Last week my Pono shipping-notification email arrived and included a link to the PonoMusic World software. Even before installing and using the application (and even before receiving my PonoPlayer four days later) I was expressing reservations about it. This isn’t fair to Pono or its software developers, of course. The rarified air exhaled by audiophiles and their ilk often results in a hazyhall of clouded mirrors. I try to floss every day, but I admit that my breath can be similarly ilk-like at times.
That said, let us enter PonoMusic World.
PMW is a customized version of JRiver Media Center 20. Like iTunes, access to an online music store is built in to the software’s browser. Unlike iTunes, everything in the store is CD-quality or better. You plug your new PonoPlayer into a desktop or laptop computer’s USB port, fire up PMW, import your files, then load your music onto the Player, and buy music from the Pono store and sync your Player with your purchases.
I’ve not yet bought any music from Pono’s store. On the day I took possession of my PonoPlayer, I decided to concentrate on using PMW to load the Player with music I already owned.
PonoMusic World (PMW) timed out on January 1, 2017. There will not be any new versions of the PMW player. Pono has created a new player called PonoMusic Vault. The beta version can be downloaded from ponomusic.com. An alternative to PonoMusic Vault is JRiver Media Center 22. PonoMusic World 20 is a program marketed by J. Frequently, computer users want to remove it. Sometimes this can be efortful because performing this by hand requires some know-how related to removing Windows applications by hand. One of the best EASY manner to remove PonoMusic World 20 is to use Advanced Uninstaller PRO. PonoMusic World 20.0 is available as a free download on our software library. The following version: 20.0 is the most frequently downloaded one by the program users. This PC program is suitable for 32-bit versions of Windows 7/8/10. PonoMusic World belongs to Multimedia Tools. 0.43 x 2.20 x 3.84 inches: 4.72 x 3.15 x 1.57 inches: 2.76 x 5.12 x 5.91 inches: 2.10 x 0.45 x 3.64 inches. Ponomusic World (PMW) will likely not recognize it.
First step was to import all the music on my eternal hard drive into PMW. For folks unfamiliar with JRiver, this doesn’t mean you’re actually copying your files into PMW. All the import process does is draw paths from the source drive to PMW’s interface. You have the choice of importing all your music, or just a folder or two, and/or telling PMW to stay synced with the folder(s) on the drive, and update its interface with any additions or changes to the drive.
Once the import is finished (it can take 90 minutes or more for a multi-terabyte collection), you’re ready to begin transferring music from PonoMusic World to your PonoPlayer.
Some things are intuitive, some are not. Some are in between. For instance, don’t start transferring music until you see this:Pressing the above “yes” means you’re good. But hey – hold on – don’t press “done” until you’re actually done transferring music.
I was using a two-year-old Mac Pro running OS 10.9.5. A substantial amount of time was spent attempting to dial into the seemingly-capricious zen of the PonoPlayer->PMW interface.
PonoMusic World has the familiar JRiver skin, and it behaves like an early beta version of the latter. The application isn’t very responsive, and it hesitates and grinds its teeth a lot. You can almost hear the gears gnashing. It took three or so reboots of the Player, the software, and, ultimately, my computer to get the Player to mount as a device on my desktop and within the PMW app.
Then, after the app stalled yet again, attempting to eject the device – both from within the app and/or on my desktop – brought up a spinning rainbow pizza and locked up my Finder. Simply right-clicking on the PonoPlayer drive icon on my desktop would stall the Finder for minutes at a time. Unplugging the USB cable from the Player would result in that ominous OS X warning about ejecting a removable drive before disconnecting it.
Reboots seemed to clear up the problem, at least temporarily.
Uploading HD files seemed to work best when only doing a couple at a time. When I tried to do about 25 songs (or three or so albums) at once, the progress bar slowed to a near-glacial pace, then the evil rainbow pizza would begin mocking me with its dervish dance — or the app would just crash, necessitating another series of reboots.
When PonoMusic World worked, loading music seemed to take a longer time than it should. Transferring a 24/96 album and an 3-song EP at 16/44 took over 15 minutes, which doesn’t seem right. It’s probable that transferring music from an internal hard drive would go faster – all my files are on a 2TB external FW800 hard drive.
After all the lockups, the reboots, having to re-select files to transfer…trying to fill one 64-gig micro-SD card half-way took me about three hours. Not including the swearing and periodic breaks to pace like a caged animal, of course.
I consulted the Pono Community forums and some helpful souls suggested I bypass PonoMusic World and “sideload” the tracks directly to the SD card using a card reader. I didn’t have a card reader at my office, but did so this weekend at home and found the process relatively painless…and MUCH faster. My sideload end-around of PMW meant that, within an hour, I had a card packed with FLACs and AIFs. I inserted it into the Player, got a “Scanning music library…” screen, and…few seconds all the new music was browsable.
I believe it’s possible that having three installs of JRiver – my original JRMC19 and JRMC20 plus PonoMusic World – might be confusing my system software. But no one at Pono told me not to do that, dude. I’ll keep an eye on the Pono Community forum and see if anyone else is having the same crash-test-dummy experiences I’m having. It’s all about the fellowship.
Ponomusic World 2019
I’m still working on filling the Player up with my own tracks. I’m hoping that there’s some PonoMusicWorld software updates that improve the responsiveness and stability of the application. Soon I’ll find something to buy on the Pono store. I hope that experience is distinguished by less, um, friction.
Until then, me, my PonoPlayer, and sideloading…we’re going to be spending some quality time.
Next: Pono – Part Three: the PonoPlayer
There’s been an update of the PonoMusic World application, the software that’s necessary if you want to download music from the Pono Store.
Ponomusic World 2003
The update takes the PMW desktop application from its initial 20.0.35 build to v20.00.42, then .44, and then (I assume this is a recent, non-stable build?) 20.00.45.
What does this mean? Here’s two threads on the JRiver Pono forum (see top two sticky posts; the change logs below refer to the Mac version):
- 20.0.45 (12/8/2014)
1. Changed: More informative message in the case of download failures.
2. Fixed: File transfers to PonoPlayer were much slower than doing it via Finder.
20.0.44 (12/5/2014)
1. Fixed: Automatic recognition of PonoPlayer was not always reliable, especially if there was a long delay before user clicked the ‘transfer files’ button on it.
2. Changed: More informative status text in the firmware download action window.
20.0.42 (12/4/2104):
1. Changed: Check for orders at program startup will only occur if PMW already has username and password stored.
2. Fixed: If download process was canceled by user and then restarted later in the same program run, the list would still show the canceled tracks above the currently downloading ones.
3. Changed: Improved store login flow and messaging.
4. Fixed: Converting an audio file would carry the Pono authenticated status with it.
5. Changed: Only formats supported by Pono will be listed in the encoder choices.
6. Fixed: The program could become quite slow and unresponsive during file transfers to the PonoPlayer device.
7. NEW: The “Eject” button in the handheld transfer action window blinks for up to 30 seconds following file transfer completion.
8. Changed: Cmd-Q now works properly for exiting the application.
9. Changed: Holding the Control key while clicking the left mouse button now works correctly for bringing up the context menu (right-click menu).
10. Changed: We now use the “login.salesforce.com” call to get the sessionid and the soap web service url. Removes need for hard coded web service endpoint.
11. Fixed: A couple of retina display issues.
Ponomusic World 2020
The mount and unmount process now seems more stable and reliable. There’s still a rather rigid order by which the processes should be initiated, but I’m not getting the long Finder hangs as often.
Next time: I attempt to buy music from the Pono Store and transfer it to my Player.