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Do You Love Your Pono?

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JimH:
Now that you've had a chance to get to know it, how do you feel about the device, the sound quality, and the overall experience.  I'd like to hear from anyone who wants to share the good or the bad. 

For those who don't know JRiver, we built the Pono Music World software.  The rest was done by others.

Thanks,

Jim Hillegass
CEO, JRiver

jmone:
I too am interested in what Pono users thing, as the bashing is well underway!  Review by David Pouge

shieber:
The sound quality is great -- better than you can find in other devices anywhere near its price.  The articulation is superb, crustal clear an clean without sibilance or harshness. Played through my Stax driver and earspeakers, it's as good as I've heard. Playing through a nice pair of balanced armature IEMs, the performance is still breathtaking. Even with a pair of cheapo earphones, the earphones sound much better than they deserve to. I haven't had the chance yet but I suspect listening through a set of Audeze of Hifiman planar magnetics would be about as good as the electrostatic Staxs. If your source material and speakers can handle the definition, the PP can provide it.

The pp still has some UI quirks and a couple of bugs (the sml issue has not been fully resolved), and the pmw software can be, shall we say, counterintuitive -- but at least PMW is very robust.

Markbot:
Jim,

So far I have been very happy with my Pono especially now that they have added DSD support. About 90% of my use is playing the Pono in my car to/from work. My Camaro has an analog line in jack which I connect the Pono line output to with a Monster cable. I was very much in the market for upgrading the pretty decent sound system my convertible came with. The Pono sound quality is so much better than my iPod and Sirius-XM that I'm pushing back the need to upgrade my car's sound system. I am frankly shocked by this outcome, but very pleased by it. That's the good side.

On the downside trying to navigate the Pono menu while driving is impossible and probably more dangerous than trying to text. Luckily I'm an album rock guy so I usually listen to the same album all the way to work. I sure do miss the click wheel.

The PMW software seems decent, but at least for me there is a steep learning cure coming from WinAMP which I used with my 160 GB iPod Classic. Once I master the software I think things will be better. Right now I'm using it only to handle my HiRez FLAC and DSF files destined for the Pono. I'm not using it to catalog my entire digital music collection which is spread across multiple (~20) external hard drives totaling maybe 50TB.

One feature which is missing is the ability to use the Pono with a USB output to another DAC like the Micro iDSD DAC. Maybe the Pono2 will be capable of such. I've heard great things about using the iDSD as headphone amp and USB power source.

The Pono is very slow to boot up. I have to remember 5 or so minutes before leaving for work to boot it up so I can get in the car hit play and take off for work. Why does it have to scan for music every boot?

The Pono is very slow for file transfers whether using PMW or just Windows Explorer. I asked and was told that it is a USB2 device, but it sure seems much slower than that. Maybe the Pono2 will support USB3.

I'm not a big fan of Micro SD cards either. They are too small and too expensive. You can purchase 128GB SDXC cards for $30 on sale and I have a nice wallet to store them in and cart them around. This makes swapping cards much more convenient without fear of loss.

So in Summary I think the Pono sounds better than I expected though HiRez file quality can very greatly. My primary goal is to rip my vinyl collection to DSD and play those files on the Pono so I'm in charge of quality control. There is room for improvement on the hardware and software side, but there always will be. I look forward to spending much more quality time with my Pono and PMW software.

Mark

Eric05:
Do I love my Pono?

Well, what I love :
1/ sound quality : with my Nad HP50 Headphones it sounds great
2/ the ability to connect 2 headphones
3/ the physical control buttons

What I don't love :
1/ the screen : the view angle is very narrow
2/ the sd card trapdoor is cheap, bilding quality in not top notch...
3/ behavior with flac album single file : my Neil Young "Freedom" album is one single flac file : when I transfered it from PMW software to pono player, the file (wich is the whole album) was transfered 12 times as long that there is 12 titles on this album. I have to manually delete the 11 flac files. And Pono Player recognises the file as one title (that last 1 hour) !
4/ the "eject" process from your software : when files transfer to my pono player is over I have to push a first "eject" button, then I have to find the hidden menu "Detail" then cross the whole screen to push a second "eject" button. Come on, why isn't my Pono ejected when I push the first eject button ???
5/ you PNM software is basically JR Media Center  with a dedicated skin : while I love JRiver on my PC, I'd like to have a more simple and ergonomic way to manage my pono library
6/ what I really don't love is the price of the HD files on Pono Music Store. This is "foutage de gueule" in french... Hopefully, I buy my HD music on Qobuz, less expensive
7/ oh, and no french power plug with my pono, they send me a usa one


Well, at the end of the day I have to say that I'm quite disappointed, if the sound quality is here, there is too many things I don't love to be fully happy. Some reviews I've found in english and in french are quite right.

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