Neil Young's new audiophile portable players reaches USD1.5Mn raised in 1 day!

[indialogue]

Here's the Kickstarter link. Absolutely crazy reception - go check it out. Some very sweet sounding (and looking) limited edition players available as well - just ordered the Pearl Jam signed edition. Bye bye credit card!! hyeah:

Pearl Jam edition's now sold out! Crazy!

 

[asliarun]

It is a lovely initiative even if more than a year late. IMHO, what would make this revolutionary is not so much the device (which looks good) but the availability of good quality and well mastered music. We are desperately in need of such an online service that can let us download well recorded music.

It would have been nice if they disclosed more technical features. The other side of the toblerone isn't even visible in any of the photos. The side opposite to the visible side where you can see the headphone socket. It is not clear if this will only have headphone out or will also have digital out (probably not).

 

[indialogue]

It is a lovely initiative even if more than a year late. IMHO, what would make this revolutionary is not so much the device (which looks good) but the availability of good quality and well mastered music. We are desperately in need of such an online service that can let us download well recorded music.

It would have been nice if they disclosed more technical features. The other side of the toblerone isn't even visible in any of the photos. The side opposite to the visible side where you can see the headphone socket. It is not clear if this will only have headphone out or will also have digital out (probably not).

A few details are known - the DAC chip is a TOTL ESS9018 chip, it has headphone out and line out (for amplifiers, car stereos) but no digital/optical out, photos indicate that they use really nice and beefy Nichicon caps in the output stage, so should drive headphones well etc. etc.

I'm also hoping that this will result in better mastered music and not just conversion into high-resolution FLAC (like other providers). I'm not really very interested in the 192/96 khz capability but more to see what they can do with the 44.1/48 formats.

If you see the Kickstarter video, all the artists profiled seemed to come away with a good impression. though how it will really sound is still not known because most of these are just 2-3 min auditions I'm guessing