bobbymask

Hi StephenJK, thank you to let me express that I have no mean an no intention to slam the product. I am otherwise very heedful toward the process is bringing the product to the market. When I'll plug my IEM (to some extent, I´ll assure, better then standard Apple´s) and my higher impedence headphones too I will get my personal evaluation. At this very moment the only source on hand to know something about the "product I know little about" is visiting Pono´s website and YES, what I see did not let me enthusiastic. And YES once again I naively hope each projectman nails his wall a copy of NY´s lyrics I quoted, this might be a lot reassuring to me, a priori, everywhere. I understand the song title matched to discussion going on may seem a prejudice but it is just healthy skepticism open to facts. A product is claimed to be the best, I look for clues as i can´t listen to it yet. No doubt that I expect top straight thinking from the song author, I let evaluate if this could be an "issue". Other issues with Neil ? Yes have a lot but ... just his issues (better, releases): quite 20 CDs, the last the Massey Hall 1971 concert my son presented on my birthday some days ago, Chrome dreams II 2x180gr Vinyl LP among other (and yes, I knew about Kurt). I landed Computer Audiophile searching for opinions about AQ Dragonfly and Burson Audio stuff, by the way items that are not competing with players, so I discovered 40 (forty) pages about Pono and yes I created an account to express my opinion on the business project. Better arguments ? None about the product, by sure I have some about the process to market it , the only issue I can evaluate taking Pono website as the source: 1. "preorder now !" - ok, not to blame, it is marketing, what else could it be 2. no link to tech spec - point 3., 4. and 5. the alternates, here some incertitude arise. 3. requested faith in Neil Young´s vision - I highly evaluate the artist, so it is all right for me as a beginning. 4. staff description composed by honorable personalities ok, very expert persons in the business, particularly in the music industry to assure a comfortable pipeline to forthcoming file selling (correctly cared about, the IT business has shown how SW is crucial toward the HW) but at this very moment the brand owned music store has still to start and I am interested to the HW at the bottom of the homepage, no one at the top of ranks is described as strictly expert in the Hi-end audio business, ok music etc. etc., ok good stuff in / hi chances to get good stuff out, but at maximum level of details available it is asked to buy the HW trusting the project vision there are 4 (four) VPs and a CEO; ok everyone is free about his company´s corporate governance model but I personally need some more info if I am required to be a stakeholder who finances the company with a blind (ehm, deaf) purchase to be delivered by six months (let´s say I need transparency ?) 5. listeners opinion, the sounding matter to reassure to buy now (and finance the company). all right I plug in, I listen, I decide, but the stage we are at is "on advance ordering" and it will take one year to have listening sessions here oversea nor the actual buyers had them, so it is a matter of faith I am looking for a portable DAC as I am confident it will ameliorate my listening sessions by a huge percentage (even if opinions are widespread about that and about the performance of items in my short list; that done, DAC purchased, the further never-ending chain ameliorment, starting from mastering, will play its traditional role); Neil's message I understand, I share and I praise is: give master to the masses ! I fully agree. Then, in the frame of my personal budget I will do my best to make masters sound the best according to my tonal and rhythm tastes and my (declining) ears frequency response; regarding the HW I receive strong support aid counsel, to buy a Pono as the best, and yes here we are StephenJK, this is my real issue with Neil, it is an aprioristic statement that I cannot aprioristicly share, even in a market full of snakeoil sellers as this is and just because of that. 6. ​Pono as a crowdfunded business. Crowdfunding is a wonderful mean to make odd and otherwise neglected ideas to become successes; obviously when proponents have no financial capabilities but with Pono ... is the project in this given situation ? the more I think about the more it sounds quite incredible to me: unavailability of restricted funders (i.e. at least among artists providing first copies signature) lack of info about raised fund spending, but this might be allowed under US law. If my credit card is charged now, 6 months before I am delivered, this means the company has financial needs, is it all going right ? It is a normal question, normal attention paid. The fact is the crowd who funded the project (18,220 at an average 342 $ per each) just preordered the item, nothing more ... you all already knew it but seen from another continent I had to build up the story as new. I am the happiest if Neil is right, but as this business is not run exclusively on his own financial resources I am conscious a level of commitment lacks, commitment that in every entrepreneurial adventure push to a tight control over operations. Sure, there is a direct control over the Pono headphone jack output, Neil listened to it and he put through it is the best, without making infos added and not considering what else is out there, that is hardly reductive. As a support to my purchase/investing decision I need tech spec, info about the tech team, info about raised funds (coming back to point 4. if and how much VPs are paid, what is the exact Company name, where it is filed and what is the current financial position), no similar info are available at Pono website. Do I perform the same about Shure, Audioquest, ProAc,, Bryston, ClearAudio, Beyerdynamic, Gryphon and so on ? No i step into the shop and after listening (and squeezing my memory to compare with other listened stuff and with my home set) I buy. StephenJK I do not feel expressing opinions about the industry is off-topic, even more if this site hosts a thread about Neil's divorce I avoided to read. Pono´s claim "music will change you" I know it is absolutely true, it happened to me when forty years ago I stepped into the room where an high end set was playing ... and I looked for that reminiscence the years that followed, that magical imprinting sometimes I felt satisfied, sometimes not (not when catched into some not-honestly-promoted "the-song-I-quoted-title" HiFi element whose engineers had not the lyrics pinned). My best argument is: I am asked to BUY an item "I haven´t heard", that is exactly what you pointed out, then I expect my idol (musically is really so, believe me) to give me further support to make me sure I am well spending my 399 $ + freights + custom duties + taxes or, at least, I am guaranteed a return option; the website where I can buy just let me know a VPs is very capable to manage China vendors, other VPs have great scores in the music industry and I also read "...4) balanced mode provides ultra-performance for advanced users..." so the product is targeted to satisfy trained ears too, not only mp3-used masses. Except for testimonial notoriety, infos seems targeted to investors, not to customers, and so it was indeed. On faith. On behalf of other artists, a part of which are signers of the crowd-funded items sold. On behalf of listening panels that are going to be activated, and this is ok. I am old enough to bear disillusions and I do not need a caring father looking after my purchases but as I often listen to NY´s production and "Sleeps with Angels" is one among my favorites I rather prefer keep on thinking it is all right and coherent. The assertion about Pono´s supremacy reported by Computer Audiophile interviewer, if not denied or catched out of contest, is not fair. I do partage for Pono success. As already pointed out in this blog a sure benefit will be an increase in Hi-Res files available (prices drop, not so bad to follow a.s.a.p.) so well done anyway. Additional info about the Company set-up are very welcome to me.

I am an European ten-years-younger-then-Neil old time fan of his. I benefit not to be submitted to marketing pressure around the item but this long and articulated blog raised my curiosity (watching a David Letterman interview with NY and the “toblerone” on the desk near the standard mug, too). A lot of very interesting issues about how either human passions (audiophilia one among thousands, behavior schemes all the same) then businesses go on are treated in this blog, no sounding matter to add but some considerations about the reason this debate is so moving. Visiting Pono website clarifies the temperature reached by the debate … the incipit is “preorder now!”, a call to trust and faith that rises passions (… and lowers the bank balance as credit card are charged immediately, a crowdfunding further extension, delivery will be on the 1st 2015 quarter). How to build one´s trust and faith? Going to the end of the home page where the founding (here no more crowd-) issues are a leader´s quite-religious vision and a priests and deacons business experienced team dedicated to build the real world thing, all quite normal for the audiophiles’ world where gurus and ascetical vision are absolutely normal, the odd is where these lack, the new (to me) is the Schiit´s auto-ironical (but still ascetic) approach. Quite surprisingly the “specific hardware” curricula experience stop a step behind at the “VP of Product Development & Operations”, author of the book “"From Concept to Consumer – how to turn ideas into money” (17.20 $ at Amazon, rated 4.5 out of 5.0), due to his wide experience the immediate catchable is an increase in probabilities the items will be effectively delivered by the deadline. In the middle, trust and faith are built on the experience of panel listeners, rather then on figures and graphs, quite normal being the product still under development. May be is the crowdfunding approach that needs further consideration, it is a mean that generate viral marketing by itself, in the e-buzzing business era the % of true consumer´s opinions is perhaps lower then a decade ago but a consumer/investor opinion hardly can be qualified as independent since the beginning, and this is what I feel about the Geek DAC reviews I came across. But this is the way it goes, and opportunities must be catched all. So I trust Neil, it is a matter of coherence, I am a bit surprised and uncomfortable he state the Pono supremacy seemingly without going deep into competitors, but I hope his team is well developing his vision, the vision I expect truly unchanged since the twenty-first studio album “Sleeps with Angels”, it was 1994, the eleventh track, whose lyrics here follows, ought to be an ever valid warning a framed copy of which hanged in the main conference room: “Piece of crap” Tried to save the trees Bought a plastic bag The bottom fell out It was a piece of crap Saw it on the tube Bought it on the phone Now you're home alone It's a piece of crap I tried to plug in it I tried to turn it on When I got it home It was a piece of crap Got it from a friend On him you can depend I found out in the end It was a piece of crap I'm trying to save the trees I saw it on TV They cut the forest down To build a piece of crap I went back to the store They gave me four more The guy told me at the door It's a piece of crap