Let's say 4 minutes per song on average. That would be 160MB per song, 667 kilobyte/second (or almost 4 times the data rate of an uncompressed CD, or 41.7 times the data rate of a 128 kilobit/s MP3).
Later on in the article:
Music CDs, and the downloadable songs you buy, are sampled at 16 bit/44.1kHz. The songs you buy from Pono, on the other hand, go as high as 24 bit/192kHz.
24 bits would be nice to have a good SNR ratio on quiet parts of a very dynamic performance (a quiet violin solo when the album volume is set to handle a full orchestra). 192 kHz sampling rate is a complete waste. That puts the Nyquist frequency at 96 kHz. You might need that for your dog, dolphin or bat but you won't be hearing it and in all likelihood your amp and speakers aren't going to play it either.
I would rather use the bandwidth have a good multichannel musical system so I can boost vocals and drop the guitar when I feel like it. Or have an isolated channel just for the cowbell.
It is interesting that Young's comparison was his Pono vs. low resolution MP3s. I can hear the difference between 128 kbps and 192 kbps, but that's about where I max out. I'm thinking of re-ripping all of my CDs at 192 (I already have 128 rips of everything I own), but I don't think I would get anything at 256 or higher. Maybe if I still had the ears of a 20 year old.
Just as a matter of accuracy, 24/192 is FARRRRRRR superior than 24/96.
I’m in high-end audio and around state-of-the-art products - hearing the sonic difference is quite easy - even on affordable DACs with USB and SPDIF inputs.
Finally, the higher sampling rate of 192Khz provides a more accurate replica of the analog waveform than 96Khz - that’s just simple physics.
great info and i have question. on rock and roll aren’t the older masters just two track which they reduced for stereo reproduction purposes and didn’t some of them actually just record two track. as apposed to classical which tried to master with as many tracks as they could get. one of my childhood friends who was a violinist and created his own cd told me their was some difference between the way they were recorded and i probably don’t remember it correctly.