Astell & Kern Kann Ultra DAP Review

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

I have the great-great-great grandfather to the Astell & Kern Ultra, the iriver H340 from 2005ish (iriver employees created the A&K brand as an upmarket dap company)

I wonder how this would measure?, still sounds perfectly decent with the original Ogg Vorbis vbr MP3’s I have on it, folk get far too hung up on perfection these days.

I had iRiver T30 in my past life

My first "hi res" player.

 

[Multicore]

For gullable boomers.

Ouch! I just published an article about weird boomer behaviors yesterday.

No irony or sarcasm or ill will intended. Nobody under 40 even know this brand (still) exists. The headphone amp does not hold up to many designs from a decade ago. At this price? Just sad.

There are headphones and buds with amps and Bluetooth built in to use with your phone. Or a dongle DAC/amp if you want wired phones or IEMs. Phones these days have got WiFi too so don't need to load audio files onto it if you don't want to. I don't see the appeal even with decent sound, usability features, and sensible price.

 

[Curupira]

Ouch, dual flagship DACs being outperfomed by dual CS43131 (or even single) chips in tandem with any beefy OP amp of your choosing. I'd also assume that their "low-end" chinese competitors, like FiiO and Hiby, also feel more responsive and faster, considering they've been using known Snapdragon CPU's and up-to-date Androids in their recent catalogues.

The DAP scene is already inherently niche in today's world, and this type of brand even more niche. As @Mr Swing King pointed out, I've never seen an owner of a modern A&K who wasn't even a little bit esoteric (or outright snobbish/elitist) about their gear. The lender for this unit may be the first exception.

 

[Curupira]

Phones these days have got WiFi too so don't need to load audio files onto it if you don't want to. I don't see the appeal even with decent sound, usability features, and sensible price.

Esotericism aside, the main reason to get a DAP instead of a dongle on a smartphone is to separate leisure from work and stress. With a DAP you aren't bothered by notifications and/or distractions and from that start distinguishing the device with which you listen to music and the device you associate with day-to-day work and necessities. It may sound silly but it has a compelling cognitive aspect to it.

 

[Somafunk]

If DAPs were still a huge category I think this device might or might not perform better but it would probably cost $275 instead of $1500, so the performance might not be such an issue.

Dap’s are still a significant category, and the Hiby R4 @ £220 or R3 @ £140 or the R6 iii @ £400 that I own are all good devices - i very much doubt any could be told apart in a genuine db study so features/ease of use/pricing are why I bought my Hiby R6 iii, it has excellent peq options/convolution filters and it’s nice to have a separate device for only music playing, Fiio also make the J21/M21 at the £200 price point.

 

[Multicore]

It may sound silly but it has a compelling cognitive aspect to it.

It doesn't seem silly, now that you mention it.

How I want a Hidizs AP80.

A Call For Humor!

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Somafunk]

I had iRiver T30 in my past life
View attachment 444654
My first "hi res" player.

I think I started on my iriver journey with the original H120, excellent players if a bit bulky and especially when compared to my original 5gb iPod.

I’ve owned loads of different players over the years, along with earbuds/headphones from that period. I never left the house without being plugged into music

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

For reasons that are unclear to me I like to use a music player in the car. I realize I could use my phone. I use a 41431 dongle with either. Given road noise I'm not too worried about sound quality because I'm not going to be able to tell the difference between great and marginally OK. I think that for $1400 they could do better.

 

[Bamish]

I have the great-great-great grandfather to the Astell & Kern Ultra, the iriver H340 from 2005ish (iriver employees created the A&K brand as an upmarket dap company)

I wonder how this would measure?, still sounds perfectly decent with the original Ogg Vorbis vbr MP3’s I have on it, folk get far too hung up on perfection these days.

I had the 20g version, looked identical except the remote didn't have a display and no charging stand. I loved that thing, even the Sennheiser earbuds it came with were great.

Had Rockbox running on it in the end which looked great.

 

[Kremmen]

Esotericism aside, the main reason to get a DAP instead of a dongle on a smartphone is to separate leisure from work and stress. With a DAP you aren't bothered by notifications and/or distractions and from that start distinguishing the device with which you listen to music and the device you associate with day-to-day work and necessities. It may sound silly but it has a compelling cognitive aspect to it.

I completely agree!

If only I could find a really decent Android hi-res audio player (around £200) that has NO internet connectivity. I just want to play my CD rips, of which I have enough to keep me very happy, and I'm adding more here and there over the months.

Just knowing that my phone has lots of other apps and functions on it besides those purely for audio contaminates the experience of just wanting to enjoy my music. It's a bit like having my laptop turned on next to me whilst all I want to have on my mind is the music. Its a distraction.

 

[Kremmen]

Dap’s are still a significant category, and the Hiby R4 @ £220 or R3 @ £140 or the R6 iii @ £400 that I own are all good devices - i very much doubt any could be told apart in a genuine db study so features/ease of use/pricing are why I bought my Hiby R6 iii, it has excellent peq options/convolution filters and it’s nice to have a separate device for only music playing, Fiio also make the J21/M21 at the £200 price point.

Nice to see your happy with your Hiby R6. I'll take a look at it online in a while.

BTW, I was looking at their R4 player which is currently priced at £250 on Amazon in the UK, but there were quite a few concerns raised by verified purchasers who'd experienced it overheating. Could have been down to a dodgy battery issue or similar of course as not everyone had this issue. Any issues with yours?

 

[testp]

...so this is a device meant to be taken along, but weights like a rock, nice!

 

[Egoist]

Why would anyone buy a device like this in preference to a mid range smartphone at half the price - even if they don't want smart phone functionality?

And given that almost everyone who wants a portable player will already have a smart phone, I really struggle to find a reason for this things existence.

Especially when you consider the UI performance.

I thought the same until I've bought one (mine was 200 usd though) - it has an micro SD card reader which my smartphone hasn't so I can have up to 2 TB of music for situations where I do not have an internet connection, I can listen to music without being disturbed by calls and while leaving my phone connected but muted and I do not have to bring a dongle DAC attached to my phone (and I do not know of a single dongle DAC that has 750 mW of power like my DAP has in balanced connection). The use scenario for me is to use it just with a pair of IEMS, although I use it every now and then with full size headphones at home when I want to roam around freely.

 

[JeremyFife]

Thanks for the review - I used to aspire to one of these (in pre ASR days). Makes no sense compared to phone + dongle now.

The measurements are pretty sad, distortion wise, and doubly so at that price.

 

[Somafunk]

Nice to see your happy with your Hiby R6. I'll take a look at it online in a while.

BTW, I was looking at their R4 player which is currently priced at £250 on Amazon in the UK, but there were quite a few concerns raised by verified purchasers who'd experienced it overheating. Could have been down to a dodgy battery issue or similar of course as not everyone had this issue. Any issues with yours?

I believe Joe from Hiby tech/software (he’s freq on here and headfi) has mentioned the overheating issue, I’ve not followed any R4 threads as such but I “believe” it was an early batch of players and they were all replaced with no further issues.

Never had an issue with my R6 iii, I like the size and form factor as well the headphone jacks exiting from the bottom of the player which in use makes far more sense than top mount jacks. No difference between Class A/AB modes except Class A is a nice hand warmer/pocket warmer and drains the battery quicker than Class AB.

If I had wish list of future wants it’d be longer battery life than my average of 10-12hrs, but compared to other devices I guess it’s quite good and obviously dependant on 3.5mm/4.4mm use and iem’s/heaadphones.
Less screen bezel for aesthetic reasons, 1080p display would look nice.
Roon ready/approved rather than using the roon app - wouldn’t really make any difference to playback I guess.
More prominent buttons/button feel on the side but I guess I fumble more due to my SPMS/numb hands
Weigh a bit less perhaps?
A choice of nice slim fitting alcantara cases, but I just like alcantara

Dunno what else i could really complain/want in a player?.

Rather happy with it as it is to be fair.

 

[brandall10]

Why would anyone buy a device like this in preference to a mid range smartphone at half the price - even if they don't want smart phone functionality?

And given that almost everyone who wants a portable player will already have a smart phone, I really struggle to find a reason for this things existence.

Especially when you consider the UI performance.

I was active in the head-fi world for many years prior to ASR, since 2003 or so.

Primarily, it's implied the DAC section is far superior, and for the Kann line, it was known to be the high powered option from A&K, sorta like a portable desktop setup.

People would talk about the high end A&K options, which IIRC went up to like $4k, as some parting of the waters moment for them. Closest thing to a battery powered Dave or whatnot. There's a ton of marketing gooblegook A&K would put out about all sorts of engineering work that improved fidelity in a myriad of ways and of course folks eat that stuff up as truth.

The UX issues from these devices has always been laughable. The head-fi community does believe for the most part what you give up in UX polish you gain in performance as the engineers at companies like this are hardware geniuses, so of course software is an afterthought and more of a nice to have.

 

[AndreaT]

Not competitive for price and not competitive for performance. I use a Hidisz AP60 sold at a much lower price. It would be nice to test it.

 

[oleg87]

Seems decent enough if you've got money to burn.
Considering it's an Android device, not a fan of how incredibly vague they are about what CPU is used given the implications for interface responsiveness.

 

[Somafunk]

I was active in the head-fi world for many years prior to ASR, since 2003 or so.

So was I (for my sins) , Had a Ray Samuels Tomahawk and SR71, little dot micro’s, my own various home made altoid tin amps, and Etymotic er4-p which were the “darling” of choice way back but actually sounded pretty guff and bloody annoying to wear unless sat totally still due to microphonics. Had a few shure iem’s but can’t remember what models?, also my trusty HD25’s for dj’ing/bass heavy ear squashing things - everybody’s cheap favourite sennheiser cx300 iem, wonder how it’d measure today?

Nowadays Headfi is quite a shill fest and ultimate marketing tool for companies on the cheap as everything is “Oooo….ahhhh….” and hyped up as the next best thing….till next weeks release.

 

[RogerSmith]

This is my device. Thanks to Amir for the review!

Bought it for the dual ES9039MPRO and the impressive power output on the spec sheet. DAC wise, as a device released in 2024, it does not seem to pull a considerable performance gap to the likes of Dual AK4499 Fiio M15 or AK4497EQ Lotoo Paw Gold Touch, released years earlier. The headphone amp part... Leaves me scratching my head. I can't say it doesn't meet the promise of the spec sheet, but there sure is an asterisk next to the numbers.

Besides, this JM20 dongle review just looks really funny in juxtaposition.

All things considered,



I agree. My current solution - Qudelix T71 + whichever device I plug it into - offers enough power for every pair of headphones I have, including the demanding HE6se, and Qudelix sells a MagSafe case for it so it's not too hard to carry the T71 around. I would recommend this over a standalone DAP for anyone needing to use headphones with mobile devices.

Thanks for sending it in and also for not being overly defensive about it, much appreciated!