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Interesting PONO Article

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Those folks might not be the target market, but it's pretty much why I felt it wasn't all that viable as a business venture.

Really, it's like LPs, some folks love it, some will buy it because it's cool and trendy, but most folks, present company excluded, won't hear or care about the difference.

320 kps mp3s sounded just fine to me n the car today, and a lot of folks out there today would perhaps find that overkill...
 
So his high quality test involved some $2 interconnects (judging from the pics) a $4 switch box, some cheap earbuds & some non-audiophile grade headphones.

Huh. Wonder why he didn't get better results?:scratch2:

All I know is that mine sounds great on the home system.
 
I was just reading through comments and noted the Rat Shack box and lower quality headphones.

I use my iPod Classic with C&C portable headphone amp and either Shure E5 or UE 900S IEM's. I'd like to do my own A/B test.

So you like your Pono? Am I reading correctly it has 16 GB on board and slot to add 16 GB more?
 
shacky said:
I was just reading through comments and noted the Rat Shack box and lower quality headphones.

I use my iPod Classic with C&C portable headphone amp and either Shure E5 or UE 900S IEM's. I'd like to do my own A/B test.

So you like your Pono? Am I reading correctly it has 16 GB on board and slot to add 16 GB more?
Click to expand...

No - 64gb w/another 64gb included. You could expand to more, but those micro SD cards are surprisingly (to me) expensive.
I love mine.
Someone mentioned their mp3s sounding fine in the car. I'm sure they do.
On the other hand, it's also an environment with 60dB of noise.
I've only used the Pono in the car for one long trip & it sounded fantastic. Better than the CD player. I imagine that's because I was hearing music through the Pono's DAC, rather than the comparatively crappy one you would find in a car CD player or other portable player.
 
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for most of us who are not superhuman golden ears there is no better music player than an iphone. pretty amazing to a few cognescenti, disappointing and hard to accept to pseudo-audiophiles, but true none the less.
 
His opinion is his, fair enough. His method was OK. I can even overlook the crappy switch & cabling. His headphone choice and lack of a head phone amp made his conclusions pointless. Essentially he evaluated a 45rpm, 1/2 speed master, 180g copy of Black Orpheous on a Crosley record player. What's the point in testing any format and player with equipment not able to reveal the differences in the first place?
 
Naptown Rob said:
cheap earbuds & some non-audiophile grade headphones.
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you realize you have just described the average listener? until they can make a product that is for normal people these products will just a be part of a failing fringe market that is always on the virge of going out of business. the ipod doesnt have to compete with the pono because most people just dont care.
 
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Really? The dateline is 1/29/15???

I know we've beaten this horse quite a bit before, but this was the first shootout I've seen.

Like I posted above, no surprises here for me.
 
'Most' people don't care, true enough. Therefore 'most' people wouldn't be interested in the Pono enough to even read the article either. Unless, ...
unless they were interested in something better. Again the author did those people a disservice.
 
botrytis said:
This was discussed before
Click to expand...

are you like a forum cop or something. 90% of what i see come up, if you just spend 30 seconds searching for, is something we've already discussed.

how many times have we seen these threads -

  • "which speaker wire should i use"
  • "what interconnect is best"
  • "i have $100 help me pick a dac"
  • "how do i align my phono cartridge"
  • "hey my volume knob makes noise when i turn it"

you've got a long road ahead if you if you have decided to take it upon yourself to point out when we've already discussed a topic.
 
botrytis said:
Why do we have to have 20 threads on the same topic? It seems that if people would spend 3 minutes of searching, they would get all the information they need. Serious.

If you look at most of the threads, on this forum, most are rehashes of the same topics over and over. (hint 2 amps - 1 set of speakers; multiple speakers - one amp; etc.)

Jes saying - there is LOTS of information on this forum if people would use it like that.
Click to expand...

i dont disagree, but how else are we ever to get our post counts up and prove to everyone that we are staples of the audiokarma community?
 
elcoholic said:
'Most' people don't care, true enough. Therefore 'most' people wouldn't be interested in the Pono enough to even read the article either. Unless, ...
unless they were interested in something better. Again the author did those people a disservice.
Click to expand...

Not really. Those folks truly serious about it will recognize the same flaws numbered here and know that the sample there isn't representative of their level of interest.

And for "most" people; he probably did them a GREAT service...:yes:
 
Andyman said:
Not really. Those folks truly serious about it will recognize the same flaws numbered here and know that the sample there isn't representative of their level of interest.

And for "most" people; he probably did them a GREAT service...:yes:
Click to expand...

I see your point, but I was thinking of those on the verge of discovery of better SQ. Say like back in the day when everybody had a hi-fi and only a few had ever heard stereo.
 
True, but the entire mobile scenario has always bothered me. I'm fine with TOTL stuff in listening rooms, but apply a much lower standard to portable music because of the hostile environs it's used in.

The ambient noises in most commuting situations are horrible, and distracts from the fidelity of the sound by addition. Using noise cancelling headphones while commuting might help, but could be dangerous by isolating one from warnings of danger, ie traffic noises.

I dunno. I'm just happy to have "good" sound when I'm on the go, and 320 mp3s vs. headphone output flac files sound pretty much the same to me in my car.
 
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