Neil Young's Pono

Audiophiles are our only steady PAYING customers for recordings. They are who popularized the pop music album that the Beatles took over the top creating the record industry of the 1070s-'90s. Album sales provided unprecedented income and creative freedom for recording artists.

Yeah, I try not to use the A word...because a whole lot idiocy is associated with that scene. But, labels in the 90s DID make a serious tactical error in ignoring the fans of active listening--you know, the biggest fans of MUSIC (recordings at least)...they did so for an understandable reason--it's a SMALL percentage of the sales numbers. But, the error was because THOSE listeners determine a lot about what the other 80% listen to...take any huge (meaning in sales) artist--there was an active, often rabid following prior. That's simply the way it works. 

Moving to a mono format of CD actually TECHNICALLY also made sense. It sounded better than cassette...and better than vinyl on MOST systems...AND--one thing to produce meant simplfied business logistics model on both ends of the retail/wholesale record business. But, the problem started to manifest then...the loudness wars didn't happen because of CD--they happened because of the convenience crowd DRIVING the CD market. They got a hold of CDs which WERE (in the late 80s early 90s) audiophile quality masters--not intended for cars and portable playing and (gasp) disc shuffling in multi players. They wanted louder...and as sales diminished for reasons that were expected by EVERYONE who sold high and got out in the mid 90s, the "business leaders" of the labels started trying to cater to the 80%...focus groups meet A&R dictate engineering=casual listeners win...20% are OUT. Disgusted. 'I'm going to listen to my old vinyl of Rumors again"...  

So, now the 80% didn't know what to buy. 

And then they found out how easy it was to steal music. Which started as a way you could get that cool single and not have to suffer (sic) the whole CD. Because the labels had killed singles in the early 90s with the switch to the monoformat. CD "singles" were too expensive to produce and never sold because of the asking price being nearly half the price of the whole CD. 

Anyway--the reason I object to the A word...is because I grew up NOT made of money. I had a number of friends who DID have money...and had very A word playback gear...and I owned about 50 albums to their one. Spent 50 hours to their one listening to my turntable (and later CD player)...they were more concerned with status and "check out THIS sound" than they were about sitting around and listening to a whole record of some new band. Sometimes, those groups intersect. With my system now, and depending on one's perspective, one might call me an A word...but, I wouldn't...I've spent less on this system than most people I've polled (long story) spent on their families cell bills last year. And I bought the amp/speakers a decade ago...and the system before that a decade ago...so, grand scheme of money spent/hours listened, this is CHEAP entertainment. Now, take the 2500+ CDs and DVDA and SACDs and vinyl on the wall...and add the cost of THAT up...anyway-I've always said that's you you tell a music fan from an A word. Add up how much they've spent on their playback system...and the "software cost" better be more over the life. The guys who have their McIntosh amps with NOS tubes and DACs and "magic" cables and such couldn't BUY enough music to make that. And, everyone I've known ends up with the same tiny subset of recordings and talking about how most recordings are garbage, blah, blah...so...

The CD loudness wars happened when producers and artists recording with microphones began asking mastering engineers to match the loudness of "normalized" synthesizer and sampler hits that had very little peak content. My biggest problem with the CD is the disposable package.

Pretty sure it will do 24/48 AFLAC. The maybe more important thing to note is that AAC specs to 24/96. 

That said...I've determined this is actually an Apple front. Why? To get the labels to do the masters. Once they exist (and don't sell as is) they will be made available to whomever....most are now anyway. So, follow me here--this drum is banged for a non existent player with a limited market on it's best day...high sample rate not crushed masters are done (and they are)...Apple unveil's the new iTunes Store offering all these at 24/96 AFLAC...playable on their new iWidgets at that resolution, but here's the important part--playable at higher quality on EVERY ithing now via iTunes built in ability to reformat for a given device. Otherwise--you buy the 24/96 linear and it will playback on any Apple made in the last decade natively or through CoreAudio resampling...and then when you plug in you IThing, it will scale the format it loads there based on device capability and user preference. Want them put on at 24/48 linear on a legacy iDevice? Done. Put on at 24/96 AAC? Done. 

So, now you can have the convenience of you iDevice with all the sonics of these newly done remasters. Reprint the sound science that double rate is all that's really needed anyway...

...of course at an inflated price--now you can buy albums for $17.99 on iTunes, which of course is great for Apple...not so much for the artists who see some 50% of that if they're lucky, but that's neither here nor there to anyone involved.

Someone with some amount of artistic cred gets musicians to rally behind needing "better than iTunes"...gets the labels to pay for the remastering work...if it's not being set up BY Apple (how many times is Neil gonna mention his "old friend Steve"?)...it's playing into their hand to own the market for majority of music sales AND new widgets. While most people won't buy some random hi rez music player--they'll buy the new Apple widget "just cuz"...let alone with the promise of better sound for the music like their "old friend Steve expressed the desire for before passing". They can offer some kind of upgrade path via iTunes Match (maybe) customers...

Game/set/match. 

The one wildcard still out? UMG holds arguably the most valuable retro catalog after buying EMI...they're not participating so far in the Pono remasters, save a few Motown titles likely sourced from older SACD masters...whomever lands the Beatles masters done at 192 in 2009 (but only released on CD)...will hold the winning "format war" card, IMO. Sony's "accidentally" letting go the copy protection of SACD that remained uncracked for a decade+ hints that UMG was going that way instead...that put a LITTLE hitch in that plan...we'll see if it's enough.

My only interest is as a fan of past works. Labels are dying dinosaurs. Now simply playing chess with valuable back catalogs and milking them for any value they have before Boomers die and take a huge chunk of that retail value away.

I suspect it has nothing to do with shame...I'd venture Apple is behind the push. I'd love to see the donors listed. I'm betting Warner family members and Apple show up a lot. Same way Microsoft puts money into Apple to keep designing things for them. People think they're competition for each other...but, they're not.

They don't have the power, given what they pay, to get the labels to monetize the archiving/remastering projects...Pono has promised them the ability to pay for that...and whether it does or not--once that money is spent (and it's mostly a done deal at this point), they will want to sell those masters any way they can to recoup--enter Apple with iTunes ability to encode AAC for downlevel ithings**...while keeping full resolution on whatever their NEW iThing is in say 2015.

**already there--you could store your whole library as AFLAC NOW and tell it to put AAC or mp3 or whatever on your iDevice--and the setting is per device so it already deals with the devices specific capability to put the "best sound per device".

The other downside to Pono being an oldies only market place? So, I was looking due to all the Pono talk at the Jackson Browne masters I'd managed to buy before he took them back down (likely to make them Pono exclusive) and realized I hadn't gotten "Shape of a Heart" (Album Live in the Balance)...so, I'm at the Nashville Flea Market today...$3 later, I have a pristine piece of original vinyl. Now, I'm no vinyl junkie--and this is one that I never heard the Pono remaster before he took it down--but, the vinyl sounds far better than the label CD release--and this isn't one of his 70s ones that's ever gotten the good treatment.

...so, anyway--as much as Neil goes on about vinyl...and you KNOW I'm not a big fan of vinyl, but--this is all easy to get at so little cost. In fact, the same seller had the entire JB catlog from that era. But, since I have the 24/96 of the others I wanted...I passed, because good digital is always better than old vinyl. But, if you're Neil or one of the many who have thousands of dollars in turntable/cartridge/preamp to play vinyl back well...by making it oldies only, you indirectly bring the competition of the billions of punds of vinyl records out there. Many sat unplayed on someone's shelf for decades. And since the really coveted stuff has LONG ago been remastered in high def...all these lesser known records are available for a few dollars a piece...

I spent like $25 on something like 8 or 9 records. Sure--one of the Linda Rondstadts is way too worn--but, I got a pristine copy of Nanci Griffith's Storms, which I never even HEARD in analog form--THAT CD is a shame...never has she made a better collection of songs...but the sound is SO weak on the CD. In listening to this vinyl master...and the 80s Jackson Browne stuff at 24/96...it actually does point out that SOME of the "80s cliche sound" is thin weak early AD conversion for CD. Sure, there's still cannon snare drums and the guitars are thinned with chorus added...but, they much richer than the old CDs--and by making it all a little richer--you hear the subtleties of real drums processed versus samples, like they sounded like on CD.

I'm just saying--they really should look at undoing loudness wars era stuff---making this not a moldy oldies show. I would give them $25 for a copy of 10cent Wings that in double digits...of the next one that they put on DVD-Audio at 174khz and 88.2 (tracked at 88.2)--but, mastered it to something like DR6 or 7. Transfer Clearmountain's original mixes at whatever he captured off the board...level them out as needed...would not think twice about spending the money. But, ANOTHER version of Rumours? Hotel Cali? Ok, I bought that because it was part of the catalog box, but...you know what I mean...

Looks like Pono has some competition:

FiiO X5 Music Player

The package also includes a promotion code for HDtracks. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come, and whether Apple will be forced to respond. I hope so.

We'll see, I remain hopefully optimistic, competition is a good thing when their selling better not louder, that said, my brother picked up a blue ray HD audio remaster of queen " a night at the o", it sounds like shit! Dynamics stomped hard, I looked at the cover, circa 2005 lol, figures

Here's my thing about this, I just bought a 64GB iPhone, I've got an app that I couldn't had paid much for that is a FLAC player, plus, I have an iCloud account that I can store 30GB on and stream in. I already buy from HDtracks.com, so that's the only reason I wouldn't personally go the Pono route. I like having everything in one place, and with cell phones, especially the iPhones having pretty darn good DAC's I would be concerned in investing in Pono. I guess my point is, if folks can take the money they would spend on a Pono and buy a 128GB iPhone and basically do the same thing, for near the same price (contract price of course, everyone does this anyway) I just ask myself why would they go for the Pono you know? I have nothing against it, and I admire the hell out of Neil for wanting to improve the industry, but I think he's done some good in creating attention around it, and it seems that the competition is starting to ramp up. I really hope Pono is profitable for him, because he's accomplished the greater good IMO.