Despite being relatively pricey for a portable music player, Neil Young’s PonoMusic reached the $800,000 target within a day since the campaign started, fact that emphasizes the capabilities of this device.
Having raised more than three times the initial goal, the PonoPlayer developed by Neil Young and his company, PonoMusic, seems to have a lot of fans among the users of the crowdfunding platform. Considering the benefits brought by this high-fidelity portable music player, the success of the Kickstarter campaign started by Neil Young shouldn’t surprise anyone.
While exhibiting the product at the SXSW music convention, Young explained that “This is rescuing music. It’s an artist-driven movement to take it back.” The singer declared war on MP3 files a while ago, as he considers that these degrade the music listening experience, which really should be something sacred.
The Canadian singer-songwriter pointed out that youngsters who rely on MP3s are deprived from the three-dimensional, immersive sound that they should experience: “They can identify the name of the song and they can learn the melody from listening to it, but inside their souls they’re just not getting what we got because there’s just nothing there for them. The human body is so sensitive….when it sees great art, it feels good. (So) with our music, we were deprived and we started getting very little, a minuscule 1/20th of what we listened to.”
The PonoPlayer and the companion music store PonoMusic are meant to offer an alternative to the iPods and iTunes Stores, with a focus on high-resolution music similar to the one produced in studios. PonoMusic and the PonoPlayer will be capable of playing back music with a 9,216 kbps bitrate, while iTunes delivers songs with 256 kbps. As Young put it, “So now you’ll hear the nuances, the soft touches, and the ends on the echo – the texture and the emotion of the music the artist worked so hard to create.” Sir Elton John emphasized the difference by saying that “I haven’t heard a sound like that since vinyl. It was wonderful.”
PonoPlayer’s Kickstarter campaign still has 32 more days to go, so if you want to secure one for yourself, back the project with $300. For $100 more, you can get a player signed by one of the following artists: Patti Smith, Tom Petty, Beck, Arcade Fire, Dave Matthews Band, The Foo Fighters and others. The cost of the albums, on the other hand, will range between $14.99 and $24.99.
Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the
