Jordan O'BrienRemember the Pono Player? Probably not. The high-end audio player debuted at CES 2015 and only went on to sell ‘tens of thousands’ of units, hardly an iPod killer. Despite that, Neil Young, the Canadian singer-songwriter who dreamt up the Pono, refuses to let his high resolution music dream die – and his latest idea is to launch a music streaming service to take on the likes of Tidal.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Neil Young states that he is already working on a Pono streaming service that will focus on high-resolution music that can be accessed on an everyday smartphone. The idea is that users won’t simply stream their music however, with downloads also being made available.
The music streaming space is already incredibly crowded, with the likes of Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, Pandora and Apple Music vying for a slice of the pie – but Neil Young believes that Pono could bring something unique to the table.
In the interview Neil Young states: “We provide the best that’s available. Full resolution music, great sounding music.”
The problem with that method is the fact that many smartphones don’t currently support higher-than-CD quality sound. The best selling smartphone in the world, Apple’s iPhone, would certainly struggle. Despite this, Neil Young believes that his company’s partnership with a Singaporean company will lead to a method to maintain the music quality level even when streaming.
Right now the Pono music streaming service is a little bit of a pipe dream. Neil Young states that the company is still in the process of setting up partnerships to get streaming rights.
It’s hardly unique for a music streaming service to offer high resolution audio files, after all that’s exactly Tidal’s appeal; with a lossless audio tier available to those willing to pay. Thus far Tidal’s premium tier has hardly been popular however, and it’s doubtful that Neil Young is going to be a more popular figure head than Tidal’s Jay-Z. Of course, Pono promises even higher quality music, so to those in the AV industry that will be a more appealing factor.
For those who already own a Pono music player, things haven’t all been plain sailing either – leading to some to assume that maybe this music streaming service won’t be either. In September the PonoMusic Store went offline when its provider was acquired, leaving users unable to buy high resolution music files. The service is still yet to return.