PONO: Neil Young's New Delivery System?

I think you may want to lower your expectations just a tad...:-) Here's a link to the project that I saw that might be of interest:

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2012/09/neil-young-talks-pono-download-service-and-hardware-players/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=neil-young-talks-pono-download-service-and-hardware-players

I have the same question. He says it's "as close to analog as digital can get" (on Letterman 2 nights ago). I did a quick google search and didn't turn um much detail other than what he showed on Letterman. It will include a music delivery system (liek itunes?), DAC, and player supposedly.

It will be great if anyone can download these hi-res files and play them without some special hardware. As soon as you lock into special hardware, thats where the deficiency will be. Say goodbye to good SQ.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

I respect Neil Young's good intentions, but this sounds like a tech entrepreneur who missed the pandora/spotify/mog/rdio window is trying to take advantage of his fame.

And announcing on David Letterman doesn't give me much confidence that they're really trying to do something special other than target the mainstream ear bud / wannabe hipster crowd.

I think old Neil is trying to get record companies to buy into better sound. Of course he may have monetary desires as well. The way I look at is this: if record companies and others do start using high-resolution for everything, we'll all be in a better place with regard to enjoying music. If it takes a rock star who is famous to push things along in a significant way, I don't care at all.