Young Pondering Pono Streaming

Neil Young is mulling over including high-quality streaming as part of his digital music service Pono. Young, a high-profile audiophile, was noted for withholding his catalog from streaming services, lamenting the sacrifices in sound quality.

Recently, though, he made his work available on Tidal, home to “lossless high fidelity” audio. “I don’t need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution,” Young said as he removed his music from Apple Music and Spotify.

Pono is Young’s service for high-fidelity downloads using PonoPlayers, which sell for $399 apiece. The Kickstarter campaign that funded the company’s launch raised more than $6 million.

Critics of the service say the difference in quality provided by the PonoPlayer has been scientifically proven as inaudible to the human ear. Young has said Pono might consider a streaming service with a sampling rate of 44.1 khz, which Gizmodo said is the maximum range at which the human ear can pick up qualitative sound differences.