PonoPlayer: The $50 Million Dream That Died - Krazy Ken’s Tech Talk

Thank you Helix Sleep for sponsoring! Visit https://helixsleep.com/computerclan to take advantage of their Spring Savings Event - 20% Off Site-wide! You can support this channel on Patreon! Link below… Neil Young was on a mission to bring high-res music to listeners with the PonoPlayer and Pono ecosystem. The PonoMusic company successfully raised over $13 million, and was valued at $50 million, but in less than four years… it was all gone. Watch these next:    • OUYA: $33 Million Failure (What Really Hap...      • Pebble Smartwatch: From $230 Million to Ze...      • Lytro: The $360 Million Company That Died ...   Twitter ●   / thecomputerclan   Bluesky ● https://bsky.app/profile/computerclan... Facebook ●   / computerclan   Etsy Store ● https://thecomputerclan.com/etsy Contact Us ● https://thecomputerclan.com/contact Get film gear I use ● https://thecomputerclan.com/gear ⭐️Support the Computer Clan on Patreon ●   / krazyken   Lots of cool people helped make this episode possible! Brainiac Brent: Assistant Editing Savvy Sage: Research Ian Schwabe (@ArtisIan_): Illustrations (Neil Young Bedroom, Horse) Heidi: Illustrations (Neil Young Portrait, Snake Oil) Thanks, Damian, for being in this episode! Delicious Damian:    / @differentdamian   Special thanks to everyone who was interviewed! Jens Dietrich, Matthew Di Tullo, Ron Weekes/landlocked54, Michael O’Brien, Tom Veldran, Daniell Krawczyk (@dkrawc) Thanks to ‪@CinemaZeeVT‬ for the cameo! ●   / cinemazee   And special thanks to my amazing Feedback Team! More information about balanced audio ● https://thecomputerclan.com/balanced 0:00 Introduction & Neil Young’s History 2:02 PureTone Origins 5:35 PonoMusic Origins 8:52 Kickstarter 12:18 Experiment Setup 13:58 PonoPlayer Hardware 18:24 Digital Audio Explained 21:51 PonoMusic Store & PonoMusic World 23:24 Public Reception 25:13 Experiment Results & Ken’s Personal Test 28:09 Problems at PonoMusic 31:20 Why Did PonoMusic Fail? 35:16 What Happened Next? #KrazyKen #ComputerClan #HelixMattress