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Music servers and other computer based digital audio technologies.

Here in lies the problem

First we get a test like the test in the link provided attempting to justify high resolution audio. Ok say I agree with the conclusions (I don't BTW) it still doesn't support what's going on with PONO and high resolution.

Now we get the PONO store, as described by David Pogue - "The Pono store is almost completely devoid of high-res classical music, which is baffling — wouldn’t classical fans cherish high audio quality as much as rock fans?"

Yes David makes a great point - especially given the test being passed around to support high resolution in the first place.

Yet many audiophiles seem to be coming out of the woodwork in defense of the PONO store. How can this be? The attached link does not support high resolution reissues - in fact it seems to suggest the opposite. No question about it the best sound I've ever heard from a home stereo came from analog tape or from high resolution digital recordings of live performance. But that's not what the PONO store is all about. If you want that there's plenty of live high res on the Internet Archives some of which sounds pretty fantastic - and it's free and legal!!!

Though I would concede it's possible that a remaster (forget hi-res for this comment) sounds better than an original, it's not likely given the fact that tape degrades and very often eq is added to compensate for whatever (including engineerings tastes) thus the remaster is not often true to the original. Thus sounding better, more details heard, etc. doesn't really mean an improvement just a difference.

I think it's cheap to use technology to continue to remarket the same old recordings over and over over again - each time appealing to listeners taste and sophistication. For me this is typical of the way audio is marketed. Of course now, new records, created with the new technology, won't suffer the same problems. But then again who's gonna buy it when they can buy "DEFINITIVE" versions of their favorite recordings. And God bless those who can afford to buy their umpteenth version of Blood On the Tracks and take the time to find new music to buy in HD.


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