Pono Music Portable Music Player, Black

Well, after months of deliberation I bought my own pono player right here in amazon.com. I have done my home work and have been reading and watching anything I could find on this player. I am an audiophile for the last 30 years of my life so bells and whistles were NOT my goal. I just wanted a portable music player that gave me the best possible quality in music playback without breaking the bank. The price of the Pono player is not low but I believe it is fair for what it offers: A first class high res. file player, including a great DAC and a solid headphone amp. I just wanted to have something that could drive my headphones (Etymotic ER4S for travel and Audeze LCD-XC at home or hotel listening). As I mentioned earlier my single main qualifier for a music player is audio quality and I am happy to say that the Pono DELIVERS the goods and more! As soon as I received the player I left it charging or a few hours and then anxiously sat down and listened to the only track the player came with, Neil Young's "There's a world" using my Etymotics first. The sound was really impressive compared to my Samsung S5 or my daughter's iPhone 5S (I have Neil's Harvest album in Flac). The differences are NOT subtle as many self made critics and Pseudo audio experts claim. They are actually HUGE! Of course this needs a good pair of headphones just like a good stereo needs a pair of great speakers. With the Etymotics the player sounded, smooth, extended and really musical. I missed a little extra volume but I could live with this... The real surprise and shock came when I connected my Audeze LCD XCs to the player. I had to lower the volume to a little more than half in order not to hurt my ears and the sound was...nothing less than sublime! No, it can not be compared to my big stereo and my Audeze's connected to my Shiit Lyr amp but it was so close it is scary.. Excited I decided to download some of my own FLAC files (made from my own CDs) to the player and things got really interesting: When playing really high quality recordings of music I love (eg. Daft Punk RAM, Diana Kralls' Live in Paris etc) the sound was nothing less than amazing. This time even with my Etymotics I had to lower the volume a few notches (to about 65%) in order to avoid hurting my hearing. I could really live with this combo for the rest of my life if I had to... I will not go into details about the player itself because they are covered extensively in various sites and by other reviewers at amazon. My goal here was to let you know that the pono is one heck of a little player that gives you way more than its size and cost would let you believe. A comment regarding some of the "testimonials" in the Pono Site by various celebrities. YES they are way OVER THE TOP (really, none of those celebrities ever listened to a real Hi End system in their lives?) and I guess this has disturbed many people to the point that they have come to dislike the player even without ever listening to it. Too bad about that because the player IS incredible for a portable player. My advice to everyone is: Forget the hype and the hoopla and give it a try. Amazon is great taking items back if you are not satisfied. My guess is that once you hear what this player has to offer you will be keeping it. And one Lie: When I wrote this review I mentioned I could live happily with my Etymotic ER4S....I guess I lied even to my self. After hearing the incredible sound of my Audeze LCD XCs I decided to get something better for travel and I just bought a pair of custom made ACS headphones. I was using ACS ear pieces with my Etymotics and they have my ear canal impressions plus they have a program that gives a 20% discount to customers so I bought a pair of ACS Evolve Studios. I will report my findings when I receive these headphones... Final thoughts: I actually like the toblerone shape of the player. I would have preferred a better quality screen and a bit better HMI but for 400 bucks I am happy for what I am getting: Audio Nirvana on the Go! Very Highly recommended. UPDATE July 6, 2015: I have had the Pono for close to three weeks now and in two of my business trips. It is simply great! No hitch so far WITH ONE EXCEPTION, the Battery Life. It really stinks. I get about 5-6 hrs if I use the screen a lot. A bit more if I just listen to music. Come On Pono-People come up with a battery that I can easily replace and get some more serious time between charges... And now the story behind my new ACS Custom IEMs. I have been using my Pono with my Etymotic ER-4S. The combo (Pono/ER4S) sounds great but I was still NOT all that satisfied with the bass and most of all the max volume I could attain. Also I needed a pair of new custom made ear plugs by ACS Custom. Originally I was thinking to buy the new Etymotic ER-4Pt which is more efficient and supposedly has more bass than the ERs although from what I have read they do not sound as smooth as the ER4S. Etymotic is actually including an adaptor that can turn the ER4Pt to an ER4S... Anyway, still skeptical about this I called ACS Custom in New York to order a new pair of ear plugs and Adam talked to me about their totally custom Headphones ( In Ear Monitors, IEMs). They have 3 models from $400 with ONE driver, to about $1400 with Five drivers. I opted for the mid line "Evolves" which comes with Three Drivers, one for the Highs, one for the Mids and one for the Bass with a crossover for each. I was very nervous about this purchase because I had never heard of ACS Custom IEMs before and I also bought them "sight unseen"...as they say based on Adam's recommendation. Boy am I glad I did that! To make a long story short once the IEMs were properly broken in (for me 2-3 days of heavy playing w/o much listening) and, even more important, once I learned how to put them in my ears I ended up literally BLOWN AWAY by a sound that rivals (NO EXAGGERATION) my $80,000+ system! I mean, this time I have it all. The highs are sublime, smooth and extended, the mids are life like, smooth and amazing and the bass...well, the bass is one of the deepest, most high end absolutely out of this world bass I have ever heard from a headphone set or, dare I say, speakers, period. They almost equal my Audeze LCD XC in every way and they fit in the palm of my hand... The Pono/ACS combo is seriously our of this world and brings me sound I only dreamt about before, let alone sound I can have on my trips. By the way, YES I did compare again the sound of the Pono, my Samsung S5, my Ipod Clasic, my daughter's iPhone and my lap top computer and the differences among them are now totally easy (really trivial) to tell with the Pono proving its hi-end origins with ANY file I have in it (mainly FLAC but also some MP3 320bps). Please forgive my enthusiasm and over the top mini review but I really cannot put in lesser words what I hear from this amazing combo...it is really incredible. If you are interested in having your Hi End stereo sound in your trips give the Pono a chance and also ACS a call, talk to either Adam or AJ and pay very careful attention to what they say! It will change your on the go life! Talking about Audio Nirvana on the go...I am finally there!

Ok, after weeding through most of the reviews on this product before I bought it, it was easy to determine those who purchased this that are NOT audio conscious and those who are. This file player sounds FANTASTIC!! The detail missing on compressed Mp3's, even at their highest res setting, is distinguishable. If you don't think so after buying and using this product you either have a rolled off hearing range or don't know what specific details in music exist that make it sound more detailed, and that is not a poke at anyone, it simply is fact. Those that can tell these differences usually are more musically inclined such as sound people, musicians, or just those with a trained ear. The player sounds very detailed and this observation of mine is simply from a FLAC file through my 2008 GM factory car stereo, not high bit resolution. So... that said, we now know why we bought this product in the first place, the SOUND! And I haven't even heard it at it's higher res rates!! Those happy with Mp3, you can certainly have them on lesser or more slim & smaller players, it's a free enterprise here! Is this player overkill? Certainly not! It actually is the best value for high resolution portable file playing out there. SONY is touting their high res walkman for about 3 times the cost. The next closest is the Astell & Kern. So if you wanted high quality full res file portability at the lowest possible cost, here it is! But it doesn't skimp on anything, it actually does the ONE thing and ONLY the ONE thing you bought it for, plays music!! It doesn't have e-mail, blutooth, wifi, etc. High quality sound usually needs to be hard wired to be consistent and clean. While those connectivity methods are convenient they can have their drawbacks, but it also keeps the cost down on the Pono. The thing was designed by Ayre Electronics, the manufacturer of high end audio components, so the line is usually drawn there on who the buyer market is. Those that buy high end audio gear because they can hear the difference are the ones that will appreciate this player. The casual or unaware listeners will think it is overkill just out of innocent ignorance. Now, for physicality, do I like the triangular chassis of this thing? Not in particular, but if the engineers needed it to be this way it was for a reason. That reason is the high quality digital to analog converter could not be reshaped any changed to be any smaller or flatter, so the chassis is what it is. It's not like it's a surprise. I knew what it was before I ordered it. I also scoped out where my sources were going to be and it did not include the Pono store, which is currently being rebuilt and reconfigured, so that wasn't an issue like it was for one review I read. The store is in fact independent from the product and doesn't need to exist for me at least. Again, I did my homework before whining about it after the fact. In actual fact, the only thing I actually didn't like, in fact hated, but kept the rating at 5 stars anyway because it isn't actually required to run the player, was the damn Pono Music software that manages the files and music on it. It is/was a freaking MESS!!! At least for me, but since I use drag & drop for my SONY Walkman and am not an iTunes user, I leave a learning curve factor in for myself as I may not have learned the best way to use it. But after mucking with it for more than several hours, still had to feel my way around to rip a red book CD, tag it and load it on to the player. It took WAY longer that it ever should have. I finally lost my patience when I imported an existing Mp3 folder with 3 internal folders, all sorted and in particular order, and it just spread them all over the library in random order (I think by alphabetical by song title). So this could have been my negligence or stupidity, I'm not an expert at this stuff by any means. However I do work in computers and can tell you that most applications are not that difficult to feel your way through and for higher detailed info. Anyway, the REAL clincher came the other night as was trying to delete the mess of songs that spilled all over my (up to that point) organized library. The Pono program kept locking up and after 4 restarts, says that the current version will expire at midnight on 12.31.2016. Not a clincher yet!! I was elated in the fact that perhaps I am not the only one that thinks the Pono Music app is a bit silly, if not a total mess. The clincher came when after downloading the new version, finding out that it is NOT supported on WIN XP !!! BUT is IS supported on WIN VISTA, an even older version of Windows! Of coarse WIN7, WIN8, WIN8.1 & WIN10 are all supported and you MAC users have a totally different download. SO, until I upgrade my home PC (which it actually is in dire need of), I will not be able to see the advantages of the new Pono music app!! I am going to have to just drag & drop until then so I can still use the player, which (since it is the actual star of the review here) IS the sonic champ it is touted to be and I LOVE it regardless of the other details!!! Hope this helps anyone thinking on purchasing this device! Most folks rate a product on it's entire package. Part of the engineering of this product is that it is able to run without the Pono Music store or application, so I discarded them and based the review on the player alone. It was conceived by a music artist for the original intent to play music files as high a quality as the playback system you plug it into!!! Enjoy ! !

I don't have a special headset and except the music given with the Pono, I don't have high quality music and I don't hear the super beautiful sound of Pono

I have had my Pono about a month. I wanted to take some time with it so understand what I liked and what the shortcoming were. I bought the Pono because I got really tired of Itunes for Windows which is one of the worst pieces of software written. I love my Ipods but Apple, in their infinite wisdom, decided not to make them anymore and software is so far out of date. Enjoyments: The sound from the Pono is fabulous. With a good (high quality) headset, the quality is much higher than on an Ipod. I took same pieces of music (mp3) on both devices and I can hear the difference. I took the same piece of music, but two different formats (mp3 vs FLAC) on the Pono and the FLAC is substantially of higher quality and resolution. If you are an audiophile, this is a no brainer. When routed through the car or home audio system, tremendous sound quality increase. Sound just comes alive with a good speaker system. Frustrations: I thought Itunes for windows was bad. Do not even download and use Ponomusic World. It is poorly written and fully frustrating. The people who wrote the software should be ashamed. Best, simplest and easiest way to move music to the Pono is drag and drop. If you customize or change your music files, Ponomusic World (PMW) will likely not recognize it. I tried uninstalling and reloading to no avail so I just dumped it and will not go there. Poor battery life so carry and an extra charged auxiliary battery with me when working out side and keep it plugged in in the car or home. The Ipod is a marvelous piece of software and hardware so if you are comfortable with it, you will have a learning curve because Pono is not nearly as flexible. The shape is funky but no big problems. Audible book files (aax) need to be converted since they do not play on the Pono but that is not a big issue. Several good converters available for download. Would I buy it again knowing what I know now? In a heartbeat. Going to purchase another for the home audio system. If you do not really appreciate and enjoy music, this is probably not for you however if you are an audiophile, order it now.

Let’s start w/ the strengths of the pono. It really sounds fabulous. I don’t think there is any better sounding digital music player at this price point. The sound is detailed, natural, and smooth; without being too analytical. With a good pair of headphones this thing is great. From here my experience hit some limits. I am not a big fan of the form factor. The shape isn’t as big an inconvenience as some people say, though a byproduct of the shape is a very small screen, and there are real issues with a touch screen that is that small. The player is however small enough and light enough to be really portable. My real problems were with the Music Vault Beta software (current in December 2016). Unfortunately the online data bases for classical CD metadata are a mess, and the pono software was not robust enough or flexible enough to practically manage a classical music library. The metadata imported was mostly incorrect (which is not the fault of pono), and in some cases the software was not capable of overwriting it to create playlists. Additionally, playlists would not always move from the computer to the player, or at least would not appear in the menu on the player. They did seem to be lurking somewhere in the memory of the player. I think the satisfaction of most users will depend on their musical interests & listening habits. If you listen to popular music (where the data basses are more reliable), and you mostly play albums or just shuffle a library, you will love this thing. If you want to manage your library in a more specific way, you will find lots of frustration. Hopefully the next generation of the software will be better. At this time I would rate the pono five stars for sound, but only between 1 & 4 stars for user experience, depending on how you listen to music. I can imagine enjoying the pono, but didn’t work for me.

I'm sure that the Pono isn't for everyone as the features are specifically for those who actually listen to the music. If music is just background noise to shut out the world - and that's OK - the Pono is too much work. But as an engineer and a musician, this is exactly what I was looking for. A little work is in order to get the full benefit. First off, get rid of all MP3's. Out of 1200 albums, I have about 300 that I'd downloaded from Apple or had imported from a CD using MP3 rather than loss less compression. I copied over a couple dozens clips at random to the Pono Player and was able to identify the MP3 copies within 10 seconds of playing each. The difference is that profound. That's when I realized that the iPad simple beats the hell out of all formats, so everything sounds mediocre but homogeneous. This also explains why I stopped listening to music from the iPad and iPhone. After the MP3s are gone, CD quality should be the minimum level for all material. The Ayre Digital to Analog (D to A) converter is vastly superior to anything in the standard commercial world. This is a manufacturer that deals exclusively with high end audio and it is really amazing what they've done in this little package. So even CD quality is pristine and well above what you'd get from most CD players. Next, it doesn't support blue tooth or WiFi and that is a good thing. Blue tooth is another technology that negatively impacts audio quality. And Wifi isn't much better. The USB interface works great and it's easy to add a library by just copying to Micro SD chips. In your car, get a really good 3.5 mm cable to plug into the AUX input that hopefully you have. The sound system in my Avalon finally sounds impressive! And get a good set of headphones. If you record your own material in the studio, it plays WAV files and sounds as good as any active reference monitor assuming you have decent headphones. And speaking of active monitors, the Pono supports a balanced line output configuration that allows you to connect directly to powered studio monitors. My monitors (Focal Solo 6) sound unbelievable with this unit plugged in. So this is definitely my "toy of the year"! I wanted to add some additional comments: for those who mention the power issue, I understand that can be annoying. However, I finally read the little manual that comes with the Pono (don't tell anyone) and turning off the screen does help substantially. And I bailed and bought an external power unit that can also charge my phone, iPad, etc.I know this seems like a big failure on the part of the designers, but from an engineering standpoint, I'm guessing that this is a result of not cutting corners so that quality is preserved. When you cheat to make the thing work for longer periods of time, there will be deficits elsewhere, so I'm glad they didn't go that route. The other thing that people mention is the speed at which the interface works in transferring files.Once you start adding material to Micro SD chips (versus the on board memory), you can do that directly to the memory stick and it's all a matter of the hardware at that point. Plug into a USB 3.0 compliant port and buy Micro SD chips that support the highest bandwidth. I haven't found much of a difference using different USB to Micro SD adapters aside, obviously, for the differences between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. So make sure the adapter supports 3.0. A few people have mentioned that they hate the JRiver PC application. I've found that it allows me to do everything I want to do with re-arranging my Library and is significantly better than iTunes. But it's powerful because I already know a lot about how they handle their file system. That may not be something for everyone, but for the knowledgeable, it rocks! So I'm still loving it and having loads of fun listening to music that doesn't sound damaged. Update January 14th, 2017 - The Pono folks have a beta version of an interface application to replace the JRiver software. It will probably eventually make everyone happy who wants a simpler interface. But it's a work in progress. Fortunately it doesn't cost anything. I have it installed because I'm assuming it will be a way to upgrade Pono firmware (although that's not in the current version). I bought the full JRiver software package which is a non-Pono version of the one they had supplied previously for the Pono Player. I've really gotten to like the JRiver stuff and the full version seems to be more robust than the Pono only version. And it can be installed on multiple PCs. I also added Sony MDR-Z7 headphones to my Pono set-up which comes with cables for balanced mode on the Pono. Wow! I'm not sure how it could get any better.

I really wanted to love this thing when I purchased soon after its release. Up til now I refrained from writing a review, especially given how long it's been. Just a few complaints that caused my placing it back for a return, that I remember off the top of my head (it was around Sept 2015 iirc). The moment you pick this up, you will not be impressed, as far as build quality goes. I love its shape, even the texture to the extent of its shell/surface. But it's light. Surprisingly light. I personally like a little heft. It's buttons... gah, they annoyed me to no end. The touchscreen is awful as well. Transfer speeds are ATROCIOUS. Don't expect to be transferring anything in lossless format in any reasonable amount of time. What I fail to understand is how devs and manufacturers fail to implement the schema for fast throughput concerning writing data over usb, onto one's sd storage medium. It's fairly bland, the prospect of ejecting one's card for a quick drag n' drop, when you could just as well do so over usb while you're charging it simultaneously. I've smaller devices capable of this over USB3. There was no excuse in this case other than to profit by an even wider margin by cutting costs, and banking only on its "hi-Q" audio marketing... The amp is insufficient. I just wasn't getting the power necessary to make even my mid-tier $500~ cans really breathe. Overall it was a disappointment. I wanted something that I could quickly and easily reference my mixes on, and for casually enjoying my very own tunes. I can't always be in front of the workstation at my monitors. But I may as well, given the amount of time this thing will unnecessarily waste for you. Perhaps I'm asking too much, with things such as speed, convenience, with high quality DAC and amp. I might as well go back to the inconvenience of ipods and iTunes given the amount of hassle this player provided. I would've been happy with even a measly 8gbs of internal flash storage, so long as it was quick and snappy. I'm not going to listen to Neil's entire freaking catalogue of lossless remasters. Only of my own masters. So I'm back to square one, as I've yet to find much fitting my requirements, with the same kinda personality in its form factor as the Pono. Oh well, my worthless 2 pence. You won't be disappointed if you've a dedicated library that you won't find yourself altering too often. The buttons and control may be a bit cumbersome though, but if you can look past it, then this may be for you. Good luck to you, and thanks for listening to my opinion!

UPDATE- One year later, 4/11/17. I use the PONO player daily and the battery is good as new. Oh, the quality- unbelievable. I suspected this would be the case after viewing the ‘teardown’ video on youtube. Discrete transistors and capacitors?- yes. This explains the cool hunky shape. Any cell phone can play high quality WAV or FLAC music files through its pretend sound card. YUK! You owe it to yourself to have the finest portable music player. I almost didn’t bother with the ‘balanced out’ option because the standard headphone out jack sounds so good. Well, I converted some old Sony MDR-V150 stereo ’on the ear’ headphones ($25.00) to have ’balanced out’ capability. This is where each ear cup gets a dedicated audio feed for that channel (two cables go the the PONO player’s two audio out jacks). These separate outputs are not just redirected left and right channels from the Headphone out jack stereo amp. Oh no-each output now is driven from a dedicated balanced-mode amp. These amps send the audio signal to the Tip of the headphone 3.5 mm plug while sending an opposite phase audio signal to the Ring of the plug. Thus pushing and pulling the signal current- whew! This provides a 2 vac signal for each ear speaker coil. WOW! This mode is selected in the settings option. The quality out is now easily doubled! Balanced mode fun- Convert your own headphones! 1. Locate all your headphones with a separate audio cable going to each ear cup from the main cable with stereo 3.5 mm plug (‘Y’ junction under your chin). 2. Audition these headphones and select your favorite for conversion. Stay away from extra Bass, noise cancelling or powered type headphones. You are going to tap into the speaker coil directly. 3. Follow each wire down from the ear cups. Cut them one inch from the ‘Y’ junction. Discard main cable. 4. Obtain two 6 ft. stereo cables ( or shorter) with 3.5 mm plugs at each end. 5. Cut one plug off each cable one inch down from discarded plug. 6. Strip off 3/4” insulation. Observe two insulated wires surrounded by bare woven ground wire mesh. 7. Separate ground mesh from two insulated wires on each cable. Cut off this ground wire mesh at edge of insulation. Only the two insulated wires are needed for conversion. 8. Strip off 3/4” insulation at each end of ear cup wires from step 3. Observe two wires which go to the speaker coil ( it may be one insulated with bare wire mesh acting as other wire or two enameled coil wires. 9. With an ohm meter, measure across these two wires. You should read the resistance of the speaker coil (20 ohms to 600 ohms). If t he two wires are shorted ( 0 ohms) or open (infinity) do not continue. 10. Slide 2” of heat shrink tubing over these ear cup wires. 11. Solder two wires from step 7 to two wires from step 8. Insulate these solder joints from each other with little pieces of electrical tape. Before covering with heat shrink tubing, test for short at stereo plug ends. 12. With an ohm meter, measure at tip of plug to middle section of plug. This should be the same speaker coil resistance as measured in step 9. Measure from the tip to the shoulder section of the plug by the insulation- this must NOT read ‘0’ (shorted). It should be infinity (open).Measure from middle section to shoulder section of plug- this must NOT measure ‘0’ (shorted) either. It should be infinity (open).With correct measurements, slide heat shrink tubing over soldered and taped connections. Apply heat to seal. Test and complete other cable to other ear cup in similar maner. Plug your new balanced mode headphones into powered OFF PONO player’s two 3.5 mm jacks. 13. Power ON PONO player. 14. Go to settings. Select Playback section. Select balanced mode. OK disclaimer. 15. ENJOY!