Neil Young really wants to sell you his PonoMusic, and he has hired an all-star cast to sell you the thing! The promo on his Kickstarter page is 11 minute-long and you will see about anyone who matters in the music business, I just had a hard time to recognize some of these people, ouch these close-ups! But there are Jack White, Elton John, Beck, Eddie Vedder, Emmylou Harris, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Foo Fighters, Sting, Tom Petty, Elvis Costello, Crosby Stills & Nash, Dave Matthews, Mike D, Kid Rock,…. plus Neil talking about how his system is great. This is supposed to beat Apple’s iPods while holding 1,000 to 2,000 high resolution digital albums for a retail price of $399.
To prove it, he has a great analogy, I have no idea how accurate it is, but for him listening to an mp3 is like listening to music underwater at 1000ft, while listening to a CD is just a bit better (being underwater at 200 feet) whereas with Pono (meaning righteous in Hawaiian), with its 192KHz/24bit, it is like getting out of water. Do you mean I have been doing scuba diving during all these years?
The Pono Music website announces ‘We’re not changing music, We’re letting music change you’ and promises ‘to offer you the highest quality digital music albums or songs in the world’ with the FLAC format. In the video, they all test the Pono player in Young’s old Cadillac, and they all seem to have a sort of revelation! Which is cool, but I wonder whether you can truly appreciate a great sound in a car, unless his car has the most silent engine and there is no traffic around. I’m just saying.
But this is a huge success so far. The Kickstarter campaign has been launched on Tuesday morning at 10:30 am and it is getting stronger every hour. At 5 pm, $595,556 were already pledged out of the $800,000 goal, and when I checked 3 hours later, this goal had been reached with $818,406 pledged and still 34 days to go! At this rhythm, they will reach their goal every day! Meaning a lot of people really believe in this real sound and are ready to pay. Pledge $200 for one First Edition Black PonoPlayer (a saving of $199) or pledge $5,000 for a dinner and a listening party with Neil, not a bad deal? But I just wonder, why a kickstarter campaign to launch Pono? I thought Kickstarter was invented to help poor people finance their project. Didn’t Neil Young believe enough in the product to directly invest his own money?
