3 ms·

"In terms of its sound, I would say that for me it's without equal in the realm of hand held portable players in terms of pleasurable listening...When I compare

"In terms of its sound, I would say that for me it's without equal in the realm of hand held portable players in terms of pleasurable listening...When I compare it side-by-side in blind tests with other players I find its smooth yet resolving treble to be its stand-out characteristic. " " This test pitted the Pono Player against a Galaxy Note 4 and an Apple iPad Air. This was actually the hardest test to get a reliable grip on identifying the various players... Because differences were so small I had to rely more on a subjective approach—just relaxing and sensing how the music was affecting me. Usually it would take me 5-15 minutes of listening and slowly switching back and forth between sources before I could determine which was the Pono Player." One of these things is not like the other...

gwern 12y ago
> "Usually it would take me 5-15 minutes of listening and slowly switching back and forth between sources before I could determine which was the Pono Player." Yes, I'm not clear on how his blinding setup works, but this sounds like the sort of activity that could easily unblind oneself.
- Chipchipperson 12y ago
  Well that and if this device is so great that it will save music and we need to send $500 and re-purchase our entire music library from the Pono Store, then you should be able to tell the difference between it and a tablet pretty easily without 15 minutes of intense concentrated listening.
- SloopJon 12y ago
  > I'm not clear on how his blinding setup works Search for "Blind Testing" on the first page: "I use a passive three-way switch to route the outputs from the three sources to a pair of headphones. ... without looking, I scramble the cables in each hand."
  - gwern 12y ago
    Can that possibly work? I would not expect cables to be perfectly indistinguishable (human touch is pretty sensitive), if only because of slight differences in tension/position/direction.
splitdisk 12y ago
Self-deception is the hardest thing to contend with in these kinds of listening tests. An edge case might be this person's experience with self-deception in a hearing test: http://www.sociopathworld.com/2012/02/hyperlexia.html http://www.sociopathworld.com/2012/02/hyperlexia.html

gwern 12y ago

> "Usually it would take me 5-15 minutes of listening and slowly switching back and forth between sources before I could determine which was the Pono Player." Yes, I'm not clear on how his blinding setup works, but this sounds like the sort of activity that could easily unblind oneself.

Chipchipperson 12y ago
Well that and if this device is so great that it will save music and we need to send $500 and re-purchase our entire music library from the Pono Store, then you should be able to tell the difference between it and a tablet pretty easily without 15 minutes of intense concentrated listening.
SloopJon 12y ago
> I'm not clear on how his blinding setup works Search for "Blind Testing" on the first page: "I use a passive three-way switch to route the outputs from the three sources to a pair of headphones. ... without looking, I scramble the cables in each hand."
- gwern 12y ago
  Can that possibly work? I would not expect cables to be perfectly indistinguishable (human touch is pretty sensitive), if only because of slight differences in tension/position/direction.

splitdisk 12y ago

Self-deception is the hardest thing to contend with in these kinds of listening tests. An edge case might be this person's experience with self-deception in a hearing test: http://www.sociopathworld.com/2012/02/hyperlexia.html http://www.sociopathworld.com/2012/02/hyperlexia.html