[WiseRooster]

Trying to figure out if it be worth it to sell my se100 and buy a used se200.

It Is... but the sabre sight of SE200 differs.
It seems more like another tuning than an upgrade

 

[Skullar]

I'm a first time A&K owner with the SE200. I definitely found the side loading weird. And their (A&K's) instructions didn't work for me to side load Spotify, had to do some googling.

Well if its just a one off nuisance i could live with it. If it works properly after. I only use amazon hd. And that app needs brushing up internally not A&K side. But its SQ combined with massive library is a winner for me.

I could live with slower UI than R8 say as long as its not stutering during playback or loading songs for too long.
As i mentioned, main reason why i did not go for se200 was 2.5mm jack. Remember bending one with my dx220.
I will be auditioning se200 and se180 soon as i just reasilse that i am working next to hifi shop where i hopefully can get my hands on them. With my own music.

 

[SMOoth Operator]

Need a short stackable length 2.5mm male to 4.4mm male balanced cable to go from my AK SE200 to the Cayin C9 amp, also need a 2.5mm male to 2.5mm balanced male for similar to my Continental Duel Mono Amp. I really like the quality of the interconnect cables that came with the C9. Is there anywhere I can find these under $150? The only ones I could find are $15 cheap garbage or $650, I find that price is insane. Is there a happy medium between cheap garbage and psycho high DAP/AMP interconnect cables?

 

[CharlyBrown]

Size was one thing i found se200 very attractive against dx300(way too tall) and R8(borderline too thick). the later 2 are on brink of being non portable. For many they actually are. But se200 owners scared me off a bit with 2 things. The feedback on poor streaming app support and subpar wifi signal.
Of course not sure to what extent it is an issue. But 1 thing was a sure deal breaker.

Seems like se180 sorted the main one out. Now all that's left. Is to see if they improved app support and wifi.
Though, again se180 size is not that mch smaller than R8. So no win win anywhere..

We are complaining on a high level here.

I am one of those who said the SE200s WiFi was weak because... it is. Still, it also works for me 99.9% but there are places in my house where I tried it and hat no reception where my other devices (mostly apple stuff) have FULL reception. So of course it works but it is not on par with other current devices - I also tried an LG phone before purchasing the A&K and that had also zero WiFi problems. Additionally to that, my first SE200 came with broken WiFi (didn’t work at all and I had to send it back...but that’s obviously not the norm).

Streaming problems are nonexistent for most users. If you are using Tidal, Spotify, Qobuz, Amazon HD - I tried them all, all worked without problems for me. No crashes, no glitches - perfectly.

But I am also an Apple Music user and that service is really frustrating to use with the A&K. Here come two problems together: 1) Apple is not an Android fan and AM releases are extremely slow. The latest version today is from December 2020 where all the other streaming apps have newer versions. 2) A&K obviously doesn’t give a *** about Apple Music users.

From all available versions, only 2 (!) work, like start on the SE200. All other versions crash upon first start. And the 2 working versions are older ones (3.4.5 is current and only 3.4.0 & 3.3.2 work) and they crash on a regular basis. There is no help and no real support on the horizon so I am pretty frustrated regarding Apple Music.

I think A&K should at least be so transparent and remove Apple Music from their supported list. That would be fair but they obviously want to keep it on the list despite the bad user experience.

My last complain is a little one but still kind of sad. I love how they implemented the LED light around the volume knob. It is so great how it changes the light depending on the quality of the track. Buuuut it is broken with all sideloaded (read: ALL) streaming apps except the stock Tidal wich lacks many features and is currently completely broken.

What would be the problem to at least show an emerald / whatever different color for MQA playback in Tidal? Even manufacturers of cheap little dongles can do this. Why leave it broken? It shows again that A&K struggles a little bit with streaming music imo.

Other than these issues that are probably irrelevant for most, this is an absolutely great device! And yes, despite the long complaint text, I love the DAP because it does everything else really well!

 

[SMOoth Operator]

Well if its just a one off nuisance i could live with it. If it works properly after. I only use amazon hd. And that app needs brushing up internally not A&K side. But its SQ combined with massive library is a winner for me.

I could live with slower UI than R8 say as long as its not stutering during playback or loading songs for too long.
As i mentioned, main reason why i did not go for se200 was 2.5mm jack. Remember bending one with my dx220.
I will be auditioning se200 and se180 soon as i just reasilse that i am working next to hifi shop where i hopefully can get my hands on them. With my own music.

I do not like the way they did the switchable card on the SE180. The amp in that thing has to be super scaled down and puny, they crammed a 4.4mm in there too, no way can they fit descent caps in that with as thin as it is. There is just no room for quality amp components. I would go SE200 all the way, where the room inside is opened up for beefier components. SE180 is a cool idea, but I think sound quality will suffer because of the design. No thank you SE180...

 

[fmkuz]

Interesting... The SE180 with the SEM2 module (AK dac chip) they are targeting the SE200 price

https://us.astellnkern.com/products/sem2?utm_source=Astell&Kern+Email+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ad11aefac9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_AK_04_29_2021&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2013bfa01c-ad11aefac9-123604313&mc_cid=ad11aefac9&mc_eid=8671f41a59

 

[Skullar]

I do not like the way they did the switchable card on the SE180. The amp in that thing has to be super scaled down and puny, they crammed a 4.4mm in there too, no way can they fit descent caps in that with as thin as it is. There is just no room for quality amp components. I would go SE200 all the way, where the room inside is opened up for beefier components. SE180 is a cool idea, but I think sound quality will suffer because of the design. No thank you SE180...

Well, cant say youre wrong. Unless there is some serious innovation there, I doubt it will beat R8 on SQ. Speculation of course. Only one way to find out.
I have yet to try se200 however. Will be doing it pretty soon though

 

[Tristy]

I'll wait until the reviews come out comparing the two .... If it happens to sound better than the SE200 with either of the cards on release I'm saying bye bye to AK forever haha I can sell my SE200 for what I bought it for so no skin off my nose. I've got a Hugo 2 on the way as well so there's always options.

 

[Skullar]

I would not be surprised if eventually they release module which does beat se200 once se200 is old enough.

On another note. Does anyone have r8 or dx300 to compare se200 size against the two?

 

[blotmouse]

I would not be surprised if eventually they release module which does beat se200 once se200 is old enough.

On another note. Does anyone have r8 or dx300 to compare se200 size against the two?

Check these pdf charts. Pretty nice collection of specs.
https://twitter.com/align_centre/status/1383465982421725194

 

[Skullar]

Check these pdf charts. Pretty nice collection of specs.
https://twitter.com/align_centre/status/1383465982421725194

Man this is so useful! Thanks a lot. And very conveniently R8 was almost next to se200.

Actually se200 is quite small.

Another funnu note was that you dont need to zoom the tab to see dx300 lol

 

[blotmouse]

Another funnu note was that you dont need to zoom the tab to see dx300 lol

DX300 is like the Great Wall of China
...from space.

 

[Skullar]

DX300 is like the Great Wall of China
...from space.

And this was the only reason i sold it. Otherwise its an excellent dap.

As for se200. I just had an idea that its lack of 4.4mm jack might actually be quite useful for its portability. What im talking about is 4.4mm. Adapter.
At the moment my R8 adds quite a bit of pressure to my cable with straight jack when in pocket sometimes.
The adapter on se200 positions it in line with base of dap right. So i take it it takes the pressure off a bit. Or does adapter make it worse?

 

[Tristy]

And this was the only reason i sold it. Otherwise its an excellent dap.

As for se200. I just had an idea that its lack of 4.4mm jack might actually be quite useful for its portability. What im talking about is 4.4mm. Adapter.
At the moment my R8 adds quite a bit of pressure to my cable with straight jack when in pocket sometimes.
The adapter on se200 positions it in line with base of dap right. So i take it it takes the pressure off a bit. Or does adapter make it worse?

I actually prefer the sound with the PW audio adapter.

 

[Skullar]

I actually prefer the sound with the PW audio adapter.

I took a closer look at them they are actually quite big. Not Just PW audio. If combined it ends up with a size of dx300 than its not much of help for what i said above.

Could you drop picture of se200 with thay adapter + cable plugged? Thanks.