Astell & Kern Junior (AK Jr.) Impressions Thread

[doublea71]

This one has me excited - a beautiful A&K product that is very pocketable and competitively priced (sort of). I think it looks terrific, but we need to hear from the lucky ones to get an idea about its sound.
It will retail for $500 USD and feature the Wolfson WM8740 DAC chip, 1 microSD slot, and 64GB of internal memory. Sure, the Fiio is much cheaper, but this looks a lot better to me....the links are to their Japanese site, so see what google translate can do for you until we have an English version.

http://www.iriver.jp/information/entry_806.php
http://www.iriver.jp/products/product_111.php

 

[alex223]

Seems to be running Android, from the above pictures...

 

[Q Mass]

'Far and away' the best looking AK yet IMO (by far).
 
My fingers are still crossed for TIDAL/Spotify support though.
 
If the SQ matches similarly priced opposition I WILL BUY ONE
 
 
But only if it supports TIDAL/Spotify.....
 
THOSE ARE MY TERMS ASTELL AND KERN, WHAT SAY YE?

 

[ThatPhil]

No tidal/spotify as it doesn't have wifi.

 

[Q Mass]

DAMMIT!
[sulks off to unsub]

 

[doublea71]

It looks nice, but it has its limitations. I haven't seen anything on battery life yet.

 

[danielcalutul]

1450 mah

 

[doublea71]

How many hours does it last per charge?

 

[danielcalutul]

Didn't announce yet. The event of announcing junior will be in may 14-17 in Munich

 

[danielcalutul]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b4kKkpRM4jA you can see the player on video

 

[audiofrk]

Ugghhh they switch back to LCD screen that's bad for noise.

 

[danielcalutul]

How is bad? Explain

 

[audiofrk]

Liquid crystals displays operate by reflecting light at specific angles to generate colors that correspond to the rgb signal. When black the screen still outputs light. This constant mechanical motions and constant light generation generates emi signals that influences the analog signal. Remember that dac signal before the I/V stage is weak.

Oleds produce color by sending electricity to specific edmiting diodes and only when they need to be lit. So less noise due to less steps

Edit stupid tiny phone buttons, keep pressing submit

 

[threephi]

I'd be astonished if they didn't engineer their display with the proper EMF shielding.  Seems like it would be a simple problem to counteract.

 

[audiofrk]

its not just the screen its the power supply,
 
Its no secrete that AC is more efficient than DC (higher voltage, less energy loss, less heat) so usually all electronics that need efficiency will use ac powe. So almost all tech (screens included) are optimized for AC power.  However AC current isn't good for fidelity of continuous signal (analog), so you need both for the design of this dap and the more energy you need for other none audio related processes the more switching of the linear battery power you will have to do (which also generates noise) and the more shielding (and cost cutting doesn't allow to be completely mitigate). 
 
So kids we reach the crux of all designs, the thing that keeps iphones size daps from sounding like a yggy+rag setup, power supply.