I like the trend of releasing remastered material, where there is scope for improved quality. Which isn't always, but there's an entire generation of albums that were victims of the loudness wars, and various early work by artists that hadn't access to quality mastering at the time, and so on, that can benefit. This has been happening totally independent of Pono.
I don't like the Pono music scam because it confounds that (legitimate) aspect with the snake oil about 24 bits and high sampling rates - while charging a premium. There is zero meaningful test results that back Pono's quality claims (and note how frequently their marketing adds caveats about comparing to "low-res MP3s," as if it's 1998 or something). And while there isn't a definitive formal test showing that Pono sucks, there are multiple informal tests without obvious methodological flaws which show that Pono is inferior to your regular iTunes downloads. Neil Young says he's going to give you better quality (for 2-3 times the price), and instead delivers *lower* quality (or, maybe, the same, at best). The fact that their own marketing material can't even seem to keep their story straight regarding what the high resolution is or is not supposed to provide you, seems to me to go to the point that this is all a marketing exercise in bullshitting the consumer with a bunch of ill-founded claims. For that matter, Pono's implication that one can't get improved masters via other routes is itself deceptive. I'm also somewhat bemused by Neil Young being the poster boy for this high-resolution snake oil. While I admittedly haven't listened to his entire catalogue, his whole style features low dynamic range, non-extreme spectrum, and quite high noise floors (typically easily audible at even moderate volume). Which is fine, nothing wrong with the crunchy/vintage rock sound. It just doesn't fit with the whole "we need to be able to hear stuff at 35kHz and -130dB" delusions. That said, this statement seems problematic: >Whether the higher resolution actually degrades the quality is a topic up for future debate. I mean, if you personally don't want to debate it right here and now that's fine. But nobody is obliged to set this stuff aside. It's immediately topical, and the test files for evaluating it have been provided in the xiph link. E On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 1:25 PM, Tom Duffy <tdu...@tascam.com> wrote: > So you like the bar being raised, but not the way that Neil Young has > attempted? > > Whether the higher resolution actually degrades the quality is a > topic up for future debate. > > From the ponomusic webpage: > "...and now, with the PonoPlayer, you can finally feel the master in all > its glory, in its native resolution, CD quality or higher, the way the > artist made it, exactly" > > Even they are not saying it has to be higher than CD quality, just > that it has to have been made well in the first place. > > I don't get why so many people are trying to paint this as > a snake oil pitch. > > --- > Tom. > > > On 2/10/2015 1:13 PM, Ethan Duni wrote: > I'm all for releasing stuff from improved masters. There's a trend in my > favorite genre (heavy metal) to rerelease a lot of classics in "full > dynamic range" editions lately. While I'm not sure that all of these > releases really sound much better (how much dynamic range was there in an > underground death metal recording from 1991 anyway?) I like the trend. > These are regular CD releases, no weird formats (demonstrating that such is > not required to sell the improved master releases). > > But the thing is that you often *can* hear the extra sampling frequency - > in the form of additional distortion. It sounds, if anything, *worse* than > a release with an appropriate sample rate! Trying to sell people on better > audio, and then giving them a bunch of additional intermodulation > distortion is not a justified marketing ploy, it's outright deceptive and > abusive. This is working from the assumption that your customers are > idiots, and that you should exploit that to make money, irrespective of > whether audio quality is harmed or not. The fact the Neil Young is himself > one of the suckers renders this less objectionable, but only slightly. > Anyway Pono is already a byword for "audiophile snake oil" so hopefully the > damage will mostly be limited to the bank accounts of Mr. Young and his > various financial backers in this idiocy. Sounds like the product is a real > dog in industrial design terms anyway (no hold button, awkward shape, > etc.). Good riddance... > > E > -- > dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: > subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, > dsp links > http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp > http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp > > > NOTICE: This electronic mail message and its contents, including any > attachments hereto (collectively, "this e-mail"), is hereby designated as > "confidential and proprietary." This e-mail may be viewed and used only by > the person to whom it has been sent and his/her employer solely for the > express purpose for which it has been disclosed and only in accordance with > any confidentiality or non-disclosure (or similar) agreement between TEAC > Corporation or its affiliates and said employer, and may not be disclosed > to any other person or entity. > > > > -- > dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: > subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, > dsp links > http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp > http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp > -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
