How many are still using their PonoPlayer?

@Charles C yes it is bad for lithium batteries to sit around empty. Cycling PonoPlayers also helps to reform capacitors. To save the micro USB port I run a small USB cable to a battery power bank, when at home. When it needs charging, I unplug the cord from the bank, leaving the small "tail" hooked to the PonoPlayer. Less wear and tear on the USB port. I see so many ports go bad on phones. 

Thanks,

Doug A

Good to know; I'll start doing that.  Thanks @Doug A!

Hi guys,

good to hear from you and I hope you are doing well. Unfortunately I can use my PonoPlayer alternately because I still only own just a Norah Jones LE. I rarely use it because I have far better stationary alternatives with Ayre DACs and really good Roon Ready mobile wireless speakers at home or in the garden and I haven't been on a beach vacation for a long time where I'm dependent on a good-sounding DAP. Nevertheless, my Pono is still working after all these years, albeit with limited battery life.

I'll probably have to activate my Pono more in the near future as a temporary solution because my Auralic Aries, which is the streaming transport for my Ayre Codex for listening to headphones in the sunroom system, has probably been defective for a few days and it will take some time to find a good replacement.

Best

Thomas

Hello,

I'm curious to know if anyone is aware if or has tried to use the Pono without an Internal battery present? Maybe buy way of some external Power Supply or Battery Bank you are using of equivalent Input/Output Specs of the normal Internal batteries?

 I also own a Pono Player (Black one) that still functions. I've always been impressed with its SQ for a Portable/Mobile type device. I don't really use mine anymore mostly due to the battery life for "on the move" use cases.

I'll admit upfront that I have not spent much time looking into the question above (about bypassing the Internal battery) but this thread reminded me about the Pono that I already own and enjoyed at one point in the past.

I think it would be pretty cool if the device could be used without worrying about the tiny Internal battery all the time. I get that its very possible that it sounds the way it does..because of...it running from a battery. So if one wanted to maintain any gains in SQ because of the use of a battery based power supply maybe they could just source their own larger unit which could itself be fed from the wall outlet.

I'm thinking along the lines of repurposing a Pono from being a portable device to a "fixed" device where unlimited power could be fed to it via whatever means and that there would be almost no need to pull any cables from it out of fear of wearing out the interface itself.

I now have 3 Pono players as well.  I use one as a dedicated digital player hooked up to my stereo system.  Another, having the same music on it is solely for balanced headphone use.  I have a third as a "backup".  I slowly acquired 3 of them bargain hunting on eBay because for me this player is all I need and even still relatively portable.  The most I paid was $150 (Metallica Signature edition), one I got for $75 (Yellow). The third one is my originally purchased black one.   Pono sounds fantastic in balanced mode and I have no desire to invest in thousands for a marginal improvement, more than likely my ears are not able to hear the difference anyway.  

I have replaced batteries using the ones available at Surf Cables twice already.  It is not that hard to do as long as the batteries remain available.   I think it does work even if the battery is basically completely tanked if it is plugged in.  I mean, you can run it just find plugged in continuously I used to do this and I have no idea if it was a good idea or not.  The batteries seemed to fail eventually either way.  In order to keep the plug from degrading I have plugged in a USB-C to micro-USB connector so I basically never removed that secondary connection to keep it from wearing out.

Edit:  The other things I have done for the Ponos is invest in high speed cards, this enables them to use large micro SD cards, I have 512gb cards installed and I hear that people are using 1TB cards too.  Finally, I keep no data on the internal memory whatsoever to try to keep any load on that as light as possible since I have no idea if it could ever be replaced.

Hi everyone! Amazing to see so many of you here and currently posting. Had 3 Ponos, the LE works fine with the sd card but internal skips. Took everything off that but I keep it safe most of the time since I had gotten it autographed. I have a black one that I use most often and it just started skipping on the internal, so I guess I’ll have to take everything off there and just use the cards. It is a little loose where the charger plugs in so it needs some wiggling to make that work at times. It’s gotten a LOT of use.
 

But the 3rd yellow one I bought off eBay after a year or so and it’s my least used one. Was sort of saving it in case something happened to the others. I have been switching between the black and this one recently. Yesterday I listened to it for a few hours and paused it while I took a call. When I came back it seems to be off, it won’t come on and nothing happened when I tried two different chargers. I feel like it’s warmer than off and I think it’s somehow stuck in sleep or something. I stuck the sd card in my pc and it says there’s an error in the drive, tells me to scan and repair and then says it scanned and found no errors. The card has done that a few times when I added new files in the pc but never caused any issues. I did have a problem one day with it not coming on but at the time I thought it was the charger and when I used a different one it was fine. 
 

So I came here to see if anyone else had this issue or any ideas. I did try to start it without the card after reading a couple of you had mentioned that. But it didn’t work. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Also I can’t help but notice that all three of the players sound slightly different from each other. The most used one sounds the best. The LE  was used constantly the first year and was well broken in and it sounds pretty close to the black one. This yellow one has never sounded quite as good to me. Could be a break in thing I guess since I haven’t used it as much. I started thinking that each one might have its own unique sound. Wondering if anyone else had noticed anything like that or maybe I’m just nuts.

thanks for reading this and even if nobody can help it’s good to check in and see so many of you. Hope everyone is doing well. 
 

1 hour ago, LF said:

Also I can’t help but notice that all three of the players sound slightly different from each other. The most used one sounds the best. The LE  was used constantly the first year and was well broken in and it sounds pretty close to the black one. This yellow one has never sounded quite as good to me. Could be a break in thing I guess since I haven’t used it as much. I started thinking that each one might have its own unique sound. Wondering if anyone else had noticed anything like that or maybe I’m just nuts. 

All of mine sound exactly the same to my ears.  I would not be able to tell them apart.  

Great idea pinecone. Definitely provides protection for the USB connector. As a side note your yellow finish seems devoid of the orange discoloration that many develop. My yellow has started to turn orange in spots.

Thanks for sharing,

Doug A

Hi! Just bought a Pono Player. Still in it’s wrapping.Seller claimed unused and would boot! After receiving it I charged it for a few hours with Pono charger, pressed start button, PONO Powered by AYRE screen comes up but doesn’t boot. Screen goes blank. Held start button for 10s+ … same thing! Any ideas? Bought off Ebay and could return to seller but wud have to pay return postage … losing battle!

Congratulations if this actually works, I love mine still, although my first one is a bit touchy, and have replaced its batteries.  

Is there a SD card in the external SC card slot?  If so, take it out as it may not be a good one,  There are lots of fake cards out there, and also my older PONO player sometimes cannot boot up anymore with the card in it.  I start it with no card, and then put the card in after it boots up.  

Try rebooting again with no external SD card.  It may take quite a few minutes for the Pono to reboot even with the updated software.  

Attach the Pono player to a computer by a USB cord and turn on.  Do you see if the PONO player has connected to the computer as an external SD card or disc?  Sometimes mine took a few times to connect to it.  Are there files on the internal SD card?  

There is information on how to update the software, I would have to look it up.  

I do not put any music on the internal SD cards anymore, only the external SD cards, and do that by direct downloading the files onto the SD card,  not in the Pono player connection.  That will make sure I keep the internal disc fairly free.

What did the wrapping look like?  I only have two autographed Pono players, with the bamboo box, so don't know what an off the shelf Pono player looked like new.  Hopefully it is legit.  Also the battery may be bad after all of these years.  Did you try starting it when it was still plugged in?   Good luck.  

Hi! THANX for qwik reply to my post! No SD card in it. Tried to connect to Win10 PC … no luck. I think battery is dead as it wont take a charge and wont show PONO startup screen if not plugged into USB charging upon pressing start button. I even tried connecting to a USB power bank ….  no go! Should it boot if plugged into USB charging even if battery dead? The plastic wrapping looks legit so I think it is new? Perhaps sitting unused since first purchased? Thanx!

3 hours ago, breilkoff said:

Hi! THANX for qwik reply to my post! No SD card in it. Tried to connect to Win10 PC … no luck. I think battery is dead as it wont take a charge and wont show PONO startup screen if not plugged into USB charging upon pressing start button. I even tried connecting to a USB power bank ….  no go! Should it boot if plugged into USB charging even if battery dead? The plastic wrapping looks legit so I think it is new? Perhaps sitting unused since first purchased? Thanx!

I had to wait a bit to test, as our power went out. My pono was dead and could immediately start it up once I plugged it into power.  
 

I'm curious if a new battery fixed yours.  I just bought one used which has same behavior.  Thinking a dead battery, but would interested to compare fixes before I crack this one open

Hi! I decided to return to seller via Ebay return policy. If Surfcable could have sent me a battery I might have kept it but they told me couldnt send on land internationally (Canada).I think a new battery wud have foxed it! Good luck!

I suspect eBay resold me your dead unit (black s/n 15151023). Gotta love those guys...
I did order a battery from John at Surf Cables, so depending what kind of concession the slippery seller makes, I might open this one up. Meantime, anyone else out there have a Pono to sell?

Breilkoff, I wonder if you have the eBay order number for your defective unit?

I don’t know about anyone else but I have already replaced batteries 3 times. I have three ponos, 1 is more of a backup but all 3 still get used.   2 of them I bought used on EBay, 1 of those came with a dead battery which I replaced from surf.  The other one is still miraculously using the original battery.   The Pono I originally received back in 2015 has had its battery replaced twice already.  I would think most original batteries by this time need to be replaced.  These units are ~9 years old now.  

My defective unit that was returned to seller was yellow.

then it seems there are a few of these new-looking but dead Ponos for sale on eBay by unscrupulous sellers.  Beware...
 

@Karrma 

Quote

I do not put any music on the internal SD cards anymore, only the external SD cards, and do that by direct downloading the files onto the SD card,  not in the Pono player connection.  That will make sure I keep the internal disc fairly free.

I haven’t messed with my husband’s Pono for years and now I cannot remember how.  First off, it won’t show all the music on his player.  I suspect that what it is not showing is the music on the SD card.  It could be bad or maybe I just don’t remember how to make it show.  Second, the pono software on my computer keeps showing duplicate songs.

So I guess my questions are - since I cannot get at the main disc in the pono, should I put all his music on a new SD card and will it show up?  Is there a way to delete the music off the main disc in the pono?  Alternatively is there any way to add music to the main disc.Any help would be appreciated - he loves his pono and wants me to fix it but I just am not sure how.

TRH: I attach a copy of the Quick Start instructions that came with the Pono.
If, when charged, the Pono turns on and plays, then you can direct your attentions to the removable micro SD card, which is safer and much faster to work with. 
If you use a PC to transfer music files to it, they will show up if put in the .pono folder/directory.  For you to "see" them, though, they need to, first, all be in that directory and not in subfolders (subdirectories), and they need to be "tagged" (embedded) with the album art which is associated with the music.  Depending on where the files came from, and what kind of music (classical requires quite a bit of work), the tagging of these files can be arduous.  But when done, the music should load, display, and play as you expect.

Pono Quick Start Manual.pdf

In recent years, I have rarely used my Pono LE because I have rarely been on vacation due to circumstances and have mostly used the player at the beach or pool. Two weeks ago I was on a short hiking vacation with my family in South Tyrol/Italy. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't forecast to be great at the time. Fortunately, we were at a wellness resort and I thought it would be a good opportunity to reactivate my Pono, so I updated my 400 GB mSD and reloaded it.

I was not disappointed, the weather was better than expected and we were able to do a few hikes, but there was still plenty of time to hang out in the relax zone by the pool, listen to good music and enjoy the view of the Dolomites.

Even after almost ten years, the battery has enabled more than 5 hours of listening with consistently HighRes files in FLAC or DSD and the sound quality can still easily keep up with current high-end DAPs when using my Cardas A8 IEMs in balanced mode.

In times of planned obsolescence and product life cycles of perhaps two or three years for many DAPs today, this is a remarkable value.

It helps that there is still support out there, such as by John at Surf Cables and this forum.  Great little player once you get used to its menu system.  Storage and playback capabilities are still terrific after these many years.   I've been donating these to friends who need a nudge toward digital music playback just to show them that the Brave New World isn't totally Spotify.  They can still own their own music and play it anywhere.

@alh22  Thanks for the info.  I do still have the box and all the instructions.  The display you are showing - is that what is on the removable sd card or the internal storage?  I have ordered a new sd card because apparently the adapter for it was lost in our recent move.  Once it gets here, I will be able to check the current mini sd and see if it is the problem.  If it is, I can just load all the music to the new card and hopefully that will solve my problems.  If that isn’t the problem, is there a way to erase the music from the internal storage so I can keep all the music on the removable?