Pono Music Player

[Alabama Woody]

Mine is stuck in California ....

[arewhyehen]

Pono number 2 is here.....hell yeah.

[Alabama Woody]

very nice !!!

[cwja]

Looking good. What are your first impressions? Still a few weeks away from getting to check mine out.

[arewhyehen]

Looking good. What are your first impressions? Still a few weeks away from getting to check mine out.

I only had a chance to listen to a few songs on some alright headphones. My good pair of headphones should be in soon and I'll load it with more music to get a good feel. Right off the bat I could hear a difference. It really is like they explain..it's almost like surround sound and the music is all around you. I can't wait for my girlfriend to get hers for Christmas so we can finally hook it up to a stereo.

[arewhyehen]

I am listening to my Pono right now. I've got the Harvest album on that came with the player. This thing is incredible.

I had a really stressful day at work and came home in a pretty bad mood. I swear I'm going to die at a young age from stress from my job. Anyways, I plugged in my headphones and cranked this thing up and it just calmed me right down. I mean, music normally does this to me, but it's usually only vinyl or a live concert that makes me feel this good.

The first thing that hit me was the dimension to the sound. Similar to surround sound or something. I'm listening on a pair of decent headphones (over ear) and it sounds like different instruments are coming from different parts of the room. You can also hear a lot of notes ring out that you don't normally hear on an MP3. Also some notes that I don't remember hearing before. The sound is so crisp and just..wow. Haha. I can't wait until after Christmas when I no longer need to hide these from my girlfriend so I can hook it up to our stereo and really test it out.

For those of you waiting to get yours...it's well worth the wait.

[cwja]

Finally got home and had a few minutes to check this out. First impressions are very good. The sound is out of this world. First thing I listened to was W.M.A. and I heard things I've never noticed before. Jeff's bass is so crisp and alive. Listened to a few more songs and so far it's definitely a big . Still need to do some side by side comparison of different file qualities and I have one design complaint, limited to the signature editions, but overall I'm definitely a fan.

[Alabama Woody]

I bought Neil's new album from his website of the high resolution FLAC. Highest resolution available, supposed to be way better than CD quality. I am completely floored by the sound ! It's like having a little Neil young man inside your head singing, it's hard to describe. His new album is 10 acoustic songs then ten more of the same songs with an orchestra.
Between the PONO and some very nice Shure in ear headphones it is awesome.
His PONO website app has the software for ripping your CD's into FLAC files and it picks up all your tunes on your hard drive. The software also detects any speaker systems you may have connected to a router or wifi. Such as wifi/router speakers like my SONOS, picks up all the computers of course, picks up the smart TV's and Apple TV boxes. So you can sit at your laptop and choose what and where you listen to music. Nice all in one software for your music needs.
I love it !

[arewhyehen]

Good to see others have the same good impressions like I did. It's tough to describe how good it sounds, but us three who got one, understand. Haha. I FINALLY have my girlfriend hers for Christmas. Not only did it take me about 3 months to track down about 90% of my music collection on FLAC, but also to tag the files and add album artwork. I also had to keep this a secret for 8 months until I was able to give it to her for Christmas. She loved it... Now I can finally use mine around her..

Chris, what is your design complaint? I don't like that SD card door. It's going to get busted off real quick.

[cwja]

I don't like that, in order to display the signature side, you have to place the unit face down. You're probably right about that door. Those cards are way smaller than I thought. Going to be real easy to lose those.

[arewhyehen]

I don't like that, in order to display the signature side, you have to place the unit face down. You're probably right about that door. Those cards are way smaller than I thought. Going to be real easy to lose those.

Yeah that's true. I think I'm going to keep mine on display and just pick up a second generation one this year. Just a regular black one....or a white stripes one if Jack was being serious on vault chat.

[Alabama Woody]

Those cards are tiny for sure. Amazing you can get a 128gb in that small a card.
I have the yellow one. Hoping for a TMR, JW, Or WS version on down the road.

[arewhyehen]

Those cards are tiny for sure. Amazing you can get a 128gb in that small a card.

If anyone sees a good deal on those 128gb micro sd card, let me know. Right know Besy Buy USA has it on for $99. That is the best I've seen it so far. Not really a good deal for me with exchange. Best I've seen it in Canada is $119 on NCIX.

LINKS:

Best Buy (USA)
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/sandisk-ult ... Id=4471009

NCIX (Canada)
http://m.ncix.com/products/sku/101637/1301

[arewhyehen]

I have the yellow one. Hoping for a TMR, JW, Or WS version on down the road.

I am glad now that they didn't come out with a Jack White related one off the get go. I would have been broke and to buy that many without testing is risky. I would for sure buy another now that I have them. I've been thinking about tracking down Buffalo Springfield and CSNY so I have all the Neil Young versions. Haha. Probably not a wise investment...

[Alabama Woody]

I haven't looked for any cards yet. I figured they were expensive. I'll let you know if I find a deal on one here in the states. I'm going to buy some cables next so I can hook it up to my preamp. Both my preamps have balanced 2 channel audio connections, should sound great !