Introductory price US$399 | System-on-chip used TI OMAP3630 | |
Developer PonoMusic, Ayre Acoustics Type Digital media, Portable media player Release date October 2014 (2014-10) (Kickstarter backers), February 2015 (2015-02) (everyone) Operating system | ||
PonoPlayer is a portable music player created by Neil Young's company, PonoMusic, as the result of a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Contents
Development and release
In September 2012, Neil Young appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman with a prototype PonoPlayer announcing his plans for the PonoMusic ecosystem. Early announcements named Meridian Audio as the development partner, but that changed in 2014 when Meridian was replaced by Ayre Acoustics. In April 2014, a successful crowdfunding campaign raised US$6.2M via preorders for the player using the Kickstarter platform. Kickstarter backers received devices starting in October 2014. The PonoMusic store opened pre-orders for PonoPlayer at the start of 2015, expecting them to ship within the month.
Hardware and capabilities
While designed for use with the FLAC format lossless audio sold by the PonoMusic online store, the device can play other common formats including Apple Lossless (ALAC), uncompressed PCM (WAV, AIFF), DSD (DSD64) and DSD2 (DSD128), and the lossy formats AAC and MP3. PonoPlayer will play DRM-free audio in these formats from any source, including FLAC from HDtracks, AAC from iTunes, and lossless audio files copied or “ripped” from audio compact discs. PonoMusic provides the PonoMusic World cross–platform (Mac/Win) application software, based on JRiver Media Center, to manage audio files on the device and on a host computer, but it is not required. Any operating system that supports USB mass-storage and the exFAT filesystem, can add or remove music from PonoPlayer. A micro USB 2.0 port provides the only connectivity.
The device is based around the Texas Instruments OMAP3630 SoC, which includes an ARM Cortex-A8, 256 MB of RAM, and runs a modified version of Android 2.3 (API level 10). PonoPlayer features a 2.5-inch touchscreen display, with graphics accelerated by the integrated PowerVR SGX530 GPU. It has 64 GB of internal storage, and a microSD card slot that supports SDHC and SDXC cards up to 128 GB. A 64 GB SDXC card is included with the player. A replaceable 2900 mAh Li-Ion battery powers the device for up to eight hours of playback on a full charge.
The audio output circuitry was designed by engineers at Ayre Acoustics, and features an ESS Sabre32 ES9018K2M Digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The DAC accepts stereo PCM input up to 384 kHz with samples of up to 32 bits per channel. The device has two 3.5 mm audio outputs: an amplified headphone output, and a line-level output for connecting to other amplified equipment, such as a home or car stereo system.
The PonoPlayer measures 13×5×2.5 cm in a shallow triangle shape designed to fit in a pocket but also keep the display visible whilst sitting on a desktop or stereo. The device weighs 130g.
Reviews
Leo Laporte gave the PonoPlayer a "buy" recommendation. He praised the sound quality, but noted that "..synchronization is fairly slow, this is a USB 2.0 device and these are really big files."
In a review published by Headfonia, the author concludes that the PonoPlayer may sound better than a SanDisk Sansa Clip running the Rockbox firmware while playing lossless audio, but not enough to justify the difference in price ($400 vs $40).