Neil Young takes aim at Apple with hi-res music service
Neil Young plans to launch a hi-res downloads service called Pono alongside a range of portable music players in order to "save the sound of music".
Young's Pono project has the backing of Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group according to Young's investment partner Craig Kallman, chairman and chief executive of Atlantic Records, reports Rolling Stone.
In a book due out next week, Waging Heavy Peace, Neil Young talks of his efforts to convince Apple to take up the mantle and offer higher resolution music, talking of emails and phone calls on the subject with the late Steve Jobs.
MORE: Linn MD says Pono is "misguided" and destined for "ridicule and failure"
Now going it alone, Young hopes that his Pono music service "will force iTunes to be better and to improve quality at a faster rate".
Neil Young showed-off a prototype Pono music player on The Letterman Show in the US, reports The Verge, with a chunky design and yellow finish. You can watch the show on YouTube here.
Other music artists are said to have been demoed the Pono music and player and been impressed by the difference.
Flea, from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, told Rolling Stone, "It's not like some vague thing you need dogs' ears to hear. It's a drastic difference."
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Comments
We watch movies and TV through our broad band connection so the excuse about compressed files and long download time does not apply anymore. Give us the real thing- uncompressed music files!
What are you doing on a hifi forum if you can't tell the difference between MP3 and CD.
You need a proper Hifi which using proper engineering principles.
That does not mean it has to be an overpriced British product.
Makes me think why bother.
I can tell the difference between 320kbs and red book cd, think it depends if your listening to it on a decent hifi. Any decent hifi set up will show up the limitations of lossy formats vs red book cd
I'm all for better quality but could Neil's perception be downgraded by standing in front of high power amplification for the last 40 years?
So suddenly Apple decide you can now download music from iTunes in ALAC (Apple lossless format) and errrr............
Yeah, those terrible sounding MP3 players with their terrible sounding MP3s! How dare they?!
Indeed nick12! Apple has heavily neglected SQ with their popular yet mediocre DAP's. Great to see such a living legend take an initiative to save the music industry for us audiophiles. Lossy codecs (even 256kb/s and higher) are simply inferior to lossless alternatives.
Thanks for the effort, Mr. Young!
Pono..... really this is only one letter away from being completely different thing, a bit like "Ainsley Harriott big cook out"!!!
This is EXACTLY my issue with iPods - great for convenience, but woefully unexciting and uninvolving with the actual music! Give me the sound of a Sony MiniDisc Walkman over an iPod ANY day. What's the point of a great storage solution if the music is compromised?
I can't see NY's little yellow toblerone thingy taking off, but it will have done the world a great service if it motivates Apple to seriously up their game with regard to sound quality.
Flea, from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, told Rolling Stone, "It's not like some vague thing you need dogs' ears to hear. It's a drastic difference."
Titter.
some can some cant, for me i can so bring it on.
I can't tell the difference between 256 Kbps and CD
At last! Now perhaps there's a reason to buy that high quality streamer.
Now let's see how quickly iTunes offers a 'Premium HD' service. And then closes it down after 6 months due to 'insufficient demand'. I mean there are people on these pages saying they can hear no difference between 256kbps and CD. Let's hope the valves-and-vinyl brigade will take up buying music as downloads
Excellent!
Thank god there's people like Neil out there who at least try to fight the good fights. I hope he acheives his goals of either supplanting iTunes with a better quality alternative or forcing the market leader to up their game and embrace the first step forward in quality-concious audio since SACD and DVD-Audio made their bids for acceptance.
It looks a bit like an old gen iPod nano...
I'm all for Hi-Res, but keep the prices in check!
Good luck Neil.