Astell & Kern AK380

Looking for the top-tier portable high-resolution audio source? Designed with users demanding the very best quality in mind, the new AK380 is geared up for just about anything an audiophile and a pro sound engineer might require, offering the most authentic sound from any digital music format with enhanced features. The AK380 features dual digital-to-analog converters (DACs), one for each stereo channel. This ensures outstanding detail and dynamic range, an absolutely quiet background, and a spacious soundstage. These powerful AKM AK4490 DACs do native conversion of Direct Stream Digital (DSD) files. You also get bit-perfect playback for PCM-based files up to 32-bit/384kHz. 

Key features

• A symmetrical construction with two AMK AK4490 DACs
• Supports 32-bit 384 kHz Bit-to-bit Playback
• Native support for DSD without any oversampling
• 4"AMOLED touch display
• A parametric equalizer delivering detailed adjustments
• A voltage-controlled crystal oscillator high-precision clock with a reference jitter value of 200 femto seconds
• External amplifier with DAC
• Further enhanced DLNA functionality via the AK Connect app
• 256GB of internal memory

Dual converter and new reference clock

The AK380 is capable of playing back 32-bit, 384 kHz original sound without any down sampling and as a result the AK380 plays up to 32-bit, 384 kHz, any 24-bit music files, or double layer DSD 5.6 MHz natively, without conversion or compression to PCM. Each channel has a dedicated standalone converter chip. These are then arranged in a dual-mono setup for brilliant stereo separation. AK380 is also the first player in the world equipped with a voltage-controlled crystal oscillator high-precision clock with a reference jitter value of 200 femto seconds. By utilising a femto clock, the AK380 is able to create a more accurate frequency value and make fine jitter corrections.

Accurate parametric equalizer

A parametric equalizer was implemented in the AK380 to deliver detailed adjustment of the original sound, and an audio digital signal processor was added to aid in this process. The audio DSP expands the existing 10-band, ±0.5 dB graphic equalizer to 20-band, ±0.1 dB to more precisely adjust the frequency and gain as well as more accurately specifying the frequency range via Q value adjustments. Astell&Kern has also further enhanced DLNA functionality via the AK Connect app. Wireless networking DLNA connects to a NAS or PC, and is easily controlled with a smartphone or tablet. Source files on a PC or NAS can be freely transferred and streamed without the hassle of turning on the computer and physically connecting with a cable. The duraluminium based player utilises a metal capacitive touch interface. The pressure-sensitive Metal Touch home button responds to fine pressure changes so users operate the device with just a light touch on the metallic pad.

Additional information:

Display:
4" WVGA (480 × 800) touchscreen

sampling:
PCM 8 kHz ~ 384 kHz (8/16/24/32 bits per Sample) / DSD Native: DSD64 (2.8 MHz 1-bit), Stereo / DSD128 (1 bit 5.6 MHz), Stereo / DSD256 (1 bit 11.2 MHz), Stereo

Output level:
Unbalanced 2.2 Vrms / Symmetrical 2.3 Vrms

DAC:
AKM AK4490 x2 (Dual DAC)

Decoding:
up to 32bit / 384kHz Bit a Bit

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

Output:
Headphones (3rd5 mm) / Optical (3rd5 mm) / Symmetric (second5 mm, 4-pin)

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

Bluetooth:
V4.0 (A2DP, AVRCP, APTX)

Frequency range:
±0.053 db, 20 Hz ~ 20 kHz ± 0.56 db at 10 Hz ~ 70 kHz

Crosstalk:
130 db @ 1 kHz, unbalanced/135 db @ 1 kHz, symmetrical

THD + N:
0.0008% @ 1 kHz, unbalanced/0.0007% @ 1kHz, symmetric

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

Jitter hours:
30ps (Type)

Reference Clock:
200 femto seconds

Battery:
3400 mAh 3.7 V Li-Polymer

Memory:
256GB (NAND) + microSD (Max 128 gigabytes)

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