Many people prefer iPhone over HiRes!

I think specifically the music was AAC encoded from the apple store, and standard res for PONO, not Hi Def.

And the sample was 14 and the guy doing it appears to be a total douche.

That all being said, I agree entirely. To my mind when out and about the quality of the ear/head phone is surely the primary consideration. The pono player looks very over priced and a stupid shape (apparently to fit the audio quality components inside, would be interest to know what exactly)

The test appears again to be one of those many flawed tests.

This is the first (part of the) response by Mark Waldrep on this 'test'.

Have you seen the latest videos and article to cast serious doubt on Neil Young and Pono initiative? I finally got around to viewing the David Pogue iPhone vs. Pono challenge. It’s pretty disappointing…and not because the results fail to show that the Pono or even high-resolution audio files are persuasive. You can check out the video by clicking here.

David Pogue used to be the tech guru at the New York Times. He would write on all thing tech including Apple devices and other compelling technologies. But he’s also an audiophile. I interacted via email with David a couple of times about the virtues of analog tape. He’s a member of a dedicated group of reel-to-reel fans that cling to their aging Technics RS-1500 and Revox machines in the mistaken belief that analog tape is the ultimate recording and reproduction format. I’m not going to punch into that tar baby but I can tell you that he wrote and said that he and his other analog tape devotees wouldn’t be interested in new high-resolution audio recordings that originated in any other format than analog…meaning if I were to transfer some of my 96 kHz/24-bit real high-resolution tracks to first generation analog tape that the sound quality would somehow be compromised. A third generation older analog master transferred to another analog tape does excite David and his Yahoo group but getting better fidelity in every measurement you can imagine was ruled out.

David also became a celebrity hosting the NOVA science show that I used to enjoy so much. I don’t anymore…the style of the program became intolerable to me. It’s just me, I guess. Now Mr. Pogue is the guru for Yahoo in the world of tech and they produced the short video review of the Pono device. The Yahoo tech page also has a lengthy review of the Pono Kickstarter campaign and its progress through to delivery of the devices and site late last year.

You should read the review and draw your own conclusions about the quality of the tests he performed and the accuracy of the review. You all know that I’m not a fan of Neil’s approach to high-resolution audio but David blew it with his “test” and review. For a guy that’s an audiophile (more accurately an “analog tape-o-phile", he doesn’t seem to understand or even be aware of the “provenance” issue. He fell into the same trap as the Meyer and Moran discredited study.

He described his test:

The test

How does it sound? I found 15 volunteers, ages 17 through 55. Each subject put on nice headphones — Sony MDR 7506 — and listened to three songs of different styles (“Saturday in the Park” by Chicago, “Raised on Robbery” by Joni Mitchell, and “There’s a World” by Mr. Pono himself, Neil Young). I bought these songs twice: once from the Pono store, in high resolution, and once from the iTunes store.

To Be Continued…

I think that it is ok that some people prefer MP3.

When I had an iCrap I could easily tell the difference between MP3 320 and WAV 16/44 . The WAV sounded better to me.

1   Sometimes he was using $10 (Apple?) earbuds to illustrate the differences!

2   What about the quality of the switch box?  How many here think that a cheap switch box from Radioshack is as good as the source selector in even the cheapest Naim pre-amp.

3   Many of the people would already be familiar with the sound of the Apple player and so would naturally have a bias toward preferring it.

Not a valid test.

15 subjects? And this got published? Well, at least no one is going take it seriously.

David Pogue is a funny guy, but he's (now) in the entertainment business, not the quality journalism business.  He needs attention and "eyeballs" and this stuff generates both.

The capacitors are mounted vertically and the battery is a cylinder. These are the biggest components. As there is no technical reason a battery pack can't be flat it's likely down to the capacitors.

Regarding price. When John Darko of DAR reviewed it he felt that compared to the offerings from A&K and Sony it was pretty good value for money. Personally I don't have an opinion, because I'm happy enough with a 128GB iPhone. The idea of carrying around yet another device is not at all appealing to me.

Pono Player review: A tall, refreshing drink of snake oil

They were a little more positive than the headline suggests but you can count Ars Technica as skeptical.

I'm buying 24-bit material, I'm interested in Tidal's MQA streaming service, but I totally get the skepticism. Unlike HD TV, it's very difficult to demonstrate the benefits of hi-res audio in a way that people can see it improving their enjoyment. Add in the extra cost and a perception of a gimmick obsessed consumer electronics industry it perfectly understandable there is resistance.

It's a comparison of HD files and a bunch of hardware, to SD files and a different bunch of hardware.  Sorry to throw cold water on that fire.

The "professional sound" guy had it right IMHO; it depends on your listening environment, and hardware.

Point 2 mirrors my first thought watching the video.  Probably some dodgy radioshack cables between the switch and the two devices also by the looks.  Not that the Pono player interests me in the slightest, but I personally would not be influenced by this if I were in the market for a portable player.

I think Pono did a big disservice with the pomp and circumstances it made its announcement about the virtues of high res. And now they get a push back.

As with the Ars review, comparing high res versus 256kbps files on a player with a headphone is not likely to reveal the difference. Listening in a car does neither. 

Where the differences are very noticeable between 256kbps and cd quality in my living room, over the naim, it is much harder to distinguish them on a nice pair of Grado's when I connect the headphone to the naim amplifier.

cd quality and high res, I really cannot tell the difference on the headphone, while listening through the speakers I can.

Not necessarily a good conclusion.  It could be that people prefer the sound they're used to.  How many (if any) iPhone users took part in the test?  If people grew up only playing their favourite music on an iPhone they get used to the way it sounded on iPhones then playing that music on anything else is not necessarily 'better' to them, just different. 

That difference is not necessarily perceived as better and you'd have to virtually reprogram their brains by making them listen to their favourite music exclusively on hifi to get them to prefer that to iPhones.

Another example of that is the music professor who performs a test on his new student intake each year to see if they prefer CD quality or MP3 (lower bit rate)  As the years progressed a larger proportion of the youngsters prefer the MP3.  It's what they grew up listening to.  Their music in their minds is meant to sound the way it does on MP3 as it's their reference.

The test illustrates the role psychology plays on a persons preferences more than anything.

Just to add, is there really much of a point to an expensive, high rez portable music player which is likely to be played in very noisy environments?  Fair enough, high rez equipment in the quiet surroundings of the home, but a busy high street/train/bike?

Waste of cash.

I listen to flac on my iBasso every day. My walk is very quiet and our trains are not noisy. When I mentioned earlier about being able to tell the difference between MP3 and WAV, that test was done out walking. I have decent headphones that are open. Anyone who listens to music while riding a bike is a cock.

I use my iPod Touch for WAV and ALAC files, normal and HiRes (via Onkyo player).

Using good in-ear phones (Shure SE846) and a Chord Hugo, I believe there is a difference to be heard, even in Starbucks, but agree there's not much in it.