Pono, the music service spearheaded by Neil Young, will launch in early 2014, according to a Facebook post penned by Young himself. The musician took to Facebook Tuesday to sing the praises of the service, which promises better sound quality than Spotify streams and iTunes downloads, saying that Pono “liberated the music of the artist from the digital file and restored it to its original artistic quality,” something that apparently gives it “primal power.”
Young also revealed a few more details around the service, including the way it sources its music:
“PONO starts at the source: artist-approved studio masters we’ve been given special access to. Then we work with our brilliant partners at Meridian to unlock the richness of the artist’s music to you. There is nothing like hearing this music – and we are working hard to make that experience available to all music lovers, soon. ”
Young went on to say that the Pono service will be based on a portable audio player similar to the one he showed off on David Letterman’s show last year. It had been long-rumored that Pono was based on technology developed by hi-end audio systems maker Meridian, but the exact details of the service have been a subject of intense speculation.
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