However, in a new interview with Rolling Stone, Young divulged that Pono will be re-launched as a streaming service. While no dates have been announced for this shift, it definitely seems like a smart move, as streaming revenue officially overtook both download and physical sales as of March this year.
However, the most exciting piece of news gleaned from the interview is also what will set Pono apart from the other streaming giants. According to Young, the service will automatically adjust its bitrate according to the users available bandwidth.
This means that if your internet connection cannot handle streaming at the 192kHz 24-bit resolution that Pono will be able offer, it will automatically downgrade the stream without stopping playback.
Comparatively, Spotify allows users to choose between ‘Normal’ streaming quality, which is the equivalent of around 96 Kbits per second, ‘High’ or ‘Extreme’, which is 320 Kbits per second. If your internet connection or device cannot handle this amount of data then Spotify merely pauses playback. Pono’s adjustable bitrate will mean that the stream will automatically downgrade in quality without pausing, which is a much more user-friendly concept.
Of course the quality of the playback will be dependent on the quality of the audio files supplied to the service by the record labels and artists. When it is available the default setting will be to stream audio at 192kHz, 24-bit, which can equal a bitrate as high as 9Mbps – six times that of TIDAL and between 30-100 times higher than Spotify.
Adaptive streaming quality may be a new concept for music services but it has been used in the world of video playback for some time, with both YouTube and Netflix automatically adjusting quality depending on available bandwidth. While no word has been made about when these changes will occur, this is undeniably a big move for Pono and could well be a step towards the future for streaming services in general.
For more information head to ponomusic.com.
