Nov 12 2012
Neil Young’s Pono – an iPod Rival?
According to the Rolling Stone, Neil Young’s company Pono plans to introduce a line of portable music players, a music downloading service and technology that converts digital signals to analog sounds. This digital to analog conversion technology would provide an unparalleled accurate representation of original recording sessions. As somewhat of an audiophile, I am excited by this news. Although I love my iPod and my iPhone, MP3’s fail to provide the richness and warmth of a live recording.
However, Apple is clearly dominating the MP3 download and player sales markets. Is there room in the market for Pono?
Neil Young believes Pono can help preserve the artistic integrity of music, but artists have little control over the way consumers listen to their music.
I think Pono will need to target the niche market of audiophiles to succeed. Here is why…
- Electronic music is becoming more popular (do dubstep listeners really care about music sound quality?)
- Fewer and fewer recording artists are using tape, instead they are using digital recording systems such as pro-tools
- I do not think improved audio quality will add value to typical music consumers even though Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea mentions “It’s not like some vague thing that you need dogs’ ears to hear. It’s a drastic difference.”
- Switching costs are high as consumers likely have extensive MP3 libraries and would need to re-purchase higher quality songs
- Consumers are content with the status quo of MP3’s and devices like the iPhone that conveniently integrate music into their daily routines
Some artists such as Jimmy Page believe that their music is best experienced in an analog format.
Pono has the ability to encourage a very narrow market of vinyl listeners to transition into the digital age. The bottom line is this is an awesome concept and I would probably buy a Pono. However, I do not see Pono rivaling the success of Apple’s iPod. In the event that Pono becomes overwhelmingly successful, I believe Apple will buy Pono’s technology, release higher quality iPods and expand the iTunes store to sell higher quality audio files!