As promised earlier this week, Neil Young has launched his first Pono music player through the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. In a video featuring fans like Jack White, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Mumford & Sons and Arcade Fire, Young stakes the case for his high-fidelity alternative to the iPod, promising that it helps convey “the feeling, spirit, and emotion that the artists put in their original studio recordings”.
Within hours, Young had received more than $500,000 (£300,000) in pledges from curious musos. Most of these are essentially purchases of the first edition PonoPlayer: a prism-shaped device that specialises in premium-quality FLAC music files. Though the standard 128GB PonoPlayer costs $300 (£180) via Kickstarter, Young is also selling a $400 (£240) “artist signature series”, which include laser-engraved signatures and music picks from artists like Beck, Patti Smith and the Foo Fighters.
Allow content provided by a third party?
This article includes content hosted on kickstarter.com. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as the provider may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'.
“Pono is about the music, it’s about the people who make the music, and the way it sounds to us when we’re in the studio making it,” Young explains in the Pono trailer. “It’s about you hearing what we hear, and that hasn’t happened in a long time.”
In addition to the Pono devices, Young and his partners plan to sell digital music files through the PonoMusic.com store. The best of these files will contain “about 30 times more [sound] data” than the average MP3. Although all Pono material will have a minimum of CD quality, “depending on the ... available master recordings”, certain music will have an “ultra-high resolution” of 9216 kbps.
Pono claim to be “supported by all major labels” and are “working with independent labels across all genres”. While they have yet to announce a launch-date for their online store, Pono Players are expected to begin production in late summer 2014.