Leave the turntable at home with Astell & Kern’s audiophile-approved AK100 audio player

By Peter Suciu Published January 28, 2013

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Check out our full review of the iRiver Astell & Kern AK100 audio player.

Portable digital music players are great for taking music on the go, but as any audiophile will attest, it comes at the cost of reduced quality. If you can accept this fact, MP3s are totally for you. For the more discerning audio connoisseur, it takes more than an iPod to get the job done.

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Astell & Kern’s AK100 portable audio system from iRiver is just such a device. The beefy high-fi music player skirts the scourge of compression with support for lossless Mastering Sound Quality files, along with Ogg, FLAC, WAV, WMA, APE and of course, ordinary MP3s.

A 2.4-inch touchscreen provides control, while a high-end Wolfson 8740 DAC handles turning bits and bytes into audio. Interestingly, it can double as an outboard DAC for computers and CD players connected via the integrated optical output or USB port. It comes with 32GB of internal storage, which can be expanded to 96GB via two microSD card slots. A 2,000mAH battery provides up to 16 hours of continuous audio playback.

The Astell & Kern AK100 portable audio system will retail for $700.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Peter has spent much time plugging and unplugging various A/V equipment over the years as a reviewer, and he is always on the…

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Astell&Kern blurs the line between headphone amp and digital audio player

Astell&Kern Arco CA1000 headphone amp and digital audio player held in someone's hand.

For audiophiles, dedicated headphone amps are a key component in their personal audio arsenal, one that lets them get the most out of their preferred wired cans. But Astell&Kern (A&K) clearly believes we haven't been expecting enough from these devices, so it has launched the $2,199 A&K Acro CA1000, a so-called "carriable" headphone amp that packs its own internal rechargeable battery as well as a full-featured, hi-res audio digital audio player. The pricey but capable hybrid gadget will be available January 24 at authorized Astell&Kern dealers in the U.S. and Canada.

The Acro CA1000 ticks an enormous number of boxes for folks who want maximum flexibility for controlling and enjoying digital music. It has two sizes of balanced outputs (2.5 and 4.4mm) and two sizes of unbalanced jacks (3.5 and 6.35mm), which should work with a majority of both general use headphones as well as audiophile-grade models. The built-in digital audio player -- accessed via a multi-angle touchscreen -- pumps data through a quad set of ES9068AS digital-to-analog converters (DACs), and they'll handily crunch any file you throw at them, including WAV, FLAC, WMA, MP3, OGG, APE, AAC, ALAC, AIFF, DFF, DSF, plus there's full rendering support for the MQA format and bit-perfect playback of up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM and native DSD512 (22.4MHz) tracks.

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GoldenEar Speakers joins Paradigm, MartinLogan, and Anthem

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After the news last month that Bose had acquired the McIntosh Group, we have another interesting shift in the premium audio world. PML Sound International -- the parent company of storied audio brands Paradigm, MartinLogan, and Anthem -- has welcomed GoldenEar Speakers into the fold. It was just under five years ago when it was announced that GoldenEar had been bought by The Quest Group, the owner of AudioQuest and DragonFly, upon the retirement of GoldenEar co-founder Sandy Gross.

Starting January 1, GoldenEar will be known as GoldenEar Studio Inc. PML has announced the operations will pause for the month of January to ensure a smooth transition. During that time, GoldenEar orders will not be processed or fulfilled, with operations resuming on February 3. PML has also assured that "existing warranties and service support will be honored, and they will continue to receive the same level of product quality and customer service when business resumes."

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Here’s how Apple’s AirPods Pro hearing assistance stacks up to professional results

Apple's hearing test in iOS 18.1.

Apple made waves when it announced that its AirPods Pro 2, when combined with iOS 18.1, could fulfill the role of OTC hearing aids. Given that OTC hearing aids can often run as much as $1,500, it seemed too good to be true that the same hearing benefits could be had for just $249 or less. Better yet, given the popularity of Apple's wireless earbuds, there's an excellent chance that those who could benefit already own them (if you live in a country where Apple's hearing aid feature has been approved).

So how good are the AirPods Pro 2 as OTC hearing aids?