Astell & Kern AK320

The Astell & Kern AK320 is one of the best portable audio players currently on the market. This FLAC player is a masterpiece that delivers the truest and most natural sound possible. Astell & Kern, its producer, has put in all the top-of-the-line technologies currently available. In its nearly hissless circuitry, the AK320 uses two spectacular digital-to-analog converters - the 32-bit AKM AK4490. Simply put, every bit of the AK320 was designed with professional audio in mind.

Key features

• A symmetrical construction with two AK4490 converters
• Support formats up to the resolution or 192 kHz / 32 bit, including DSD 64/128
• Accurate parametric equaliser settings
• High-precision clock with a reference jitter value of 200 femtoseconds
• New possibilities of streaming music over AK Connect App
• Internal memory of 128GB
• Compatible with Astell Amp, Recorder, Ripper and Cradle

Unsurpassed sound

The Astell & Kern AK320 supports DSD 64/128 formats which are converted to PCM 176 kHz / 24 bit. Each channel uses a dedicated standalone converter chip which ensures unsurpassed stereo sound. The AK320 is also the first portable player in the world equipped with a high-precision clock with a reference jitter value of 200 femtoseconds. That enables the AK320 to create more accurate frequency values, make fine jitter corrections, and reproduce analogue sound closer to the original source than ever.

Accurate sound adjustment

The AK320 uses a parametric equaliser and an audio digital signal processor to deliver the most detailed adjustment of the original sound. The equaliser has 20 bands which can be adjusted in ±0.01 dB steps. 

Astell&Kern has also enhanced the DLNA functionality via the AK Connect app. The player connects wirelessly to a NAS or PC and can be easily controlled with a smartphone or tablet. This way, files can be freely transferred and streamed without the hassle of turning on the computer and physically connecting with a cable.

Additional information:

Screen:
4" WVGA (480 × 800) touchscreen

Supported formats:
WAV, FLAC, WMA, MP3, OGG, APE, AAC, ALAC, AIFF, DFF, DSF

Sampling:
PCM: 8kHz ~ 192kHz (8/16 / 24bits per Sample)
DSD: DSD64, Stereo / DSD128, Stereo

Output level:
Unbalanced 2.2 Vrms / Symmetrical 2.3 Vrms

DAC:
AKM AK4490 x2 (Dual DAC)

Decoding:
up to 24bit / 192kHz Bit to Bit

Input:
USB Micro-B (charging and data transfer) / Mod: MTP (Media Device)

Output:
Headphones (3.5 mm) / Optical output (3.5 mm) / Balanced output (2.5mm, only the 4-pole version is supported)

wifi:
802.11 b / g / n (2.4GHz)

Bluetooth:
V4.0

Frequency response:
±0.053 dB (20Hz ~ 20kHz
±0.56 dB (10Hz ~ 70 kHz)

Signal / noise ratio:
116 dB @ 1kHz, unbalanced / 117 dB @ 1kHz, symmetric

Crosstalk:
130 dB @ 1kHz, unbalanced / 135 dB @ 1kHz, symmetric

Total harmonic distortion:
0.0008% @ 1kHz, unbalanced / 0.0005% @ 1kHz, symmetric

SMPTE IMD:
0.0007% 800Hz 10kHz (4: 1) Unbalanced
0.0006% 800Hz 10kHz (4: 1) symmetric

Output Impedance:
Balanced output 2.5 mm (1 ohm) / 3.5 mm headphones (2 ohms)

Linking:
Clock jitter of 30 ps (type), a clock with an accuracy of 200 femto seconds

Battery:
3400 mAh 3.7 V Li-Polymer

Memory:
128 gigabytes (NAND) + microSD (Max 128 gigabytes)

Supported OS:
Windows XP, Windows 7,8,10 (32 / 64bit), Mac OS X 10.7 or later