Neil Young's Pono music player raises millions

Old analog master tapes transferred to DSD or 24/192 you bet. All the best jazz was recorded on analog tape and sound better than any high bit rate digital recording.

"The problem IMO is that Neil Young understands the problem, but he is not technical enough to understand the right approach for a solution."

Maybe not, but Charlie Hanson and team at Ayre Acoustics as well as others on the Pono design team probably are, IMO. We shall soon see.

Technical issues aside if the analog masters are used and new material is recorded at 24/192 then there is hope. The only remaining problem is the pricing. If it isn't in line with redbook CD's the mainstream will never jump on this technology.

if the analog masters are used and new material is recorded at 24/192 then there is hope.

The Record labels are not going to spend any money remastering albums. They will use their current masters which are of varying formats and bump them to the required standard used by Pono and iTunes, either 24/96 or 24/192.

I can foresee a few major bands remastering albums for HiRez services, one being Neil Young.

For the record, wishing them well does not mean I will pay a penny for any proprietary/drm'ed files. I also fully expect, unfortunately, that as noted above, the files will simply be uprezzed crappy masters that will be a waste of time.

I have really been enjoying Universal's new flat transfers out of Japan - it just goes to show that in most cases no mastering is preferable to letting the tone deaf engineers operating the controls in the studios "master" the music.