Written by Shar on 22 March 2015
Neil Young has been a vocal critic of the sound of digital music, mostly recently while hawking his new Pono player.
This did not sit well with the late Steve Jobs, according to an article that appeared at Fast Company.
In the book Becoming Steve Jobs by Fast Company executive Rick Tetzeli and longtime technology reporter Brent Schlender, it’s revealed that Neil Young tried to quash the beef over the digital sound Jobs created through Apple, ipods and iTunes, Young offers Steve Jobs a set of remastered vinyl editions of every album in his catalog.
It was an “[attempt] to smoke the peace pipe,” writes Schlender. “I knew that Steve enjoyed listening to records on vinyl from time to time, so I agreed to call him to see if he’d like to get the LPs. Steve answered the phone on the second ring, and I explained what I was calling about. We had talked about Neil’s criticisms a year or so before, and I thought this might soften his grudge.”
Fat chance.
“Fuck Neil Young,” he snapped, “and fuck his records. You keep them.” End of conversation.
Funny some things begin spontaneously and end spontaneously.
Read more at: http://www.fastcompany.com/3043685/this-is-what-happened-when-neil-young-tried-to-make-peace-with-steve-jobs
Tags: Apple, ipod, itunes, pono, ponoplayer, Steve Jobs, vinyl
Posted in News / Article, Pono | 4 Comments »
Written by Shar on 02 February 2015
David Pogue says people can’t tell the difference in sound between Neil Young’s PonoPlayer and that of an iphone.
Describing himself as a former professional musician, Pogue said that “the Pono Player story is a modern retelling of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes,’ ” making claims contrary to science.
He writes on Yahoo Tech News:
“I’m 51 and a former professional musician. I know how to listen. But when I bought Pono’s expensive remastered songs and compared them with the identical songs on my phone, I couldn’t hear any difference whatsoever.
<p data-reactid=".ocejpqdyww.$cover-mosaic-transition-group.$=1$cover-mosaic-0:0.$article-109496883039.0:$Pos-r.$article-inner-container.$inset-container singulair inhaler.$grid-template.0.$col-left.$content.$grid-content.0.1.$text-body.0.2.$p-7″>I got worried. Is the Pono story a modern-day “Emperor’s New Clothes” fable? Were those famous rock stars just imagining things?
There was only one way to find out: conduct a blind trial, using identical songs on identical headphones, comparing the Pono with a standard audio player — an iPhone. So that’s what I did. You can watch the process in the video above.”
You can watch the video at: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/it-was-one-of-kickstarters-most-successful-109496883039.html
The majority of testers picked the iphone over Pono in a blind test. He writes:
“How does it sound? I found 15 volunteers, ages 17 through 55. Each subject put on nice headphones — Sony MDR 7506 — and listened to three songs of different styles (“Saturday in the Park” by Chicago, “Raised on Robbery” by Joni Mitchell, and “There’s a World” by Mr. Pono himself, Neil Young). I bought these songs twice: once from the Pono store, in high resolution, and once from the iTunes store.
Each subject then listened to the same songs again, using standard Apple earbuds.”
He posts a good argument and it’s an interesting read.
Pogue is a former New York Times columnist.
Tags: pono, Ponomusic, ponoplayer
Posted in News / Article | 1 Comment »
Neil Young has been a vocal critic of the sound of digital music, mostly recently while hawking his new Pono player.
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