Neil Young's PonoMusic music service will debut this week

AUSTIN, Texas, March 10 (UPI) -- Neil Young will debut his music service, PonoMusic, and its accompanying device later this week.

The 68-year-old musician has long complained about the way music sounds in the digital age, and seeks to remedy the situation with PonoMusic. The service will provide listeners with audiophile quality recordings via its online music store and iTunes-esque playback system.

Young reportedly said of his high-fidelity service, "It's about the music, real music. We want to move digital music into the 21st century and PonoMusic does that. We couldn't be more excited -- not for ourselves, but for those that are moved by what music means in their lives."

The official PonoMusic website boasts that the service will act as "your own personal time machine, to take you back to the place and time of the original music event, and let you feel music in ways you've only felt seeing it live."

The service will be accompanied by the release of its own audio player, the PonoPlayer. The device is said to play back music at a level that surpasses the typical smartphone, and contains 128GB of memory. It will feature an intuitive LCD touch screen and will also accept memory cards in order to store more music and playlists.

Young will unveil the PonoPlayer on Tuesday at the SXSW Music Conference. The device, which has a suggested retail price of $399, will be available via PonoMusic.com later this week. The service will also be available on Kickstarter starting on March 15. Kickstarter will initially offer the PonoPlayer at a discount.

[Rolling Stone]