[cheznous]

Not at all, a pitch black background is also a feeling of the sounds coming out of nowhere, like magically appearing out of nowhere

Well magic doesn’t exist and pitch black means absence of light. So it’s not a musical description. No background noise works but pitch black background is as bad as sonic cathedral. But eh each to their own.

 

[Zhang Enyuan]

 

[subguy812]

@cheznous

Dude, describe it how you wish to describe it when you are describing it. Be prepared to answer a lot of questions about your description. In my mind, and in my description, clarity and a black background mean two different things, but work synergistically. A black background increases the level of clarity, but something can have clarity even if the background isn't the darkest.

If you wish to change definitions, that reviewers and audiophiles (such as myself) have been using for decades, post your legend along with your descriptions so folks will be able to understand your definition.

Symantec's

 

[Electrocrytic]

Well magic doesn’t exist and pitch black means absence of light. So it’s not a musical description. No background noise works but pitch black background is as bad as sonic cathedral. But eh each to their own.

Sure, black is the absence of (visible) light waves and as both light and sound are waveforms black is used to describe the absence of (audible) sound waves.

Similarly white light comprises of all light wave frequencies in equal amounts. White noise consists of all sound wave frequencies in equal amounts.

 

[The1Signature]

can someone compare it with sony wm1zm2?

edit: found it here.

 

[tjsop]

Before dumping a whole lot of money on this I am after a few opinions.
I currently listen to music with an iPhone 13 with the Apple dongle, and a pair of shure se846s with the white filters.
Have been thinking about getting a dac to go with this setup.
Is it a massive difference in quality from my current setup (or lack thereof lol) to using a dac, and then going to something like the sp3000?
At the end of the day I know every opinion is going to be subjective, but it’s always good to get some feedback.
Thanks folks.

I have also the SE846 with white filter and its day and night comparing to JH Layla customs, in my opinion better to change the iem first before changing the source, SE846 is a poor iem to give to SP3000

 

[Utah dude]

Spent the first 10 or so hours with the SP3000. Holy cow, what an amazing DAP. If I had to describe it in the shortest way, it would be musical precision. Everything is incredibly detailed in space with incredible nuance, yet sounds completely natural and musical, not analytical or clinical at all (This is mostly with the UM Mason Fusang). The boot up time is not fast, but acceptable to me. I usually start it, then get my IEMs out of the case and by the time I have them in, the player is ready to go. I actually do enjoy the heft. The display is gorgeous, and responsive. To me the only drawbacks are 2. The first are the same as on the SP1000 and SP2000: The side buttons are too close and hard to press through the case without looking. Often when I want to pause playback I skip forward or backward. The second one has to do with the design of the volume wheel / on/off button: It protrudes from the side of the player. When I have it in the storage case it can turn itself on due to it being wider (just a little to wide for my Eletech case), and the on/off/volume wheel being the tallest part of the side. On the SP2000 the angles of the side made the volume wheel somewhat recessed. Will have to modify the case to prevent that. Now with the addition of Roon ARC, I don’t have to have everything on my SD card.
Overall, no regrets. Musical bliss.

 

[NYanakiev]

Anyone able to use Roon ARC on the go via a mobile hotspot mode? I have only had a single track play back today, seems like a hotspot speed issue?

Have zero issues with ARC on my iPhone 14 Pro Max.

 

[arftech]

Day 2 with my SP3K but had the unit since Tuesday…scheduling prevented me from opening so I lived vicariously through you guys that already had it and was taking the player through its paces.

My thoughts. A definite and hearable improvement over the SP2K and this is in my opinion A&K’s best offering yet and through a company’s evolution it should be.

However, one criticism is the storage! As you know it’s been reduced by half and what a shame! Come on A&K! It is what it is but damn. So, I went and bought a 1 terabyte card from Sandisk which turned out to be a mini disaster. There were simply too many write errors and it kept bombing off even while using Commander One. However, there were no issues using Commander and just writing to the player‘s internal drive. Fast and quick but I’ll need to get the memory card to work in the very near future. Damnit you A&K!

How does it sound? Fantastic! There’s an effortless to the music as it has the perfect blend of sonic pleasures. The blackness in background is a real thing because that allows you to hear those quiet passages. It seems as though the music is on a well organized painter’s palate. It’s there for you to paint the perfect picture. There is no harshness to the treble. The midrange is damn near perfect and the bass is not bloated. It’s there if it’s in the recording. The cohesion of it all is simply outstanding!

Roon Arc was a good selling point for me and getting that to work is the icing on the cake and as I type this Arc is being used now…listening to Sohn’s new release. It sounds sublime and is the perfect example of the black background on the SP3K. It’s an excellent relaxing recording that allows you to hear and visualize the details.

If you have the wherewithal I can recommend this class leading DAP. Yes, it’s a closed system as far as Android is concerned but that’s a selling point for me personally. I just want to hear the music as A&K intended. Great job Astell and Kern.

I didn’t check for spelling or grammatical errors and this is what it is.

 

[raydenray]

I'm not sure if the DAR function works with Roon. It seems to work on the Roon signal path, but when I check on the SP3000 I see PCM

 

[JerryX]

Got my SP3000 Black. I have been using A&K daps since AK100. Used every single flagship they built.
Really enjoy all the usability improvements versus SP2000:

• Better CPU, larger memory brought blazing fast performance in DAP world.
• 304L stainless steal is solid and nice craftsmanship
• Double tap to wake makes it much easier to switch tracks
• Really upscaled leather case
• 4.4mm is a big bonus.

Took some photos of this beauty with my 9-yr old AK120. Love how it inherited classic black & red looks.

 

[damascato]

What do you think of DAR? I really like that feature, feels like it enhances space and separation between instruments.

As far as I know it’s an advanced upscaling function, so I’m not surprised that it has a similar effect tonHQPlayer.

 

[aaf evo]

What do you think of DAR? I really like that feature, feels like it enhances space and separation between instruments.

As far as I know it’s an advanced upscaling function, so I’m not surprised that it has a similar effect tonHQPlayer.

I leave it on for the same reasons you’ve listed.

 

[arftech]

I leave it on for the same reasons you’ve listed.

Same.

 

[theveterans]

DAR is a game changer for me especially bypassing those built-in filters from AKM4191 (to me off the shelf DAC chip filters are really behind custom filters from the likes of HQPlayer and Chord and even Schiit Megacombo Burrito filter). If AK had truly made a 512 GB version for 200 USD more, I would shut up and they take my money in a heartbeat