Neil Young to launch audio device with Kickstarter campaign

Neil Young had been teasing his plans for a high-resolution audio device since early 2012 – he even conversed with Steve Jobs about a new iPod – but it wasn’t until a Facebook update last September that a concrete launch had been set for PonoMusic.

Now, a press release posted on a Neil Young fansite (that was then reported on by Computeraudiophile.com and Evolver.com), says the Canadian music veteran will launch his labored-over digital music proprietor (PonoMusic.com) and portable PonoPlayer via a crowdfunding campaign powered by Kickstarter.

The campaign will kick off March 15 with Kickstarter taking discounted pre-orders for the $399 device. Preceding that, Young will be interviewed about Pono at Austin Texas; SXSW festival at 5pm on March 11.

Young has partnered with US hardware company Ayre Acoustics for the PonoPlayer device, which comes with 128GB of memory to store 1000 to 2000 albums (!) – it also accepts memory cards to up capacity and is set to ship with “zero-feedback”, due to a digital filter that stops “unnatural pre-ringing”.

PonoMusic is marketed to go hand-in-hand with the device; it’s a desktop-based control system where users can download music and sync it to the player. Tech-loving skeptics have already come forward on Computeraudiophile.com; dubious comments have been posted about file sizes and whether users will be happy downloading all their music from the PonoMusic store and playing them via a device that’s too awkwardly angular to keep in their pockets. However Pono promises they’ll offer “the finest quality, highest-resolution digital music from both major labels and prominent independent labels.”

“It’s about the music, real music,” Young says in a statement. “We want to move digital music into the 21st century and PonoMusic does that. We couldn’t be more excited about bringing PonoMusic to the market.”

Young is the Founder and Chairman of PonoMusic while the CEO position is held by seasoned industry exec. John Hamm, who spent almost two years as a Board Member at the Grammy Foundation.

“Our goal was to offer the highest quality digital music available from all the major labels with the world’s greatest sounding, user-friendly portable music player,” says Hamm. “We’ve achieved our goal and we are excited to launch our Kickstarter campaign next week to invite music lovers everywhere to join the PonoMusic community and reserve a PonoPlayer for their own enjoyment.”