My Thoughts on Pono
AsSiMiLaTeD
Posts: 11,726
There's been lots of press and discussion about this player since it was announced a couple years back, most of which lies on the 'fanboy' and 'trash-talk' ends of the spectrum by people who've never actually heard the player. I thought I'd take a stab at posting a balanced 'review', at least to the best of my ability and to the extent that a subjective opinion can be balanced.
TL;DR
The Pono is a great sounding personal audio player that'll pretty play any audio file you throw at it. There are some design flaws and annoyances that may scare a few people off, most of which are on the software side of things, but ultimately none of those are problematic enough to inhibit the enjoyment of music through this player.
My Thoughts
Note the quotes around the word 'review' in the first paragraph above, I'm not doing a full product review with tons of photos and discussion of specs as that info can be found elsewhere. Instead I'm going to talk about my experience using the player and try to provide the type of info I'd want to see prior to buying a player.
A bit of background info
This is actually the second Pono player I've owned. I got in on the pre-order and received that player a while back. Unfortunately that was not a great first impression with Pono. There were obvious QC problems on the hardware with things like bad metal casing, a really poor screen, USB connection that wasn't flush with the case, etc. The software side of things was just as bad with problems like a slow UI that always felt sluggish, touches not being recognized all the time, fast scrolling that wouldn't work half the time, and then the player just completely locking up occasionally.
The combination of all those things was enough to prevent me from really using the player much, so I never really got the chance to enjoy it. Like I said, not a great first impression...
I've been keeping up with the opinions on this player and the more I saw people bashing and hating on it the more I really wanted to give it another shot. My local Fry's Electronics got these in a few weeks ago, they only have them in yellow which I didn't like as much as the silver one I had but I liked the idea of a simple return since that was going to be the most likely outcome anyway so I picked one up.
Hardware
The first thing I noticed when I got it out of the box was that the finish (even though it was that yellow color) was much better, there were no rough edges and everything fit together nice and tight. There are a couple seams but those are there for dis-assembly of the player and they're not noticeable, the build quality is now consistent with what you'd find on any other similarly price player even if the materials (some type of soft touch material that's not metal) aren't quite as premium. I've grown to actually like the yellow color, it's obnoxious like Neil Young so it kinda works.
That 'box' I mentioned, by the way, is a nice wooden case - no it's not some rare wood harvested from a magical tree that is watered by elves but it's a nice touch and put together well (if you look closely you'll a very small magnet that they use on the sliding lid of keep it from falling off and I love small details like that). Many companies place very little emphasis on the unboxing of a product but it sets the stage and does elicit a certain pride of ownership. Apple has understood this aspect of product design for years, and honestly the Pono takes it to another level.
The small things matter, but only if you get the big things right, and unfortunately there's one key area where the Pono misses on that - the screen. To be honest, the screen on this thing is horrendous, at least compared to the other options out on the market. The touch sensitivity seems to predate even the first generation iPhone (that's EIGHT years old now by the way). The screen is tiny, has terrible color reproduction, and abysmal viewing angles. Keep in mind there is no video or photo support on this player so I didn't come in expecting a great screen, but jeezus this thing is just awful.
I suspect the choice of such a poor screen was a factor of both battery life AND cost, though
probably more of the latter. An OLED screen would have been a better choice from a power perspective since they use less power, especially on a dark interface like the Pono since the blacks are essentially an 'off' state and draw almost no power. The LCD screen they use is likely quite a bit cheaper than an OLED and given all the technology they packed inside this thing and the relatively inexpensive $400 price they have to compromise somewhere, in designing a player like this that's probably where I'd start as well.
Thankfully we're done with the screen part of the review, because I was running out of descriptives and was about to start recycling words. The rest of the device is well built, the connectors sit flush with the case and the buttons feel fine. The shape is odd and I get why some people don't like it, but having used it for a while now I've actually come to prefer it over the standard flat players. It's not bulky enough that it won't fit in my pockets (I don't wear 'skinny' jeans though), and there's a very nice 'feature' that I love - when sitting on a flat surface you can see the display and operate the player more in the way you'd use a desktop player, especially when it's sitting out in front of you. It's a small thing and I'm not sure if that was the intent of the design, but it's a great usability feature.
One note to make while we're on the hardware side of things, the player has 64GB of storage and has a MicroSD card slot. The Pono website still shows support up to 64GB cards, but 128GB cards are out now and I've tested two of those and both work fine so the player can currently hold '192GB' of music.
(continued in next post...)
TL;DR
The Pono is a great sounding personal audio player that'll pretty play any audio file you throw at it. There are some design flaws and annoyances that may scare a few people off, most of which are on the software side of things, but ultimately none of those are problematic enough to inhibit the enjoyment of music through this player.
My Thoughts
Note the quotes around the word 'review' in the first paragraph above, I'm not doing a full product review with tons of photos and discussion of specs as that info can be found elsewhere. Instead I'm going to talk about my experience using the player and try to provide the type of info I'd want to see prior to buying a player.
A bit of background info
This is actually the second Pono player I've owned. I got in on the pre-order and received that player a while back. Unfortunately that was not a great first impression with Pono. There were obvious QC problems on the hardware with things like bad metal casing, a really poor screen, USB connection that wasn't flush with the case, etc. The software side of things was just as bad with problems like a slow UI that always felt sluggish, touches not being recognized all the time, fast scrolling that wouldn't work half the time, and then the player just completely locking up occasionally.
The combination of all those things was enough to prevent me from really using the player much, so I never really got the chance to enjoy it. Like I said, not a great first impression...
I've been keeping up with the opinions on this player and the more I saw people bashing and hating on it the more I really wanted to give it another shot. My local Fry's Electronics got these in a few weeks ago, they only have them in yellow which I didn't like as much as the silver one I had but I liked the idea of a simple return since that was going to be the most likely outcome anyway so I picked one up.
Hardware
The first thing I noticed when I got it out of the box was that the finish (even though it was that yellow color) was much better, there were no rough edges and everything fit together nice and tight. There are a couple seams but those are there for dis-assembly of the player and they're not noticeable, the build quality is now consistent with what you'd find on any other similarly price player even if the materials (some type of soft touch material that's not metal) aren't quite as premium. I've grown to actually like the yellow color, it's obnoxious like Neil Young so it kinda works.
That 'box' I mentioned, by the way, is a nice wooden case - no it's not some rare wood harvested from a magical tree that is watered by elves but it's a nice touch and put together well (if you look closely you'll a very small magnet that they use on the sliding lid of keep it from falling off and I love small details like that). Many companies place very little emphasis on the unboxing of a product but it sets the stage and does elicit a certain pride of ownership. Apple has understood this aspect of product design for years, and honestly the Pono takes it to another level.
The small things matter, but only if you get the big things right, and unfortunately there's one key area where the Pono misses on that - the screen. To be honest, the screen on this thing is horrendous, at least compared to the other options out on the market. The touch sensitivity seems to predate even the first generation iPhone (that's EIGHT years old now by the way). The screen is tiny, has terrible color reproduction, and abysmal viewing angles. Keep in mind there is no video or photo support on this player so I didn't come in expecting a great screen, but jeezus this thing is just awful.
I suspect the choice of such a poor screen was a factor of both battery life AND cost, though
probably more of the latter. An OLED screen would have been a better choice from a power perspective since they use less power, especially on a dark interface like the Pono since the blacks are essentially an 'off' state and draw almost no power. The LCD screen they use is likely quite a bit cheaper than an OLED and given all the technology they packed inside this thing and the relatively inexpensive $400 price they have to compromise somewhere, in designing a player like this that's probably where I'd start as well.
Thankfully we're done with the screen part of the review, because I was running out of descriptives and was about to start recycling words. The rest of the device is well built, the connectors sit flush with the case and the buttons feel fine. The shape is odd and I get why some people don't like it, but having used it for a while now I've actually come to prefer it over the standard flat players. It's not bulky enough that it won't fit in my pockets (I don't wear 'skinny' jeans though), and there's a very nice 'feature' that I love - when sitting on a flat surface you can see the display and operate the player more in the way you'd use a desktop player, especially when it's sitting out in front of you. It's a small thing and I'm not sure if that was the intent of the design, but it's a great usability feature.
One note to make while we're on the hardware side of things, the player has 64GB of storage and has a MicroSD card slot. The Pono website still shows support up to 64GB cards, but 128GB cards are out now and I've tested two of those and both work fine so the player can currently hold '192GB' of music.
(continued in next post...)
Comments
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Software
The software side is where the lack of polish (and likely the lack of coding experience within the Pono team) starts to become evident. I'm not going to get into a full breakdown of the software, especially since this is something they can correct over time. They've already made several software updates since the version that I had originally and I assume these will continue over time. I imagine most of these guys have little experience building music player software and they're learning as they go, I'm fine with this approach.
I understand why people aren't happy about using what I'd call beta software at this point, but I'll play devil's advocate for a moment. The guys at Pono are trying to tackle A LOT of things at the same time - they're designing and building new hardware to make a player that SOUNDS good, they're trying to create and populate a store with thousands of albums and migrate people over to music with higher bitrates that (they think at least) sounds better, they're trying to build some kind of interface so that people can actually use it, and they're trying to convince millions of people who could care less about these things that it's a good idea. They've been at it a while now, but that's still an incredible amount of work and I can't imagine they've got the resources to pay hundreds of people to work on all these things simultaneously.
Each of those items has to be done at a minimum effective level so as to sell and then allow people to use the player. Once that requirement is met then you focus on the things that can't really be updated as you go alone, so in this case getting a player in people's hands that sounds great and that won't fall apart on them. Then they can get to work on the other stuff like upgrading the software and adding items to the store after the player is released. Would it be nice if all the kinks were worked out when the player was lunched? Sure, and if they had the resources of an Apple I'd probably EXPECT that, but I also know that at some point these guys need to start getting products shipped so that they can keep the lights on. Given the constraints that they are likely under I'd probably do the same thing they're doing, get these out there in the wild and then start making the software tweaks based on both problems and feedback from users on things they'd like to see.
Having said ALL that, I'll share my more notable observations on the software side:- The rotation on this thing is wonky, waaaaaaayyyy too sensitive at times, I suspect this is a poor calibration of the accelerometer and likely fixed with a software patch, the point that I made about being able to use this easily on a desktop is somewhat diminished because of the rotation issue
- There is no 'Genre' in the menu navigation (you have artist, album, song and playlist as views but no genre, this is a big deal for me and I hope this one gets added soon
- The little slider that allows you to more rapidly scroll only shows up after you start scrolling, this is likely due to screen size and not wanting to display that slider all the time but android had that problem figured out in 2011
- I'm not sure if this is software or hardware related, but the copy process is very slow on this device, I'm getting an average of 8 MB/sec which is really poor, when copying to a MicroSD card for the expansion slot I found it much faster to pull that card from the player and copy directly to it then put back in the player when done
- The player and accompanying software are a little flaky on getting the external MicroSD card recognized, I finally got mine working but I had screw around with it a bit
- The player takes quite a while to scan your music library especially when initially building a larger library, this appears to be an incremental scan though so when you get to the point where you're swapping out just a few files at a time it's not so bad
- Finally, the screen (yes again even on the software side) - there is no ability to turn the screen off manually without putting the player to sleep, when the screen does turn itself off it turns back on every time any button is pressed so even turning up the volume one notch wakes the screen back up, and there's also no way to wake the screen up by touching it so you have to actually press a physical button which means pausing the play or changing the volume in order to wake the screen up
PonoMusic World Software
A free copy of JRiver with the Pono? Yes, please! I haven't played with this much yet, but on first pass with the OS X version at least it looks like full JRiver but without the video support. I've tested it to sync to the Pono and have set up zones to different rooms and have linked the JRemote apps on our iPads to it and everything works just as it does in the full version of JRiver that I have here.
The software also has the Pono store software built in, I bought the 192 version of Beck's Sea Change and compared it with the HDTracks version and they sound identical to me, which is what I expected. I know there are supposed to be exclusive masters eventually, but I'm not really diving much into the Pono Store just yet because I already have a very large Hi Rez collection.
(continued in next post...)Post edited by AsSiMiLaTeD on -
Sound
The Pono sounds fantastic, it has a very analog and organic sound and is a joy to listen to for hours at a time. I know those words get thrown around a lot in our hobby, but this player just has a very musical quality to it that seems to be very rare especially in the world of portable players.
I have a couple setups I've compared this against, an AK120II DAP and a Theorem 720 DAC/Amp being fed by an iPod, both playing lossless files.
This player doesn't have the ultimate resolving power and that last 1% of micro detail as either of those players but it's smoother treble is very nice. I think it also lacks just a tad of of the bass impact that each of my other players have, but again we're walking a very small amount and this certainly not bass-shy.
The Pono isn't as powerful as the Theorem, the 720 will drive virtually any headphone on the planet while the Pono will scale up to the Sennheiser HD600 and the less demanding planar headphones but won't drive the most difficult headphones on the market.
So the Pono isn't the most detailed or powerful player out there, but IMO it strikes the perfect balance between musicality and detail retrieval. I find many of the Wolfson based products to be a bit too laid back for my taste and a lot of the mobile ESS products to be a bit too bright (although admittedly I'm extra sensitive to brighter sounding gear). For me at least, the Pono gets the balance just right, I cannot stress enough how much I like the overall sound character of this player.
Upgrades I'd like to see in the next model
I'd like to see them offer a 'premium' player with a better screen and a nicer case with higher end materials. I'd also like to see support for either two MicroSD cards or a full size SD card to give the player more capacity.
A few random thoughts
I'm not a big fan of Neil Young and I do feel like he over-sold what this player can do. Exposing the masses to better music is a great idea and good on him for caring enough and putting his reputation on the line to make this happen. Ultimately though the Pono Store isn't really much of an upgrade over HD Tracks (not yet anyway) and still suffers from the same issues with the highly variable quality of the 'high resolution' music that it sells, I see many of the same brick-walled 'HD' albums on the Pono store that I see on HD Tracks. I was hoping that Pono would be a store that I could trust to blindly buy high resolution albums from and am somewhat disappointed that's not the case. That being said, they DO at least have a comments section where people can review the albums, so that's an advantage over some of the other stores.
Here's a somewhat random thought, people reviewing and discussing products that they've never tried is stupid. I watched a 15 minute video of three guys sitting around talking about how this player can't deliver on it's promises and did not recommend it, and turns out they've not even heard it. Not only is that absurd, it also invalidates anything else those morons have to say, ridiculous.
The 'blind' tests where they have people listen to multiple players and pick which one they prefer are worthless, the same people that think the iPhone sounds better are the folks who don't know any better and also think dynamically compressed music sounds better because it's louder. Having random people do these tests is like asking someone who has eaten nothing but Big Macs and Whoppers their whole life to evaluate the differences between a fine steak at Mortons and at Del Frisco.
The differences that I heard between the players are subtle, and it takes a trained ear to be able to spot those. Those differences, even though subtle initially in direct comparison, become cumulative and start to matter more over the long haul and after spending hours with the Pono I really started to hear the advantages of even those small differences.
So there you have it, that all ended up being longer than the review I sat down to write, but I've been writing this over the course of a couple days as I've been listening to the player. -
Holy crap that ended up being longer than anticipated, there are probably a million typos in there!
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Am I the only one with one of these, or did the forum write off the player and I missed it somewhere along the way?
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Nope, still here in TX, headed up there next week to look at a couple prospects
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Thanks, nice review. Pono curious.
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When I looked at the Pono store I noticed they offered the ability to buy individual tracks, versus HD Tracks where you need to buy the entire CD. Since manny albums are only good for a few songs, being able to buy individual tracks is a good thing.Lumin X1 file player, Westminster Labs interconnect cable
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Three 20 amp circuits. -
Thanks for the review. I was initially interested in it, but my iPhone 6 Plus has enough storage for me and when paired with MediaMonkey to sync (so I can set the bitrate when converting my FLAC manually) I lost the need for such a player.
The DAC in the iPhone is lacking of course, but I'm looking to add a JDS Labs C5D to allow me to bypass that issue in the future."....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963) -
A bit loooong but a nice review! I stumbled across Neil's PONO a number of years ago when he was promoting the idea and posted a thread or two here to ask what people thought about the "project'.
Personally, I'm NOT a detractor of Neil, nor am I a diehard fan!
So it's nice to have a good review as I am also someone who has not yet heard the device in action. And at $400, that's not a bad price point for a Hi Res. portable.
I also agree that those tests where we ask ipod users to judge the sound "quality" of Hi-Res files through a PONO are ludicrous. I mean, listen to your typical LOW END loaded 12 subwoofer auto system. So much BASS you can hardly hear anything else. In fact the BASS arrives before any other sounds! You can hear it in your home office which is on the second floor at the back of the house and 80 ft. from the street in front? lol
Definitely worth a look, worth a listen!
Thanks!Currently orbiting Bowie's Blackstar.!
Polk Lsi-7s, Def Tech 8" sub, HK 3490, HK HD 990 (CDP/DAC), AKG Q701s
[sig. changed on a monthly basis as I rotate in and out of my stash] -
I don't typically use my phone for music playback, it's nice that I always have it on me and have used it a few times in a pinch to play music but is just not something I use often. The phone is convenient, but there's something about having a dedicated audio player that appeals to me.EndersShadow wrote: »Thanks for the review. I was initially interested in it, but my iPhone 6 Plus has enough storage for me and when paired with MediaMonkey to sync (so I can set the bitrate when converting my FLAC manually) I lost the need for such a player.
The DAC in the iPhone is lacking of course, but I'm looking to add a JDS Labs C5D to allow me to bypass that issue in the future.
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Great review, thanks. My interest will prolly stay vicarious. I have enjoyed a few of Neil's Pono remasters in flac, though. They sound very good to me.
Craigb]Beach Audio[/b]: Rega RP6 (mods) - AT33PTG/II - Parks Budgie SUT - PSAudio NPC * Eversolo DMP-A6 * Topping D90iii * Joule-Electra LA-100 mkIII * Pass Aleph 30 * MIT S3 * Polk SRS 2.3tl (mods) * PSAudio PPP3
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Town Porch: WiiM Pro Plus * Sunfire Sig II * Canare 4S11 * Magnepan 1.6 * Dectet -
I just played with the second output which can be used as either a fixed line out or to drive a second pair of headphones. I was testing the line out functionality and it works great, this isn't going to replace a high end full size DAC but it'll do nicely in a pinch.
I also discovered that the player itself (or at least the guts of it) are made by Ayre. I've seen the name but have never heard their gear, this makes me want to try their higher end gear though. -
AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »It's nice that I always have it on me and have used it a few times in a pinch to play music but is just not something I use often. The phone is convenient, but there's something about having a dedicated audio player that appeals to me.
I can understand that. But like anything audiophilesce we are a small demographic. I am in the normal one in this instance, however I can see the elegance of a all in one stop for music. I'd go with something like that over a iPod thats for sure.
"....not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking (1963) -
AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »Am I the only one with one of these, or did the forum write off the player and I missed it somewhere along the way?
I was going to get one but, had a few to many beers(bluefox moment)
and ended up with the AK120II and a Hugo DAC instead 
.....but she's awesome
Hope to see you at LSAF Danny
Happy house hunting bro
2-channel: Modwright KWI-200 Integrated, Dynaudio C1-II Signatures
Desktop rig: LSi7, Polk 110sub, Dayens Ampino amp, W4S DAC/pre, Sonos, JRiver
Gear on standby: Melody 101 tube pre, Unison Research Simply Italy Integrated
Gone to new homes: (Matt Polk's)Threshold Stasis SA12e monoblocks, Pass XA30.5 amp, Usher MD2 speakers, Dynaudio C4 platinum speakers, Modwright LS100 (voltz), Simaudio 780D DAC
erat interfectorem cesar et **** dictatorem dicere a -
Thanks for the very detailed review, assimilated. I have not yet heard the Pono myself but that is one of the better reviews I have read in a long time on any site.
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Does it play vinyl?
Good music, a good source, and good power can make SDA's sing. Tubes make them dance. -
Nice and honest review. I was tempted between that and the Geek Wave. The Geek version does DSD and you could upgrade the amp as well as add femto clocks. Since both are first run, I was really on the fence..........
In the end I wound up not getting either one and just playing stuff at work on the Geek out usb dac/amp combo hooked to my work desktop. I have the 1000 version.Klipsch The Nines, Audioquest Thunderbird Interconnect, Innuos Zen MK3 W4S recovery, Revolution Audio Labs USB & Ethernet, Border Patrol SE-I, Audioquest Niagara 5000 & Thunder, Cullen Crossover II PC's. -
Quick question. Would Neil have sold more if he'd called it the PORNO?Currently orbiting Bowie's Blackstar.!
Polk Lsi-7s, Def Tech 8" sub, HK 3490, HK HD 990 (CDP/DAC), AKG Q701s
[sig. changed on a monthly basis as I rotate in and out of my stash] -
So I've been using this pretty consistently over the last month and I would say my impressions have not changed much. After about 50 hours of break in the sound didn't change much so no huge change there since my original post. After comparing this more with the Theorem (since nobody here seems to want that player) and the AK240 my conclusions are the same and the Pono is still my favorite of the bunch. I do wish both the Pono and AK240 had the beefier amp of the Theorem but I still prefer the sound signature of the Pono the most.
All my gripes with the player are still valid, but most of them haven't been an issue in actually using the player. The screen still sucks, for example, but not to the extent that it degrades the experience. However, two gripes are still a BIG deal for me and have yet to be resolved, so I'll copy those again below:- There is no 'Genre' in the menu navigation (you have artist, album, song and playlist as views but no genre, this is a big deal for me and I hope this one gets added soon - UPDATE this is still stupid, not being able to view by genre is completely absurd and I've been very vocal with Pono about this
- Finally, the screen (yes again even on the software side) - there is no ability to turn the screen off manually without putting the player to sleep, when the screen does turn itself off it turns back on every time any button is pressed so even turning up the volume one notch wakes the screen back up, and there's also no way to wake the screen up by touching it so you have to actually press a physical button which means pausing the play or changing the volume in order to wake the screen up
