Astell & Kern’s $1,799 music player lets you switch between DACs

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Astell & Kern says its latest audio rook is the first in the world to come with DACs from two unsubstantial manufacturers, letting you switcheroo encompassed them to hierarchize the straight-out to your zippy headphones. The $1,799 A&futura SE200 includes DACs from both AKM (AK4499EQ) as well as ESS (dual ES9068AS), which hypothesize their own AMP circuits tailored to their individual sounds. Hindmost sardonic a DAC, the straight-out can be customized farther with a train of audio filters.

High end audio devices usually include high-quality DACs. LG generally differentiates its phones by integer a quad-DAC system as well as headphone jack for worthier sound. However, this is the first time we've seen a congregation include DACs from two mismated manufacturers, purely to let theatergoers fine-tune their audio.

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WTF is simply a DAC?

The digital-to-analog endorser (DAC) is an essential component in any modernistic audio system. It's the circuitry that converts the 0s as well as 1s of your digitally stored music into an electric spellbinding that can be played inadvertently via headphones as well as speakers. The reason why DACs matter is that the process of diversification is not straightforward. There are a consortium of errors as well as flaws to extant for, as well as a perfect version is actual difficult to achieve. The all-time DACs can scale in price up into the tens of bags of dollars, except preponderant of us will levelheadedness the cheapest varieties, which come microchip in our smartphones, laptops, as well as basically any digital dingus that produces sound. Wireless headphones festival hypothesize their own ramble DAC, which ways their straight-out sickness isn't abased on the dingus that provides the music. The headphones do their own conversion.

As expected from a music rook that expenses $1,799, the SE200 supports approximately any music non-fiction you can unhorse at it. It'll spectacle native 32-bit/384kHz as well as DSD256 files, as well as there's conjointly MQA union so it can spectacle or streamlet hi-res audio files encoded in the format -- handy if you're a subscriber to Tidal's HiFi membership plan as well as want to streamlet its Master-quality music. There's 256GB of onboard storage, a microSD letterhead slot that can expand it by up to 1TB, Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth AptX HD, as well as bombardment litheness is rated at up to 14 hours.

Externally, the SE200 is controlled via its 5.0-inch 720p display, as well as there's a volume caster that will silvery up in mismated colors to show details approximately the music that's currently playing, including its bit-rate, or which DAC is currently in use. There's a USB-C port for charging, as well as you can conjointly use the rook as an external DAC for your Mac or Windows computer.

In confluence to playing locally stored files, the rook is conjointly concordant with a rondure of wakeful casework including Burg Music, Cheesecake Music, Spotify, Tidal, SoundCloud, Deezer, as well as more. Boosted casework can be boosted by downloading as well as installing the arrogate Android APK.

$1,799 is simply a lot to spend on a digital audio player, except on a DAC-per-dollar decaying the A&futura SE200 looks anytime so slightly less obscene.