--- title: Neil Young's High-Quality Pono Music Player is Going on Sale Monday description: A new music player that only plays music. Who'd have thought? canonical: https://time.com/3657448/neil-young-pono-player/ author: Sam Frizell article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-07T15:39:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:04:06.667Z article:section: Business og:title: Neil Young's High-Quality Pono Music Player is Going on Sale Monday og:description: A new music player that only plays music. Who'd have thought? og:url: https://time.com/3657448/neil-young-pono-player/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt967f44bbc2df42c5/69868ad1adae440fa3542932/image29.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: PonoMusic og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Neil Young's High-Quality Pono Music Player is Going on Sale Monday twitter:description: A new music player that only plays music. Who'd have thought? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt967f44bbc2df42c5/69868ad1adae440fa3542932/image29.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Neil Young's Pricey Pono Music Player Is Finally Going on Sale by [Sam Frizell](/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Jan 7, 2015 3:39 PM CUT  PonoMusic by [Sam Frizell](/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Jan 7, 2015 3:39 PM CUT Neil Young’s high-quality music player is going on sale for $399 in retail stores beginning Monday after a successful Kickstarter campaign. [Pono](https://ponomusic.force.com/ "undefined") is a small device with a triangular-shaped back that allows users to buy high-quality audio files at a premium. The idea is to make a product entirely devoted to listening to music, a departure from devices like the iPhone and Android that have turned music-listening into a mere feature. Young said he wanted a music player that sounded better than MP3s. “I didn’t listen to music for the last 15 years because I hated the way it sounded and it made me pissed off and I couldn’t enjoy it any more,” he said at on stage at CES on Tuesday, according to the [Verge](http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/6/7505513/pono-release-date-announced-neil-young-ces-2015 "undefined"). “I could only hear what was missing.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3657448/neil-young-pono-player/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3657448/neil-young-pono-player/"},"headline":"Neil Young's Pricey Pono Music Player Is Finally Going on Sale","datePublished":"2015-01-07T15:39:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:04:06.667Z","description":"A new music player that...only plays music","url":"https://time.com/3657448/neil-young-pono-player/","keywords":["Tech","Gadgets","Music","ces 2015"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt967f44bbc2df42c5/69868ad1adae440fa3542932/image29.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sam Frizell","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt967f44bbc2df42c5/69868ad1adae440fa3542932/image29.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"PonoMusic","caption":"PonoMusic","creditText":"PonoMusic","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3657448/neil-young-pono-player/","name":"Neil Young's Pricey Pono Music Player Is Finally Going on Sale"}}]}] ```