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Neil Young on Pono at CES 2015


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Neil Young on Pono at CES 2015

 

At this CES2015 in Las Vegas HD Tracks is hosting Mytek in the Hi-Res Audio Marketplace zone organized by CEA at the Bellini Ballroom on GND floor of Venetian. Today, in addition to a couple of hi-res panels there was a press conference with Neil Young. Neil spoke about Pono. I shot a raw video that should allow you to hear what Neil had to say:

 

YouTube

 

Happy watching. Michal at Mytek New York

 

see also:

 

CES 2015: Neil Young Thinks His PonoPlayer 'Sounds Like God' : T-Lounge : Tech Times

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More from Pono Music CEO Neil Young. Sounds like they won't be making the Pono Player hardware too much longer....

https://gigaom.com/2015/01/08/neil-young-pono-wont-be-a-hardware-company-for-long-video-interview/

 

Waaat? That can't be right. They raised all that money and just started production. Maybe he means they are looking for a different vendor to build the player. I wonder the odds of getting it US-sourced?

Roon ROCK (Roon 1.7; NUC7i3) > Ayre QB-9 Twenty > Ayre AX-5 Twenty > Thiel CS2.4SE (crossovers rebuilt with Clarity CSA and Multicap RTX caps, Mills MRA-12 resistors; ERSE and Jantzen coils; Cardas binding posts and hookup wire); Cardas and OEM power cables, interconnects, and speaker cables

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"If Picasso could only paint in black and white and a little sepia tone and you had to look at it through a screen door, that's kind of what I felt like when I heard an MP3 of one of my songs" Go Neil

 

Picasso's most famous and arguably greatest and most moving and powerful painting, Guernica, is in black and white.

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Waaat? That can't be right. They raised all that money and just started production. Maybe he means they are looking for a different vendor to build the player. I wonder the odds of getting it US-sourced?

But what he's saying is that their business model doesn't require that they make hardware. But they do need people to have high quality hardware for their music initiative to make sense.

2013 MacBook Pro Retina -> {Pure Music | Audirvana} -> {Dragonfly Red v.1} -> AKG K-702 or Sennheiser HD650 headphones.

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But what he's saying is that their business model doesn't require that they make hardware. But they do need people to have high quality hardware for their music initiative to make sense.

 

It sounds like what he would really like to do is have other companies make players that they would pay Pono $ to get a Pono certified logo.

 

Certainly an easier way to make money than to make and sell the players themselves. We will see if there is a clamor by the player and DAC makers for a Pono logo.

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Picasso's most famous and arguably greatest and most moving and powerful painting, Guernica, is in black and white.

 

Thank you for your opinion. So you're saying, as Neil indicated, that Pablo Picasso, the last of the great masters who showed more versatility and range than almost any artist of all time--should have only ever painted that way based on the opinion of some regarding this one piece?

 

Did you look at it through a "screen door" too or did you just want to forget that part to be a contrarian?

 

I'm entirely unimpressed and unmoved by your lack of logic here.

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The only Picasso painting I was really impressed by!

Pono's cult of personality does not give me hope for progress in hi-res.

 

What I'm reading underscores my own experience: the player and the masterings sound outstanding.

 

What erodes hope are cheap shot cliches such as "cult of personality" and folks chiming in with no experience apropos what they condemn.

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The better analogy would be looking at a 6" wide textbook copy of Guernica.

 

The actual painting is massively powerful, and probably 20-25" wide, with brushstroke textures, shades of grey, and you can feel the emotion

Aurender N10--> DCS Bartok w Rossini Clock—>Audio Research REF6 Pre --> Vandersteen M5HPA—>Vandersteen Quatro CT Speakers; AMG Giro Turntable w Lyra Delos Cartridge —> Audio Research Ref 3 PhonoPre

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Waaat? That can't be right. They raised all that money and just started production. Maybe he means they are looking for a different vendor to build the player. I wonder the odds of getting it US-sourced?

 

Getting Pono out of being a hardware company wouldn't even necessarily entail Ayre no longer being involved. It would just be moving the hardware manufacturing, shipping, etc. (capital-intensive, huge worldwide customs and tax hassles, no thank you) out from under the Pono corporate umbrella. Pono could then concentrate on shipping electrons (music downloads) rather than molecules (physical players).

 

It's not the route Apple took, of course, but then I don't think Pono's going to be Apple.

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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Thank you for your opinion. So you're saying, as Neil indicated, that Pablo Picasso, the last of the great masters who showed more versatility and range than almost any artist of all time--should have only ever painted that way based on the opinion of some regarding this one piece?

 

Did you look at it through a "screen door" too or did you just want to forget that part to be a contrarian?

 

I'm entirely unimpressed and unmoved by your lack of logic here.

 

No if you read what I wrote you'll see I didn't say that at all. My point was simply that Picasso working without colour was a poorly chosen analogy for low resolution reproduction. See blaven's response for a better analogy.

 

My suggestion of an analogy for Piicasso painting without colour would be Neil Young performing unplugged, which wouldn't necessarily be worse, just different.

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Getting Pono out of being a hardware company wouldn't even necessarily entail Ayre no longer being involved. It would just be moving the hardware manufacturing, shipping, etc. (capital-intensive, huge worldwide customs and tax hassles, no thank you) out from under the Pono corporate umbrella. Pono could then concentrate on shipping electrons (music downloads) rather than molecules (physical players).

 

It's not the route Apple took, of course, but then I don't think Pono's going to be Apple.

 

It would be very much like Dolby, DTS and THX (among others).

 

Pono would become a licensing company. Offering their logo and certification for an up-front payment plus $ per unit made. Much easier than making, marketing and selling the hardware.

 

I can see why that role sounds very attractive.

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The better analogy would be looking at a 6" wide textbook copy of Guernica.

 

The actual painting is massively powerful, and probably 20-25" wide, with brushstroke textures, shades of grey, and you can feel the emotion

 

It is indeed, as I had a chance to visit it several times when it resided in NYC. Certainly a typo on your part or auto correct, but for those who might not have seen it, it is eleven feet high by 25 feet wide. I had seen it many times in books prior to seeing in person, in person it is utterly majestic.

Silver Circle Audio | Roon | Devialet | Synology | Vivid Audio | Stillpoint Aperture | Auralic | DH Labs

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Damn iPhone keyboard. Yes, feet not inches. It is huge and powerful.

 

I saw it in Madrid.

Aurender N10--> DCS Bartok w Rossini Clock—>Audio Research REF6 Pre --> Vandersteen M5HPA—>Vandersteen Quatro CT Speakers; AMG Giro Turntable w Lyra Delos Cartridge —> Audio Research Ref 3 PhonoPre

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