In an attempt to “confront the compressed audio inferiority that MP3s offer,” musician Neil Young is releasing a line of portable Pono players next year, a music-download service that could rival iTunes and a digital-to-analog conversion designed to “present songs as they first sound during studio recording sessions,” reports Rolling Stone.
Young hopes that the high-resolution music service will help unite the recording industry with cloud storage “to save the sound of music.”
“It’s not like some vague thing that you need dogs’ ears to hear. It’s a drastic difference,” musician Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers) says of analog vs. digital music recordings. “MP3s suck. It’s just a shadow of the music.”
The bassist recently tested out Pono and has since expressed support for the venture.
The “Big Three” record labels — Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music — have reportedly expressed interest. Even before WMG partnered with the Pono project last year, the label converted its 8,000-title library to high resolution, 192kHz/24-bit sound. UMG and Sony have not yet reported any partnerships with Pono, but have been approached.
“This has to be an industry-wide solution. This is not about competing — this is about us being proactive,” says Craig Kallman, chairman and chief executive of Atlantic Records. “This is all about purely the opportunity to bring the technology to the table.”
Some have raised some doubt about the venture, however, noting that consumers may not want to repurchase songs just to get the upgraded quality.
No Comments Yet
You can be the first to comment!
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.