Neil Young and the Pono project

The so called Pono is a music player developed after the ideas of Neil Young. Unsatisfied with the sound quality with the compressed sound of MP3 and the CD with 16 bit limit, Neil Young has created the Pone from the dream of being able to listen to the sound that originally was created in a studio - the sound that the musicians could hear.

At least can Pono come as close as possible with a digital technique that recreate the analog sound. In the video, Neil Young is a guest on David Letterman Show and showing a Pono prototype.

The Pono project has been delayed several times. The latest plan is that it would be released in 2013, no exact date has been announced yet.

On the way some problems have occurred, not at least copyright issues with Apple that has a similar service with iTunes. But nevertheless, the three biggest music company’s Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment have agreed to support the Pono format and remastering songs from their catalog.

Update: The March 10, 2014 came a press release about the launch of Pono together with some pictures of the Pono Player:

pono players.
Excerpt from the press release:

The PonoPlayer has 128GB of memory and can store from about 100 to 500 high-resolution digital-music albums, depending on the resolution and length of the original recording. Memory cards can be used to store and play different playlists and additional collections of music. The PonoPlayer will be sold atPonoMusic.com for $399 MSRP and is available for pre-order at a discount on Kickstarter.com as of March 12th.