[Skullar]

T

Confirmed. I tried Amazon HD for the trial period. Streaming & downloading works 100%!

..and the A&K UI is for me one of the USPs! It is beautiful, minimalistic and fully designed towards music. The great advantage of not having full blown Android!

Thanks a lot for confirming! I really have to agree with you on UI part. As mentioned i dont use my R8 for anything else than streaming amazon and on board music anyway. And i did not find the UI slow at all as i have heard from some.

Don't get me wrong R8 is absolute beast and must be best android implementation to date. But i wont use it to full potential ever. In fact if people like streaming videos, browse internet or any other similar use like smartphone. I would recommend dx300 as its screen is just made for that. Bigger, sharper and UI is as fast. Plus you have an option of mango OS.

But back to A&K both se200 and sp2000 were more than enough for me.

Im really considering to replace my R8 now.
The other problem now is that there is sp2000 SS for sale for less then 2k. Which is a steal!
I am also bidding on one new se200 without a box so will see how it ends up there.
Se200 main selling point is its size. As sound wise they are very close and would need a proper back to back comparison to pick which has an edge. R8 might just be a touch ahead in technicalities and its tuning is more balanced, so its more versatile, but its just pushing the limits of what i can stuff in a pocket.

Gosh, i thought i had it sorted on my dap side for a good while lol...

 

[Tristy]

T

Thanks a lot for confirming! I really have to agree with you on UI part. As mentioned i dont use my R8 for anything else than streaming amazon and on board music anyway. And i did not find the UI slow at all as i have heard from some.

Don't get me wrong R8 is absolute beast and must be best android implementation to date. But i wont use it to full potential ever. In fact if people like streaming videos, browse internet or any other similar use like smartphone. I would recommend dx300 as its screen is just made for that. Bigger, sharper and UI is as fast. Plus you have an option of mango OS.

But back to A&K both se200 and sp2000 were more than enough for me.

Im really considering to replace my R8 now.
The other problem now is that there is sp2000 SS for sale for less then 2k. Which is a steal!
I am also bidding on one new se200 without a box so will see how it ends up there.
Se200 main selling point is its size. As sound wise they are very close and would need a proper back to back comparison to pick which has an edge. R8 might just be a touch ahead in technicalities and its tuning is more balanced, so its more versatile, but its just pushing the limits of what i can stuff in a pocket.

Gosh, i thought i had it sorted on my dap side for a good while lol...

That deal on the classified is a steal! If I hadn’t of just gotten a Hugo 2 I would have been all over it. Can I ask how much of a difference was there percentage wise (to your ears) between the SE200 and SP2000? Or was it just tuning differences?

 

[Skullar]

That deal on the classified is a steal! If I hadn’t of just gotten a Hugo 2 I would have been all over it. Can I ask how much of a difference was there percentage wise (to your ears) between the SE200 and SP2000? Or was it just tuning differences?

I know right! Honestly from my brief impressions just judging by its technicalities id say up to 10% no more.
Tuning wise se200 is sp2k after bottle of good whiskey lol. Sp2k is carefuly refined with a good touch of subbass and sparkly treble. Fun without going mad and off reference line. Works very well to take LX midbass just right.
Se200 is bold, in your face, head rattling fun.
Basically for 2k sp2000 is a no brainer. I would never go for full price though as far as SQ goes.

 

[Tristy]

I know right! Honestly from my brief impressions just judging by its technicalities id say up to 10% no more.
Tuning wise se200 is sp2k after bottle of good whiskey lol. Sp2k is carefuly refined with a good touch of subbass and sparkly treble. Fun without going mad and off reference line. Works very well to take LX midbass just right.
Se200 is bold, in your face, head rattling fun.
Basically for 2k sp2000 is a no brainer. I would never go for full price though as far as SQ goes.

Fair enough! Haha I don’t feel like I’m missing out given the price that I’ve paid for the SE200 in that case. Plus I love the versatility of having 2 different sigs in one player.

 

[Skullar]

Fair enough! Haha I don’t feel like I’m missing out given the price that I’ve paid for the SE200 in that case. Plus I love the versatility of having 2 different sigs in one player.

Honestly, as much as i thought that se200 is a bit of gimmick product, it definitely has its place. I now am deciding between se200 or that sp2k SS. Im a bit worried about it not being copper as that was the one i auditioned and loved it. Touch one here.. As i would be fairly happy with se200.

 

[CharlyBrown]

Both myself and one of the US support team members have been testing Apple Music for the past few weeks on the SE200 and SR25. Both of us have not been able to duplicate the issues. Same with out dev team in Korea. The only thing that we can guess at the moment is that all of us are connecting to different Apple servers, but you did mention in another post that you have no issues on other devices. We are continuing to test to product the same issues you have encountered and have asked a few dealers in the EU to also test and provide us feedback.

I also did finally get a chance to post the minimum app versions that are supported by all OpenApp enabled players. I am in the process of updating the list with newer version numbers as we continue to test. I'm doing most of the testing after hours and the weekend on personal time, so it is taking a bit longer.

https://us.astellnkern.com/apps/help-center#hc-what-app-versions-are-supported-by-astellkern-players

Hi @JasonNYC you mentioned the Apple servers used. I live in Germany but set the SE200 to English language. Got me thinking if this might have influence on which servers that are used by the Apple Music app?

After your post I gave it a try and changed the SE200 to German. I also tried to install the latest AM version 3.5.0.. well it doesn’t work so I had to remove AM and re-install 3.4.5, now with German language. I also changed the mesh wifi in my house to have a better reception with the SE200 - so essentially I made 2 changes. I know, not good in order to drill down to the real problem…

Long story short, Apple Music now runs nearly glitch-free! I heavily tried and tested in the last 3 days for many hours (streaming, pre-downloaded songs, loving songs, adding to playlists etc etc.) and had only 2 crashes, night and day difference to the past!

I don’t know if it is only one change or both that did the trick but I am now a happy customer

Thanks again for your help!

 

[cj3209]

..and the A&K UI is for me one of the USPs! It is beautiful, minimalistic and fully designed towards music. The great advantage of not having full blown Android!

Yah, the AK UI is pretty good, I must say. Very easy to use and easy on the eyes. They've come a long way from the AK100 that I used to use/have...

 

[SMOoth Operator]

Any word on the embedded Tidal App fix, when in May it is coming?? @JasonNYC

 

[SonicFade]

Would one of these puppy’s drive an Audeze LCD 4z well? Seems like a good option because people are saying it’s a darker headphone and having the different DAC’s would give you the ability to control the sound profile/signature? I’m a bit of a newbie here just fyi. But I want a really nice portable setup I can walk around with because I can’t sit still and listen to music unless I’m driving l, which... is still technically moving

 

[SonicFade]

Also, it seems to me that a unit like the ibasso dx300, being able to change amps would have more of an impact on the sound instead of changing the DACs?

however, it seems like a lot of people send those units back

 

[blotmouse]

Also, it seems to me that a unit like the ibasso dx300, being able to change amps would have more of an impact on the sound instead of changing the DACs?

however, it seems like a lot of people send those units back

The DAC's in SE200 have different complimentary amps. It's not one amp with 2 DAC's forked. It's more like having 2 DAP's.

 

[SonicFade]

The DAC's in SE200 have different complimentary amps. It's not one amp with 2 DAC's forked. It's more like having 2 DAP's.

Thanks for clearing that up. That’s insane. Anything else do this?

 

[SMOoth Operator]

Also, it seems to me that a unit like the ibasso dx300, being able to change amps would have more of an impact on the sound instead of changing the DACs?

however, it seems like a lot of people send those units back

I had a DX300 it was big ole POS, sent it back. You will like the SE200 better. What a lot of people dont realize is that DAP's with swappable amps have scaled down parts in them. They have to sacrifice part quality to cram all that stuff in a swappable card, smaller caps for example, it is not worth the sound quality loss IMO. Only cool thing about them is a dedicated line out card, but still, I would rather have the room for larger components. That is why the SE180 looks cool, but in reality is a really bad idea. Lots of sacrifices have to be made to keep those cards small enough.

 

[SonicFade]

I had a DX300 it was big ole POS, sent it back. You will like the SE200 better. What a lot of people dont realize is that DAP's with swappable amps have scaled down parts in them. They have to sacrifice part quality to cram all that stuff in a swappable card, smaller caps for example, it is not worth the sound quality loss IMO. Only cool thing about them is a dedicated line out card, but still, I would rather have the room for larger components. That is why the SE180 looks cool, but in reality is a really bad idea. Lots of sacrifices have to be made to keep those cards small enough.

reminds me of the synergy system for guitar amps. Really cool, though. I never thought something modular at this level would exist.

you make a good point. What corners were cut in sq to make those cartridges fit.

also, how many flavors of amp dacs does one really need? 2 solid choices between warm/punchy and clinical/transparent would seem like enough.

another thing I’ve been curious about is if any of these units have decent parametric eq, or are they all just graphic/ fixed band

 

[SonicFade]

I just realized A&K you can’t have just a regular android OS scenario. That sucks..