Thoughts on the Astell&Kern DAPs
Options
AsSiMiLaTeD
Posts: 11,722
So it's been some time since I've posted here, life kept getting in the way of audio! Anyways, I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things and have been playing around with personal audio and thought I'd share some thoughts from my most recent testing.
I managed to get my hands on a few of the DAPs from Astell&Kern, specifically the AK100II, the AK1200II, and the AK240 (the AK380 is more than I"m willing to spend on a device that I carry around with me so I didn't test it). These are all full featured personal audio players based around the same DAC chipset and an Android UI, with varying degrees of headphone amplification.
The 120 and 240 have the same dual DAC configuration as far as I can tell, each having two of the same single DAC chip that the 100 uses. They also all share the same basic UI with some minor differences that don's affect functionality or usability. There are differences between the players for things like native DSD support and space that I won't go into here because they're on a spec sheet somewhere.
I came in expecting to favor the 240 overall but was hoping the cheaper players would sound close enough to their bigger brother to justify the trade-off in size and cost. To my ears the AK240 and AK1200II sound identical, IF there is a difference it's extremely minor and one you'd have to do lots of direct comparison between the two players to hear, certainly nothing you'd hear in normal listening sessions. If you're big into DSD the 240 handles it natively while the 120 and 100 convert to PCM, I had a really difficult time hearing the difference with lots of listening to the same tracks over and over but if that's a thing for you then you'll want to look at the 240. Unless you need the extra storage or want the styling or native DSD support of the 240 the decision between those two becomes clear, with the AK120II being the better buy.
So great, I thought, I just saved myself several hundred bucks and can get away with the 120. All I have to do is compare the AK100II and confirm that it is indeed inferior and then we're good to go.
Well, from a technical perspective the 100 is probably at least a little objectively inferior to the other two players (I haven't checked and wouldn't even know how to test but I bet it doesn't measure as well)...but it's my favorite of the bunch.
Whereas the 120 and 240 are ultra-resolving with gobs of detail and great impact I do find that they both fall slightly on the bright side of neutral. When you first fire them up the sound is truly spectacular and remains that way for a long while, but over time it all started to wear on me a little. By comparison the AK100II is a tad more laid back, it's still neutral sounding but doesn't have the 'edginess' to the sound that the other players do, it's also more forgiving of poor recordings. You do ultimately give up some resolution to get this sound character, but it's a great compromise for me personally - then again I tend not to like gear that is on the brighter side. The 100 also has a slightly less powerful amp than the two big brothers, but it's still plenty of juice for many headphones. I'd argue that a headphone that needs more power than the 100 can deliver probably won't be ideal with the other two models either, so for difficult loads with any of these you'd still want a desktop amp.
I've written about my experience with the Pono player a couple times here and really like the sound on that player, it's been my portable player of choice for over a year as I have really enjoyed the laid back sound that's very musical while not fatiguing in the least. The AK100II basically takes the Pono and adds a bit more impact and excitement to the sound without overdoing it to bring the sound signature from a warm sound in the Pono to neutral with the AK100II. It's essentially the perfect sound signature to me, sitting in between the extremes of the 120/240 and the Pono.
This is yet another example where spending more on a product doesn't always yield better results. Like I said, I think the higher end AK players are technically better, but I enjoy the less expensive player more and am glad I decided to test it out.
I'll do a followup post with a bit more on the AK100II as I get some more hours on it and figure out the things that piss me off
I managed to get my hands on a few of the DAPs from Astell&Kern, specifically the AK100II, the AK1200II, and the AK240 (the AK380 is more than I"m willing to spend on a device that I carry around with me so I didn't test it). These are all full featured personal audio players based around the same DAC chipset and an Android UI, with varying degrees of headphone amplification.
The 120 and 240 have the same dual DAC configuration as far as I can tell, each having two of the same single DAC chip that the 100 uses. They also all share the same basic UI with some minor differences that don's affect functionality or usability. There are differences between the players for things like native DSD support and space that I won't go into here because they're on a spec sheet somewhere.
I came in expecting to favor the 240 overall but was hoping the cheaper players would sound close enough to their bigger brother to justify the trade-off in size and cost. To my ears the AK240 and AK1200II sound identical, IF there is a difference it's extremely minor and one you'd have to do lots of direct comparison between the two players to hear, certainly nothing you'd hear in normal listening sessions. If you're big into DSD the 240 handles it natively while the 120 and 100 convert to PCM, I had a really difficult time hearing the difference with lots of listening to the same tracks over and over but if that's a thing for you then you'll want to look at the 240. Unless you need the extra storage or want the styling or native DSD support of the 240 the decision between those two becomes clear, with the AK120II being the better buy.
So great, I thought, I just saved myself several hundred bucks and can get away with the 120. All I have to do is compare the AK100II and confirm that it is indeed inferior and then we're good to go.
Well, from a technical perspective the 100 is probably at least a little objectively inferior to the other two players (I haven't checked and wouldn't even know how to test but I bet it doesn't measure as well)...but it's my favorite of the bunch.
Whereas the 120 and 240 are ultra-resolving with gobs of detail and great impact I do find that they both fall slightly on the bright side of neutral. When you first fire them up the sound is truly spectacular and remains that way for a long while, but over time it all started to wear on me a little. By comparison the AK100II is a tad more laid back, it's still neutral sounding but doesn't have the 'edginess' to the sound that the other players do, it's also more forgiving of poor recordings. You do ultimately give up some resolution to get this sound character, but it's a great compromise for me personally - then again I tend not to like gear that is on the brighter side. The 100 also has a slightly less powerful amp than the two big brothers, but it's still plenty of juice for many headphones. I'd argue that a headphone that needs more power than the 100 can deliver probably won't be ideal with the other two models either, so for difficult loads with any of these you'd still want a desktop amp.
I've written about my experience with the Pono player a couple times here and really like the sound on that player, it's been my portable player of choice for over a year as I have really enjoyed the laid back sound that's very musical while not fatiguing in the least. The AK100II basically takes the Pono and adds a bit more impact and excitement to the sound without overdoing it to bring the sound signature from a warm sound in the Pono to neutral with the AK100II. It's essentially the perfect sound signature to me, sitting in between the extremes of the 120/240 and the Pono.
This is yet another example where spending more on a product doesn't always yield better results. Like I said, I think the higher end AK players are technically better, but I enjoy the less expensive player more and am glad I decided to test it out.
I'll do a followup post with a bit more on the AK100II as I get some more hours on it and figure out the things that piss me off