Neil Young’s Pono kickstarter crushes fundraising goal.
If all I did was listen to what the critics were saying, I would have assumed that Neil Young would have difficulty raising money for his new Pono Player. But contrary to expectations, Mr. Young is crushing it, at least financially.
Currently over $1,000,000 of the $800,000 goal with 34 days to go. However, from what I can tell it’s going to be a bust (outside of the kickstarter backers).
It is an odd shaped (triangles?), FLAC playing (don’t most android phones play FLAC already?), device that will cost $400, and have it’s own store. So you end up having to re-buy all the music you already have from iTunes / Google / CDs again, and hope that the music listening experience is as mindblowingly different than your 320kb ripped MP3s, without having to spend $900 on a pair of audiophile-approved headphones.
Honestly I don’t think that this will be a blip on the radar of anyone outside the audiophile community, who pay $200 for gold plated connectors anyway. Honestly even if it is mindblowingly different, is that enough for the common man to put another device in his pocket, just when he’s gotten rid of his iPod and replaced it with a smartphone?
Guess we’ll see.
The linked critique is indeed fairly scathing, and honestly, not unexpected based on where it’s coming from.
Pono Music was launched by Neil Young and its easy to see that this device was created by old school music big wigs with very little knowledge about technology or design.