granted. However good engineering is most definitely not a joke. Using higher quality DAC's (digital-to-analog converters) and better…
I'm personally torn about 192K. Some folks that know a ton more about the recording process than I swear by it. On occasion I will source things at 96/24 if the track count is going to be low. Generally I just stick with 44.1/24. The higher sample rates also use a lot more space and processing power.
Re: The Pono Player and Promises Fulfilled
#20For a counterpoint, based on actual science, make sure to read [Daniel Rutter's excellent "Righteous Bits"]( http://www.dansdata.com/gz143.htm ), and his [responses to the responses]( http://www.dansdata.com/gz145.htm ). I listen to MP3s, I listen to AACs from the iTunes store, I listen to FLAC (concert bootlegs), and I listen to vinyl with a tube amp. I cannot tell the difference, even on quality studio headphones,…
In his rambling ranting about how the Pono player is equivalent to homeopathy (?) nowhere does he take on the the strongest claim of the pro-Pono side: that they've spent the money to better engineer a music player and the product uses better parts and better circuit topologies than their competitors. If this thing was packed with the same parts as an iPhone just playing back at 192k he'd be right, but you can't rest on ceteris paribus unless you make sure the other things really are equal.
He postures as a scientist but he doesn't do his diligence and post any studies on whether or not people can tell the difference between music played back through $5 and $50 DAC chips. That actually pisses me off, if you want to take the "science" side in an argument you should do your homework.