In a plot ripped straight from 2005, Neil Young announced this week that he’s taking on the iPod with his new high-def audio music player, the Pono.
We had a good laugh talking about the Pono on this week’s CultCast, but after checking the Kickstarter page this morning it might be Neil who gets the last laugh as his project has already earned more than $2.5 million in pledges.
The iPod is pretty much a relic already, but $2.5 mill is still a long way from the iPod’s $937 million of revenue generated in Q1 2014 alone. Still, it’s impressive for an awkwardly shaped, crowd-funded portable music player, with no phone or internet capabilities, in the year 2014.
Despite its $399 price tag and 128GB of storage, Pono’s selling point is its high quality audio. The Kickstarter video packs a galaxy of rockstars in awe of the studio-like audio quality of the Pono player, but others have questioned whether there’s any actual scientific evidence to prove 192kHz/24-bit audio is better than the 44.1 kHz/16-bit CD-quality standard.
Watch for yourself and tell us if you’re convinced:
Source: Kickstarter
