I agree that the Pono store is a joke, and sadly that's the company's main focus. The hardware is actually quite decent for a 1.0 product, and if they had focused on making mid priced audiophile equipment with solid components, I think they'd have a decent niche in the marketplace. But I maintain a presence on the Pono message boards and the endless amounts of complaints about the store are overwhelming. People are going to HDtracks and Pro Studio Masters and such to get their hi-res recordings, as they should.

As for the blue light, I don't care. It's a little thing they did to indicate that what you're playing is from the Pono store. Even if what you bought is 16/44, the light goes on. It's a meaningless little thing and certainly not something worth getting upset about.

The Pono player is a versatile music playback system, it has some cool features like support for balanced headphones and has some excellent internal components. The software is where Pono is lagging. So for $400, it's a tough sell, but certainly a bargain if you were considering the newest Sony Walkman. For the $200 I paid, I'm quite happy, and now I have a nice collection of lossless music, most of which was ripped from vinyl sources that sound superior to the current CD releases of the same albums. So I have nothing to complain about. I'm not enthusiastically recommending the player though.

Both for the most part, though 16/44 obviously captures more sound fidelity than lossy MP3s. Most major labels record and master their music at full 24-bit/96kHz quality these days. 24/192 is probably overkill, even from an analogue tape.

Now if you want to start talking about DXD recording, that's a different story.

That xiph article I posted mentioned why 24/96 or 24/192, and also why that's not so useful for playback.

Another argument I heard recently is that 24/96 is useful for playback because it allows for elbow room to avoid brick walling while reproducing the full dynamic range we could possibly hear. I've already make ALAC copies in 16/44 that can go on my iPod and iPhone, I may go ahead and make 24/96 for the rest and put those on my Pono.

What exactly does Pono music do to create these files that justifies them jacking the price to upwards of $30 for an album I can get off iTunes for $9.99? So you can hear in imperceptible difference in sound quality? People are already starting to see this enterprise as a giant scam.

All the hi-res music stores charge a premium over iTunes. iTunes offers 256 Kbps files, which isn't even CD quality.

That being said I do think hi-res music stores are pricing themselves out of the market.

Yeah but what is the justification? There's no way that it takes more work to make a hi rez file. Why not just price them the same or a buck or two more? It would give more people the incentive to make the jump. Double the price is just ridiculous. Especially when few of the albums are the max resolution.

Because there is no large company to push prices down like Apple and Amazon do with MP3, the record companies can throw their weight around with hi-res music stores and have much more say in setting the pricing. I doubt it takes much more work to make a hi-res file, but it does have more information than an MP3, and most importantly the record companies are greedy. Also the record companies know that people spending gobs of money on equipment will also pay more for the content.

FWIW, I think those prices are all a rip off and as a result I've never purchased a hi-res download. However, my Pono is stuffed to the brim with hi-res content. Wink wink nudge nudge.

That's the answer right there. If you're driving a 1984 Chrysler Laser, you're not spending $200 on floor mats, but someone with a nice ride might.

The record labels have all set pricing for Hi-Rez downloads, not the individual services like Pono. The files cost exactly the same to produce as MP3s found on iTunes, the labels have set the price well above the MP3 providers to maintain their perceived value.

There is a belief amongst the labels that consumers will eventually get tired of MP3s and they will need some extra incentive like lossless fidelity to sell on Apple and Amazon.

Also it's not $9.99 on itunes it's $14 but yea still that's a long way from $30 pono wants and $27 that hdtracks wants.

And actually it does cost more for high res because it does take more effort to get high res. Most of the time they have to go back and redo it for high res version. What's really happening though is they're just taking the dvd-audio or SACD master and making flacs out of those and releasing them.

I have a HUGE collection of high res tracks and rips from 5.1 blu rays I'm ok with paying $20 for high res versions but $30 is way to much money unless it's totally artist approved and participated in the remastering of it. And even then I'd only buy my favorite artist like Prince or Bjork.

I see the Pono digital player as the vanguard, the one that gets things moving in a certain direction. That's the thing with high-tech, some company has to get the ball rolling and then the other tech companies start jumping in. So I expect in just a couple of years or less, there will be competing digital players that can handle hi-rez audio without downconverting for $99 or less. And I expect true hi-rez audio decoding and playback will become a feature of smartphones and tablets too.

Unless I get review copies of the Blu-ray Audios I'll stick to vinyl. I'm not dropping more $$$ on Pono, hi rez, or Blu-ray Audio discs.

Vinyl can already carry a heavy premium, so I'll just chill with that.

Never heard this. Do you have a citation? "Redo" is a pretty generic term when it comes to music production.

One excuse I've heard is that high res (when delivered digitally) costs more because of the significantly higher bandwidth required for the server to host and transfer those files.

I still think it's the labels simply using a premium price for a premium product, though.

So it costs an extra $15 to download the bigger files? OooooK.

That's why I used the word "excuse."

It's an excuse used by the labels. They simply don't want to destroy the pricing model negotiated by Apple.

Redo as in they never intended for or planned any high res release. So they have to go back sometimes to tape and redo it from the master. That takes time and money beyond what a normal release so hence more money. And in the case of old ass releases I'm sure it's time consuming and far more costly than a modern release.

A lot of remasters are already done in hi-res though, and then down sampled for CD.

Yea now they are, but at one point the time and money had to be spent to redo them. Most commonly done for SACD or dvd-audio releases. If this wasn't the case every single album ever current and old would be released in high res just to milk money. But that isn't the case because for most part high res versions don't exist without additional effort and money.

I recently bumped my headphones up to the Sennheiser HD 600, and I got a balanced cable from Surf Cable that's compatible with the Pono. All I can say is WOW. The immersive nature of the Pono in balanced mode is something to behold. And this is on CD quality audio, not 24 bit stuff. I did a lot of A/B'ing of different files, samples I found online and different quality conversions I made, and I've found I can detect no difference between redbook 16/44 and 24 bit sound, or even 16/44 and DSD. Maybe I went to too many concerts without earplugs, but I think my Pono sounds amazing with 16/44 files, and in balanced mode even more so, and I save a ton of space by not using 24 bit files, so I'm set.

Having had the Pono since it came out, at this point I can say I'm very happy with the purchase. It most definitely sounds better to my ears than my iPhone, and the balanced mode takes it over the top. It's definitely an audiophile grade device.

That's because you stepped up to an audiophile pair of headphones. Welcome to the Sennheiser family. Nice isn't it.

I totallly agree though I use Senn 560 Ovation II's now after having went through the entire Senn high end lineup minus the HD 800, and I am just fine and feels like silk on the ears even with simple cd quality tracks. I use an Aune T1 with orange globe tube feeding a bottlehead crack with Tung Sol 5998 and telefunken 12au7 tubes and life can't be better than this ...

I ended up having to return the HD 600's and the balanced cables, but now as a holiday present to myself I ordered the Hifiman 400S, also with balanced cables, and a Geek Out V2 DAC that does balanced output. The Geek Out should arrive tonight, the 400S and cables next week. My goal is to always be able to listen to music in balanced mode, except in the car.

This is no surprise, but the Geek Out sounds much better than my Mac's standard headphone output, even just using the SE output on my Sony MDR-7506. Lots of detail and the different digital filters accentuate different elements of the songs. I'm really looking forward to trying this with the 400S in balanced mode and comparing it against the Pono.

Edit: Jesus fuck I'm listening to a reel-to-reel rip of Bowie's "Heroes" and it's like nothing I've ever heard. If the GOV2 is this good in single-ended mode I'm probably going to bust a nut when I get to balanced playback. So far the GO beats out the Pono for single ended mode, at least with my Sony cans. Maybe if I had a different set of SE headphones I'd favor the Pono. But right now the Sony with the GOV2 is just magic. It'll be interesting to see how things shake out with the balanced mode, because Pono in balanced mode is astonishingly revealing and detailed.

Also, it really pays to take the time to find superior masterings of albums, if they exist (some were mastered squashed from the first and every subsequent mastering reflects that). I'm listening to some tracks from an older release of Rumours and the dynamics are just remarkable. The harmonies in particular are able to really build and swell because they start from a quieter place. Once you get to CD quality, mastering will trump resolution IMO.

Now I'm listening to an '80s copy of Genesis' self-titled album (cue Patrick Bateman speech here). The current mixes are an abomination, all the texture is gone. I've literally never heard parts of these songs because of those shitty mixes.