Neil Young is known for his disdain for all the digital music formats that have evolved over the years. He didn't like CDs, and he really doesn't like mp3s. He believes that these digital technologies compress the original music to the point that much of what happened in the studio is lost. But instead of just bitching about it, Neil did something. He huddled with some tech wizards and came up with his own music player, called Pono. Unlike the iPod, Pono will “present songs as they first sound during studio recording sessions” by converting digital music clips into high-resolution analog sound.
Here's Neil trying to explain the whole thing to a slightly confused David Letterman:
According to a story in Rolling Stone, it's for real:
Beginning next year, Pono will release a line of portable players, a music-download service and digital-to-analog conversion technology intended to present songs as they first sound during studio recording sessions. In his book out this week, Waging Heavy Peace, Young writes that Pono will help unite record companies with cloud storage "to save the sound of music." As Flea raves to Rolling Stone, "It's not like some vague thing that you need dogs' ears to hear. It's a drastic difference."
They've already got deals with the three major record conglomerates. It might fly, it might not. But you have to love the fact that Neil Young is crazy enough to try and make it work
