Astell&Kern A&ultima SP3000

[NYanakiev]

As a former owner of a SP3K, I am quite interested in how people find it stacks up versus more recent TOTL daps.

The thing that keeps bringing me back in A&K's camp is the terrific Roon compatibility. How is SP3K with Traillii/Traillii Ti?

 

[Progisus]

Further to the Tidal / SP3000 led light issue… A developer on the roon forum has confirmed that Tidal has removed from their app the mqa bit recognition. Many tracks are showing 44.1k 16b in the Tidal app while fulling decoding to mqa when fed from roon. In other words their Tidal is misleading their users.

 

[eddie3vino]

Tidal just discontinued MQA support. MQA is no longer available on Tidal. You may just need to update the app on your SP3000.

 

[nfandi]

Tidal just discontinued MQA support. MQA is no longer available on Tidal. You may just need to update the app on your SP3000.

No need for me as I am 100% Qobuz..

 

[nfandi]

As a former owner of a SP3K, I am quite interested in how people find it stacks up versus more recent TOTL daps.

The thing that keeps bringing me back in A&K's camp is the terrific Roon compatibility. How is SP3K with Traillii/Traillii Ti?

No idea actually; it’s Nutopia or Trifecta for me.

 

[NYanakiev]

No idea actually; it’s Nutopia or Trifecta for me.

Let me elaborate- I gave up on the sp3k after I tried and loved Cayin's N30LE. I felt like it excelled in driving power, staging and most of all in dynamics.

I had similarly positive impressions after trying out a few other TOTL DAPs and found it hard to come back to the sp3k as it sounded anaemic and lacking dynamics in comparison.

This could have been a rather subjective view at the time as sound is very much about psychoacoustics too.

Just curious how current owners find the DAP fares against other top offerings in the market right now and whether it is still competitive.

 

[rlw6534]

Further to the Tidal / SP3000 led light issue… A developer on the roon forum has confirmed that Tidal has removed from their app the mqa bit recognition. Many tracks are showing 44.1k 16b in the Tidal app while fulling decoding to mqa when fed from roon. In other words their Tidal is misleading their users.

I noticed today that my SR35 is still playing some MQA tracks on my playlists with the built-in Tidal. I'm guessing that they are still serving the MQA versions (for some tracks) but disabling decoding in the official app. I agree that that is misleading if true. Of course it could be A&K's Tidal app which doesn't seem to support Tidal Max. Has anyone seen any hi-res tracks with the A&K Tidal player?

 

[aaf evo]

@JasonNYC the MusicTeck product page for SP3000 (SS and Black) shows slightly different specs compared to the newly released platinum version, is this just misinformation or do you know if there's any actual internal difference?

This is listed for SS/Black https://shop.musicteck.com/collections/astell-kern/products/astell-kern-sp3000-1

Here is for the platinum version https://shop.musicteck.com/collecti...kern-sp3000-dap-music-player-platinum-edition

 

[JasonNYC]

@JasonNYC the MusicTeck product page for SP3000 (SS and Black) shows slightly different specs compared to the newly released platinum version, is this just misinformation or do you know if there's any actual internal difference?

This is listed for SS/Black https://shop.musicteck.com/collections/astell-kern/products/astell-kern-sp3000-1



Here is for the platinum version https://shop.musicteck.com/collecti...kern-sp3000-dap-music-player-platinum-edition

They should be the same. Let me confirm. On the AK global site, they are the same.

 

[NYanakiev]

Let me elaborate- I gave up on the sp3k after I tried and loved Cayin's N30LE. I felt like it excelled in driving power, staging and most of all in dynamics.

I had similarly positive impressions after trying out a few other TOTL DAPs and found it hard to come back to the sp3k as it sounded anaemic and lacking dynamics in comparison.

This could have been a rather subjective view at the time as sound is very much about psychoacoustics too.

Just curious how current owners find the DAP fares against other top offerings in the market right now and whether it is still competitive.

Anyone else??? This thread used to be one of the most active ones on the board!

 

[Fafner]

Let me elaborate- I gave up on the sp3k after I tried and loved Cayin's N30LE. I felt like it excelled in driving power, staging and most of all in dynamics.

I had similarly positive impressions after trying out a few other TOTL DAPs and found it hard to come back to the sp3k as it sounded anaemic and lacking dynamics in comparison.

This could have been a rather subjective view at the time as sound is very much about psychoacoustics too.

Just curious how current owners find the DAP fares against other top offerings in the market right now and whether it is still competitive.

It may be headphone-related as well. The SP3000 still holds its own against current TOTL, but it doesn't like to get pushed to its limits, where other DAPs remain unperturbed even when you push volume to 100%. Power-demanding IEMs like Subtonic's Storm are reported to not pair well at all. Some say it's because of tuning, others say it's because it lacks power. Forget about full size power demanding headphones.

 

[shznn]

It may be headphone-related as well. The SP3000 still holds its own against current TOTL, but it doesn't like to get pushed to its limits, where other DAPs remain unperturbed even when you push volume to 100%. Power-demanding IEMs like Subtonic's Storm are reported to not pair well at all. Some say it's because of tuning, others say it's because it lacks power. Forget about full size power demanding headphones.

Of course all of this changes when you add a heavily modded tsuranagi like mine through some kickass interconnect and suddenly the crispness of sp3k gets all the dynamics it needs and stuff like jewel starts singing

 

[JasonNYC]

@JasonNYC the MusicTeck product page for SP3000 (SS and Black) shows slightly different specs compared to the newly released platinum version, is this just misinformation or do you know if there's any actual internal difference?

This is listed for SS/Black https://shop.musicteck.com/collections/astell-kern/products/astell-kern-sp3000-1



Here is for the platinum version https://shop.musicteck.com/collecti...kern-sp3000-dap-music-player-platinum-edition

Confirmed the audio specs for both the SP3000 Black, Stainless Steel, Copper, Gold and Platinum are all the same as they all have the same audio circuitry. This is a mistake on the MusicTeck website and the team reached out to them to correct. The specs as listed on the Astell&Kern website are correct.

 

[Frankster010]

When connected to a 2.4ghz network, using Roon or the Qobuz app, I hear some small static noise at the beginning of each song. Connecting to a 5ghz network reduces the issue but still noticeable.

Anyone experiencing something similar?

Gear: SP3K with AK VE Aura

 

[bussola]

@JasonNYC any new FW updates on the horizon?

No answer to your question yet I’m sorry