Neil Young, the great man himself, paid a visit to the hi-res exhibits at CES to herald the arrival of his righteous hi-res music file player, Pono. Among the announcements: Pono is now available at something like 80 retail outlets, as well as in 35 Fry's Electronics locations. Among the stores selling Pono are In Living Stereo in NYC, Audio Consultants in Chicago, The Audio Salon in LA, Audio Element in Pasadena, Audio Vision SF, Music Lovers in Berkeley, Definitive Audio in Washington State, Amoeba in SF and LA. Canada won't get Pono until the middle of 2015, but every retail outlet in the US is supposedly stocked.
Since this was a press event, and more than a few press members present had nary a clue about Pono, a lot of the information that was shared has already been said. But one of the big revelations for audiophiles came afterwards, when, in conversation with Pono's Executive Vice President of Technology, Pedram Abrari, I learned that Pono is planning a player upgrade that will make DSD file playback possible. The upgrade is now in the testing stage. Charlie Hansen of Ayre, who designed the DAC and analog circuitry in the Pono player, may not be a fan of DSD, but the player's chip is capable of DSD playback, and will do so in the future. There are no current plans for 352.8/24 (DXD) and 384/24 file playback, but DSD is coming.
In addition, Ralph Santana, chief marketing officer of Harman, announced a plan to bring Pono to the automotive experience. One of the places at CES where people can take a listen to Pono is at the Harman booth at Las Vegas' Hard Rock Café.
One of the features that, from my perspective makes Pono stand out from many other Digital Audio Players (DAPs) is that it has two outputs than can be run four different ways: headphone-level, line-level, dual headphone-level, and balanced line-level. In other words, you do not have to listen to Pono solo. You can share the experience, either with one other person via two sets of headphones, or with far more than one by plugging the player into your existing sound system. And you can also use the player in professional set-ups.
The Pono store already has 2 million tracks available from the big 3 labels, and is now ingesting material from the independents. You can, of course, download music from other sources (eg, HDTracks), but when you play back a file sourced from the Pono store, a little blue light will indicate that it not only comes from the store, but that its provenance is assured by Neil Young and crew. That means that if they say it's 24/192, it's not a 24/96 file that has been upsampled, but rather a true 24/192 file, either identical to a 24/192 master, or converted directly from analog to 24/192.
Note as well that Young has stretched the definition of high-resolution to include Red Book files recorded at 16/44.1, and sold as such.
Young was as direct and real as can be. Much of what he said he has said before. If there was any disappointment, it was that he still thinks of audiophiles and music listeners as men, and reminds them that it's their wives that call the shots on appearances. After Young's talk, both yours truly and recording engineer Leslie Ann Jones, a major player in both The Recording Academy and Skywalker Sound, reminded Abrari that not all audiophiles are either heterosexual or male—some are neither—and that many men care as much about appearances as some women.
Nonetheless, the way Neil Young ended his talk was most convincing.
"We are very sensitive human beings," he said, "and we have been deprived... I'm concerned with presenting and preserving the art. What matters, in the end, is if you can hear it. Can your soul recognize it? Can you feel it? Or do you not care, and just use music as wallpaper? If people love music, they'll hear the difference hi-resolution makes, and they'll talk to other people. That's the way that we'll educate people, and Pono and hi-res music will grow."
