When it comes to listening to music, are we settling for “good enough?” The artists certainly think so. Listening to compressed digital music such as MP3s is like “seeing a xerox of the Mona Lisa,” according to Elvis Costello.

In our quest for portability, we lost more than the charming pops and warm, fuzzy crackles we experienced listening to music on vinyl; we lost the emotion and feeling of music. Until Pono, listening to albums on vinyl used to be the closest thing to being in the recording studio with the artists. With the popularity of compressed digital music, we learned to settle for good enough. Pono is here to change all that.

Neil Young, backed by dozens of artists and a phenomenally successful Kickstarter campaign (watch the video below), is bringing back that studio-quality sound with Pono, a portable device that plays music files in their native resolution, the way the artists intended.

Pono will have a huge presence at Dreamforce this year—with Young as one of the keynote speakers and Pedram Abrari, EVP of Technology at PonoMusic, answering questions and showing live demos of the new Pono Music Store & Community, a social high-resolution music store powered by the Salesforce1 Community Cloud. The Pono Community gives music fans worldwide a place to discuss their favorite artists and music—and potentially, with the artists themselves.

Dreamforce attendees will also get a chance to experience the PonoPlayer firsthand in the Community Cloud Campground. Stop by the Pono lounge and listen to music the way the artists heard it in the studio. The PonoPlayer transports you to a sublime musical experience, from the most delicate passages of a string quartet to the thunderous power of a heavy metal band. We’ll have a headphone listening lounge and listening booths, for a shared home audio experience with Pono.

“We are launching Pono at Dreamforce and hope to get our message out far and wide. Come help us energize the Pono movement,” says Abrari.

Dreamforce is your opportunity to hear it first.

Thursday, October 16, 10:00am-1:00pm

Moscone South

REIMAGINE EVERYTHING

Come see the legendary rock icon Neil Young tell the story of Pono, the high-resolution music startup he founded using a grassroots movement to save music from compressed audio formats. Pono aims to preserve the feeling, spirit, and emotion that the artists put in their original studio recordings and to provide the best possible listening experience of digital music.

Tuesday, October 14, 12:30pm-12:50pm

Marketing Hub, Palace Hotel

PONOMUSIC COMMUNITY: LIVE

Join us to learn why PonoMusic chose the Salesforce1 Community Cloud as the technology to turn Neil’s vision into reality in less than six months. Learn how Chatter features were leveraged to convert a Kickstarter-funded movement to save music into a one-of-a-kind social music store using AppExchange partner, CloudCraze, an e-commerce platform that runs natively on the Salesforce1 Platform. 

To learn more about the Community Cloud that powers Pono and how it can help your business, visit our website, or download the free e-book.