Musicians React To Pono: What Are They Hearing?

There is a real medicine show quality to this Pono promo video featuring famous musicians (David Crosby, Sting, Dave Grohl, Elvis Costello, James Taylor, Tom Petty, etc.) testifying to the life altering impact of Ponomusic. Each one has just been apparently blown away by a comparison between a hi-rez Ponomusic file and either a CD quality file or an MP3, or maybe an iTunes file (it's not totally clear what they've been listening to, and no context is given).

I never want to put myself in the position of saying what other people do and do not hear. I especially don't like to suggest that someone has been taken in by the power of suggestion. So let me be clear: I have no idea what these guys did or didn't hear, and I am not trying to imply their reactions are anything but 100% genuine. I'm also not saying they were suckered into believing they heard things that weren't real.

But as someone who has spent a lot of time comparing the sound quality of various digital resolutions, it is hard for me to accept that these reactions resulted solely from listening to music files with increased sampling frequency and bit depth alone. I have to believe something else is at work here. Quite possibly the different versions they heard were represented by different masterings. I don't  know, and it's not like Pono provides any concrete details.

All other things being equal, the difference between hi-rez (24 bit) digital and CD quality digital (16 bit/44.1 kHz) is just not that profound. I'm not saying there aren't differences (there are) and I'm not saying those differences can't be heard (they can under the right circumstances). It's just that the difference is very subtle and difficult to hear, even for extremely experienced listeners with excellent hearing.

Don't believe me? Here's three different music files, each the same 30 second sample of Nick Drake's "Hazey Jane II." The first is a 24 bit/96 kHz version that I downloaded from Universal music. The second is a CD quality (16 bit/44.1 kHz) version that I generated from that same hi-rez version.* The third is a 192 kps MP3 created from the hi-rez version. Listen to each of them (preferably using some sort of ABX tester to make the test blind). Make sure whatever device you listen on is capable of 24 bit/96 kHz resolution (you might have to change the MIDI settings on your computer). Decide for yourself if the differences between them match the hype you see in Pono's video. Personally, I do not hear it.

"Hazey Jane II" (24bit/96kHz)
"Hazey Jane II" (16bit/44.1kHz - aka "CD resolution")
"Hazey Jane II" (MP3 192kps)

Philips SACD 1000

Throwback Thursday: My old Philips SACD 1000. What a piece of crap. I paid [I wont say how much] for this player, the second SACD compatible player to hit the market. Shortly after the 30 day trial period ended it began malfunctioning. I sent it to Philips for repair (under warranty) five times or more. It never worked for more than two weeks straight again. I followed various internet discussions about this player, and as far as I could gather nearly every single one of them failed and could not be fixed.

Eventually Philips refunded my money, and I even managed to sell the player to someone for a couple hundred bucks for parts (it had some very high quality components under the hood). But it was not worth the frustration.

 For a variety of reasons SACD (Super Audio CD) never really caught on, and Sony and Philips quickly all but abandoned the technology (which was supposed to be a major upgrade over CD sound). (Yes, I know that some specialty labels still produce SACDs).

I keep this photo as a reminder not to jump on every "big new thing" technology and to remain skeptical of marketing hype, especially when it is presented with a lot of technical jargon that I do not fully understand. I later discovered, through blind listening tests, that when all other things are equal, I am unable to hear a dime's worth of difference between SACD and CD anyway. It's one of many reasons I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to sign up for Neil Young's Pono music service.

Could Pono Really (Really) Make Digital Music Sound Better?

In my last post about PonoMusic I expressed skepticism about whether their music files would actually sound significantly better, and criticized them for what I consider misleading advertising as it pertains to "high-resolution" digital recordings. I also promised to keep an open mind, and today I want to entertain the possibility that PonoMusic might end up being a good thing for sound quality despite my skepticism.

So far all of Pono's marketing as it pertains to the sound quality of the music they will be selling has focused on the sampling rate and bit depth of digital recordings. Again from their FAQ:

IS PONOMUSIC A NEW AUDIO FORMAT? WHAT ABOUT PONOMUSIC QUALITY?

No.  We want to be very clear that PonoMusic is not a new audio file format or standard.  It is an end-to-end ecosystem for music lovers to get access to and enjoy their favorite music in the highest resolution possible for that song or album.  The music in the PonoMusic.com store is sold and downloaded in industry standard audio file formats.  

The PonoMusic Store uses FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) audio format as its standard, for compatibility, although the PonoPlayer can play most popular high-resolution music formats from other sources.  PonoMusic has a quality spectrum, ranging from really good to really great, depending on the quality of the available master recordings: 

•    CD lossless quality recordings: 1411 kbps (44.1 kHz/16 bit) FLAC files
•    High-resolution recordings: 2304 kbps (48 kHz/24 bit) FLAC files
•    Higher-resolution recordings: 4608 kbps (96 kHz/24 bit) FLAC files
•    Ultra-high resolution recordings: 9216 kbps (192 kHz/24 bit) FLAC files

In short, what this is telling us is that Pono will not be offering any kind of breakthrough in digital music technology. 192 kHZ/24bit PCM digital audio has been available in some form or another to consumers at least since the introduction of DVD-Audio nearly 15 years ago. There are already other digital music retailers that offer high-resolution digital music files for download. Likewise, the FLAC format is something of an industry standard for lossless compressed audio (although someone might want to alert Apple to that fact).

This is actually a good thing. The last thing we need at this juncture is a new digital format that isn't compatible with other players or current stereo equipment. Pono has not reinvented the wheel here, and there is no reason why they should. The music from their store will likely work with the equipment you already have (if you are an iTunes user you'll need to convert those FLAC files to something like AIFF or Apple Lossless files, but that is a topic for another day). In addition, their player will play the digital files you already own, as they have promised support for most varieties of PCM based audio files, including the kind Apple currently sells. In my view these are both sensible choices.

So if PonoMusic will not be offering anything new under the sun, why do I hold out hope that their product might actually lead to better sounding music for consumers? The answer, ironically, lies with the precedent set by Apple with their "Mastered for iTunes" program. Mastered for iTunes is a set of tools and best practice standards that Apple has made available to labels to create better sounding iTunes music files. I encourage you to read PDF Apple has made available on mastering music for iTunes, as it contains a set of common sense guidelines without excessive marketing hype. It suggests to me that Apple has a very good understanding of what some of the real problems with current digital music are: namely, excessive use of dynamic range compression and digital clipping. It has been my experience that the care that goes into making music sound its best at the mastering stage matters more (much more) than the eventual sample rate and bit depth delivered to the consumer.

It has long been my view that the mastering process is the critical phase in music production that really needs to be addressed and improved. By and large it is at the mastering stage where sound quality is really getting messed up these days. I applaud Apple for taking steps to address this problem.

If Pono were to issue a similar set of guidelines to labels on best practices for mastering audio for PonoMusic, I think there is a real possibility it could result in better sounding digital music releases. Were Pono to leverage its influence to urge labels to ease back on dynamic range compression, avoid digital clipping, and not apply excessive frequency equalization, it would result in audibly better sounding music and differences that really could easily be heard even at CD level (44.1kHZ/16bit) resolution. Perhaps they could create some catchy name like "PonoApproved" for digital albums that meet their sound quality standards.

Now, to be clear, I don't have any special reason to think this will happen, and given Pono's exclusive focus to date on sampling rates and bit depth as the drivers for better sound quality, I am not particularly encouraged. But some precedent for this kind of thing does exist. Also, if PonoMusic is successful, it could push other digital music retailers like iTunes to offer higher quality, lossless, downloads as an option for consumers. All these things would be very welcome developments, and I'm happy to wait and see how things shake out before issuing any final judgement on Pono. I remain skeptical, but I wish Neil Young and Pono luck in their stated goal of making digital music sound better. If they are serious about it they must take steps to demand better sounding masters from record labels, and if they succeed in doing so we all stand to benefit.

Will PonoMusic Really Sound That Much Better?

I pulled this image from PonoMusic's (Neil Young's long gestating digital music service) kickstarter page. It appears to compare the difference in sound quality between various digital music options, from lossy compressed downloads and streaming music to 192kHz/24bit PCM digital files.

It sure looks like the files Pono's music store will offer are going to sound a lot better than what we're used to. Young describes the difference between ordinary digital files and hi-rez digital files as "surprising and dramatic," he claims they will restore the "soul" to digital music files. From Pono's FAQ:

WILL I REALLY HEAR THE PONOMUSIC DIFFERENCE IN SOUND QUALITY? 

Yes. We are confident that you will hear the difference. We're even more confident you will feel it. Everyone who’s ever heard PonoMusic will tell you that the difference is surprising and dramatic. Especially when they listen to music that they know well – their favorite music. They're amazed by how much better the music sounds – and astonished at how much detail they didn’t realize was missing compared to the original. They tell us that not only do they hear the difference; they feel it in their body, in their soul. 

Unfortunately, the above chart is more than a little misleading. There's no tidy way to show subjective differences in sound quality (i.e. what we actually hear as a music listener). What this chart actually shows is closer to the difference in file size between various digital music options.

There is really no argument that 192kHz/24bit music files will take up more space on your hard drive, and thus have more information in them, than CD quality (44.1kHz/16bit) files. It is likewise true that the CD quality files, even when losslessly compressed, will take up more space than MP3 or other lossy compressed files. If what you want is music files that are really large, the 192kHz/24bit FLAC files that Pono will be selling are definitely a good option.

Whether these files actually sound better than CD resolution files, or even higher bit rate encoded MP3s, is a subject of much more debate. Some listeners swear by so called "hi-rez" digital music, others say they can't hear a difference. Others go further and claim that it is not possible for humans to hear a difference between properly encoded CD quality digital and hi-rez digital, and say they have the science to back them up (I am not going to touch that one).

I never want to be in a position of telling people what they can or cannot hear, but I was curious if I could hear a difference between hi-rez digital files and CD quality files. The problem is that it is sometimes difficult to do an apples to apples comparison. Comparing a CD against a hi-rez digital file that was mastered differently does not tell us anything definitive about the virtues of higher sampling rates and greater bit depth.

In order to do a fair comparison, I downloaded the "Audiophile 96kHz/24bit" AIFF version of Stevie Wonder's Innervisions from HDTracks (this corresponds to the resolution of the middle yellow block on the chart above). This is music that I love and know very well, having listened to it in various music formats since the 1970s. I then made a CD resolution copy of my favorite track from the album, "Living For The City," using a high quality resampling program. I dropped both the "hi-rez" and CD quality files into a program called "ABXer" that allows you to do blind ABX comparisons between different music files. To make a long story short, despite my best efforts, I was unable to hear a difference between the two file resolutions. My final results were 5 correct identifications and 5 misidentifications, exactly the results one would expect if the test subject was guessing (which I was).

Despite being a dedicated music lover and someone who cares deeply about the quality of recorded sound (if not an "audiophile"), I don't think Pono is for me. Either my equipment (see details in comments) or my ears are not good enough to hear the difference. I'm not personally sold on the benefits of high-resolution music files for music listeners. I'm willing to keep an open mind about that, what I'm not willing to do is re-buy a lot of music I already own on the basis of misleading charts, nebulous promises about improved sound quality, and marketing hype.

"Occupy Audio" My [Rear End]

The Wall Street Journal notes that Neil Young's latest release, Americana, will cost $10 on CD and $42 on LP.

Young summarized his feelings on the need for better sound quality with a rallying cry that might apply to his pricing strategy, too: "Occupy audio!"

I'm going to call bullshit on Neil Young and his "occupy audio" rallying cry. You have to work on Wall Street to afford LPs at those prices. One of the reasons I stuck with LPs while CDs took off was I could get them dirt cheap while the music industry hideously overpriced CDs (while constantly promising that prices would come down soon). But now the tables have turned and LPs are a luxury good for well-heeled "aesthetes." Sure I like the way LPs sound better than CDs, I also enjoy the experience of putting an LP on my turntable more than slapping a CD into the player. Maybe that makes me an aesthete or maybe that makes me an idiot, but I'll be [darned] if I'm gonna pay that kind of price for the privilege.

In my entire life I don't think I've paid $42 for a vinyl record more than a handful of times, and I own some pretty nice, collectable stuff. I didn't pay $42 for my first pressing Gram Parsons records, I didn't pay $42 for my first press UK copy of The Clash's London Calling, I didn't pay $42 for my Funkadelic records, and I sure as [heck] didn't pay $42 for my copy of Tony Orlando and Dawn's Greatest Hits. That beautifully pressed and packaged Trypes LP I wrote about yesterday cost me less than $18. (That's a fair price for a new vinyl record, and I'm happy to support the efforts of a label like Acute Records.) The only time I can remember paying more than $42 was when I bit the bullet and bought a near mint copy of PiL's Metal Box on eBay, and I agonized over my extravagance for weeks afterward. Records aren't worth $42 to me, and I don't care whether Neil Young presses them in Germany or on Jupiter, or what kind of fancy wrapper he puts on them.

Perhaps the most insulting part of all this is one of the reasons these new LPs tend to sound better than their CD counterparts is because they intentionally make the CDs sound like [human waste]. As I've documented here many, many times modern CD mastering typically involves sucking all the dynamic range out of the music as well as applying overly-aggressive EQ. After foisting "perfect sound forever" on us for years, the music industry now tells us LPs sound better, and are happy to charge me a $30+ premium so I can congratulate myself on my ability to discern the difference between a common, vulgar, digital CD and a finely pressed, analog LP. But the truth is, if they're both well mastered, I struggle to hear any difference at all between LPs and CDs. Sorry, I want absolutely no part of this [unicorn infested] charade. I'll just scavenge yard sales for CDs now that the cultural elites are dumping them.

Honestly, I think what really irks me about the whole thing is the fact that Young has appropriated the language of the occupy movement to promote a product that is priced strictly for the 1% crowd. It's in poor taste, and it's insensitive to the economic struggles that so many Americans and others around the world are facing at the moment. Occupy audio my [rear end].

Update 06/25/12: Portions of this post were edited due to moral objections from my children. All replacement words are now in brackets [ ]. I apologize for the use of potty mouth.

Buffalo Springfield

Just to give a heads-up, it looks to me like the Buffalo Springfield box set might be falling out-of-print. There are still some reasonably priced used copies available on Amazon, but prices appear to be creeping up. Then again maybe not, because it can still be ordered new directly from Rhino.

I only mention this because with Neil Young involved, you never know when a release is going to appear or disappear. Speaking of which, hardcore fans might be happy to know that his long-promised, massive Archives Volume One box set is now available for pre-order on DVD or Blu-Ray at Amazon. It has a current street date of January 27, 2009 (and with a little luck it just might actually be available for purchase for next year's holiday season).

I'd be shocked if the long-delayed archives set actually meets a January 27th release date, but in the meantime, those hoping to find a little Shakey in their stocking this year might consider adding Sugar Mountain: Live At Canterbury House 1968 to their wish list (this one is promised for December 2nd, and so far its release date has only been pushed back once).

Of course, if you don't already own it, you can't go wrong with the Buffalo Springfield Box Set. Even if you own all three albums, there's lots to be discovered in the box such as nice acoustic demos like this one for "Flying On The Ground Is Wrong."

There's also a wealth of previously unreleased material such as "Down, Down, Down," a Young-penned song that formed the basis for "Broken Arrow."

The box also features a number of previously unreleased songs recorded after the second album as the band was falling apart. Tracks like the Richie Furay sung "Whatever Happened To Saturday Night" prove that The Springfield's posthumous swan song, Last Time Around, could have been a much stronger album if it had been assembled more carefully.

Of course whenever Neil Young compiles something there are bound to be as many complaints about what's missing as excitement about what's there. A few tracks from Last Time Around are not represented, but the most common complaint is the absence of the nine-minute version of "Freebird" "Bluebird" that has only ever been available on a two LP compilation released in 1973 and has never been released on CD. The four and a half minute version of "Bluebird" that appeared on Buffalo Springfield Again (and the box) was edited down from this extended performance (with a different, banjo-fied, ending tacked on). An even shorter version of the song (sliced all the way down to 1:59) was released as a single and reached #58 on Billboard's Pop Singles chart in 1967. Amazingly, this was the only song from Buffalo Springfield Again to chart.

Legend has it that either Neil or Stephen Stills, or possibly both, never wanted the long version of "Bluebird" released in the first place. Despite their objections, once released the track became a minor staple of classic rock radio, and many fans of the band consider it the version of the song to hear. Whatever you think of the then ascendant tendency to turn pop songs into extended semi-improvisational rock jams, the long version of "Bluebird" holds an important place in the Springfield canon: the band was known to end their live sets with epic-length versions of the song. I imagine Stills and Young view this version as a poor substitute for the legendary live performances of the song. But since no quality Buffalo Springfield live recordings are known to exist, this is all we have.

As extended guitar epics go, I would rank this somewhere between Love's "Revelations" (tedious) and Television's "Marquee Moon" (sublime). There is some nice guitar interplay between Stills and Young, but at times Stills falls back on blues cliches that make the jamming sound predictable. Or perhaps it only sounds predictable in retrospect, this kind of thing probably sounded a lot fresher before the seventies happened. Maybe you had to be there.

Neil Young - Live At Massey Hall 1971

Neil Young has more unfinished or unreleased projects than Brian Wilson and Orson Welles combined, so it is good to see him follow through on his long-promised archival series. His most recent archival release, Live At Massey Hall 1971, is a good one. I recommend splurging on the CD/DVD version if for no other reason than to hear the better sound quality of which DVD is capable (CDs sample music at 44.1 kHz/16-bits, while DVDs can sample at 96kHz/24-bits). Young himself has long complained about the sub-par quality of CD sound.

The Massey Hall concert material was originally considered for release between After The Gold Rush and Harvest, but Young was keen to release Harvest first. It would have been unusual to release a live LP that previewed music from an upcoming studio release, but why the album wasn't released in the wake of Harvest's enormous success is a mystery. My best guess is that Young was eager to alienate the middle-of-the-road audience "Heart Of Gold" brought him, and releasing this album then would have been at cross purposes with that aim. (The cause of alienating his audience was much better served by Time Fades Away, the live album he did release after Harvest.)

The sound of the DVD is amazingly good. Turn off your TV, close your eyes and you will feel like you have been transported to Massey Hall circa 1971 to listen to Neil Young at the peak of his creative powers. I listened to this last night, and by the time I was done I almost felt like I had gotten a contact high from the second-hand marijuana smoke at Massey Hall--that's how realistic this sounds.


Amazon has a video for "The Needle And The Damage Done," and "Old Man" and "Ohio" are available on YouTube.