Neil Young Hopes to Raise $800k from Kickstarter to Turn PonoPlayer Into A Reality

Yesterday we told you about the PonoPlayer, a high-resolution (FLAC) audio music player dreamt up by Neil Young that was announced at SXSW. Today, the PonoPlayer Kickstarter campaign is live and is looking to raise at least $800,000 in the next 34 days in order to fund the production of the music player.

Early backers of the product have a chance to nab the PonoPlayer for $200, as opposed to the $400 retail price it will be selling for this fall. Other rewards include posters signed by Neil Young and a private dinner with the rock star. The campaign page also includes a few more technical details, including that Pono will play FLAC files with bit rates of up to 9216 kbps.

Will you be backing the PonoPlayer? Let us know!

Update: Well that was faster than I expected! The PonoPlayer has secured almost $1.5 million from backers on Kickstarter in less than 24 hours, blowing past the $800k the company was looking to raise through the campaign.  The campaign still has 34 days to go meaning it could potentially end up becoming the most successful Kickstarter campaign yet (it would need to beat out Pebble which raised just over $10.2 million).