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Neil Young PONO player Review

Rate this player:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 160 86.0%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 20 10.8%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 1 0.5%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 5 2.7%

  • Total voters
    186
"But few true film lovers really scoff at the notion of something like the superiority of watching a movie on film, for example."
Who writes this stuffv? Theaters havent used film for 20 years, its all digital. no more dust, no more scratches.
Another problem is the very hot and powerful lamps in the projectors needed to light up the movie screen. The film has to endure that even if it's for only a small time for any part of the film.
 
"But few true film lovers really scoff at the notion of something like the superiority of watching a movie on film, for example."
Who writes this stuffv? Theaters havent used film for 20 years, its all digital. no more dust, no more scratches.
Actually many Imax theatres are still using film.

And nostalgia is still a thing for some movie go-ers also.
 
"But few true film lovers really scoff at the notion of something like the superiority of watching a movie on film, for example."
Who writes this stuffv? Theaters havent used film for 20 years, its all digital. no more dust, no more scratches.
The degradation in old film stock is visible to anyone who has two functioning eyes. It's easily perceivable, unlike the difference between lossless audio and high-res audio on a player that's incapable to actually playing back high-res audio files.

This analogy only works if we were talking about vinyl, which sounds objectively different to digital files or even tape. Even then I'd take offence to the "superiority" of it all, but different strokes for different folks and different people just like different things.

Also: Film stock does have a look of its own, which is why some directors choose to film with it for visually artistic reasons. I, for example, LOVE 16mm film. I love the wonderfully blurry, grainy indie look it adds to the image. It looks stunningly dreamy. However, would I notice the difference of a film shot in 16mm being projected either digitally or via film? Personally, I doubt it. And I believe most "cinephiles" are less anal in this regard than audiophiles.
 
Pono Player was one of the early incarnations of today's ubiquitous DAPs. At the time it was announced in 2014, only Korea's Astell & Kern (which had just recently launched as a separate brand of iRiver) and fellow Korean audio player brand Cowon was there for audiophiles who wanted a dedicated player other than the typical smartphone. Onkyo and Pioneer also made DAPs the following year, so it was definitely the beginning of the hi res DAP market.
Today we see such DAPs overtaken largely by Chi Fi brands like FiiO, Shanling, Cayin, iBasso, Hiby etc along with Astell&Kern.

I'd say regardless of the player living up to the hype or not, Neil Young had a good idea to have at the time since there wasn't too many dedicated hi res players at the time and having a hi res music store to compete with HDTracks also wasn't a bad idea. That the ideas weren't executed well is the issue but tech history is littered with failures so it's not too surprising either.
 
Yes probably would have realised more sales!
Keith
 
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