CES 2015: Neil Young takes Pono music for a Harman ride

At CES in Las Vegas last week, infotainment leaders Harman announced a deal to bring Neil Young’s Pono music project into the automotive world.

At the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week, global audio and infotainment company Harman and Pono Music revealed their vision for offering the highest quality music to the automobile market. Legendary recording artist Neil Young and Harman Chairman and CEO Dinesh Paliwal discussed solutions to offer the PonoMusic catalog and supreme, lossless HD quality playback in vehicles.

We are excited to collaborate with Mr.Young and the team at Pono Music to expand their reach into the car and let people hear music as the artist intended, a mission of ours at Harman,” said Dinesh Paliwal, Chairman and CEO, Harman.

Harman is a company of musicians and engineers bonded together through our legacy of innovations developed with one goal – to make music sound amazing from the studio to the stage to the street and the car. By joining forces with Pono, we will leverage our collective talents and assets to deliver the best in audio to those who love music as much as we do.

Legendary artist Neil Young and Harman CEO Dinesh Paliwal discuss the PonoMusic catalogue.

Last year at CES, Harman revealed a software-based solution called Clari-FiTM to enhance digitally compressed music. This Harman technology today can be found in a variety of automobiles, consumer electronics and mobile devices, including the LexusTM NX, Hyundai ASLAN, JBL Authentics and the HTC One (M8) Harman Kardon edition smartphone. Also announced at CES, Clari-Fi has been ported to the Cirrus Logic Smart Codec platform.

The PonoPlayer is not for audiophiles, it’s for music lovers, who come in all shapes and sizes. We want all of them to feel the power of true HD quality sound,” said Neil Young.

Our collaboration with Harman, the leader in branded car audio, is an exciting step forward in our journey to bring HD-quality music to people wherever they want to listen to it. As the company that brought us Studer, Soundcraft and Mark Levinson, Harman is the ideal partner for us.

“Music is about the feeling you get when you listen to it. Up to 90 percent of a song’s nuances are lost in the digital compression process,” added Young. “I speak for many songwriters, performers, producers, engineers and fans, including myself, when I say, we all deserve better.

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