If there is in this universe a device that is able to reproduce sound at the highest level, with the worthy appearance, it now lies in the editorial and wears the proud name of Astell&Kern AK320. Because there is nothing more awesome, versatile and multi-tasking we have not come across.
The design of the Astell&Kern is certainly recognizable. Yes, over the look of the players of dozens of companies operate hundreds of gurus from the field of design, gaining mass and awards giving truly excellent products. But aggressive and modern angular dural corps Astell&Kern recognized easily. Even at night in a dark room with nothing to confuse these sharp edges asymmetric AK bars players.
If the faces are shown to the user is too sharp, you will be able to hide in cover from a genuine leather. Some complete covers is able to “kill” appearance, but with the product from Conceria Walpier such problems will not arise: the case perfectly fits the device, repeating all of his insanely stylish asymmetry and not hiding from the user any control.
By the way, about the controls. There’s quite a lot of them, and they are all located exactly where they expect to find. But the first and most important tool for user interaction is a touch screen. The diagonal is 4 inches, resolution — 800 by 480 pixels. Not to say very much, but interface of the player is more than enough.
The interface of the player designed very accurately — to make a mistake in where you have cover, where the playback control and additional functionality, will not succeed. Almost an hour you can learn all the wisdom of interaction with AK320, and it can not but rejoice. Fortunately, brand Vernier volume control will not go away, and still the same 150 gradations adjust the playback level is able to give the user a high level of control over the sound. The equalizer is also worth mentioning, he AK320 able to “pull” many of the tracks, drastically changing their sound for the better.
“Android” in essence AK320 gives the system settings menu and a craving for updates. Well, the presence of “blind” to the settings, of course. And everything is so intuitive and devoid of unnecessary like the device menu from the world of the Green robot. Folders, genres, albums, artists and the like. Yes, in Clash Royale will not play, but it is even better.
AK320 — the device is still quite high-tech. When seemingly all the chips and side functions are already explored, and you just roam menu in the process of learning logic is deeply processed system. And then, eyebrows going up in surprise: “Oh, Yes you can do that?!”.
Yes, he can. DLNA can, for example, not only in the traditional form. Set, for example, on an iPhone or Android app AK Connect and access your library on AK320. That is kind of like and the music they listen to, but two. High standards. While initially it was thought that it will be necessary to fence kitchen gardens to connect a pair of pocket gadgets, but no. Everything happened so fast and simple that at first it seemed as if something still went wrong.
It would be strange if paired DACs AKM AK4490 (in pieces per channel) could not cope with the task entrusted to them. If you are using a headphone level AK T1p or other high impedance headphones — it will sound good as much as you can generally imagine physical expression of the meaning of this word. Accordingly, to reproduce sound in the format of 24 bit/192 kHz this device is not a problem.
There are both “standard” 3.5 mm miniJack and balanced 2.5 mm headphones, are capable of such connection, should be used in that version.
Much more surprised faces in the office was when they listened to music through wireless headphones with aptX codec support. It would seem that the usual Bluetooth headphones cost so much 15 thousand rubles, “changing the face”, come to life and give a completely different audiocasting (compared to “conventional” wireless audio source). Like with smartphones even FLAC sounds, to put it mildly, unimpressive, and suddenly — revealed.
After listening to your favorite songs in an external DAC, or directly, as with signature acoustics and wireless headphones, have to say the following: everything is displayed exactly as you expect. A number of works that traditionally accompany me on the way to work and back, changed their sound quite noticeably, the number was just a few “deeper”, there was a stage on which location, for example, children from the Dunedin Consort performing “Requiem” by Mozart, is felt almost on a subconscious level.
I have tried, however, and the music of other, clearly non-classical genres. And even Rosenbaum, and, terrible to say, “Animals” sound very different. However, the most “delicious” moments of the play is concentrated in the classics, jazz and classic rock.
Fans to carry a lot of your favorite music like as having 128 gigabytes of built-in memory, and the ability to double as the judges at the expense of memory cards microSD. If you use a high quality FLAC recording, to choose only your favorite tracks — still all clogged pretty quickly. An interesting solution would be to make extra pockets in the case for storing a couple of cards with your favorite music.
Is there anything in this versatile multimedia unit of the premium class that is able to make the most of the potential buyers to abandon the idea to get up and run to the store for Astell&Kern AK320? Yes, there is a caveat: the price in 150 thousand roubles. In the beginning this money was new VAZ-21099 to take in the cabin… If money is no object (or not the most important), then every dollar spent on AK320, he will win easily, putting his iron in the soul music of your life.
