[Steven R. Rochli]

Have to agree, the UI itself is ok yet sluggish in operation. FYI: The early non-release firmware of the AK380 was a bit sluggish when hitting play on a song, yet the newer release firmware is fast. Odds are AK could offer new firmware for the Jr and fix the slug (crossing fingers). The Jr here is still breaking in. Love the solid build and form factory for incredibly easy portability.
 
Just can't get myself to carry around a band-aid'ed set of bricks as I see others do. This is 2015... and not 1985 when I had to walk around with a heavy Sony Discman D10 / D-25 / D-555 / etc., yet the D-88 was a fun lil toy

 

[Conext]

  Have to agree, the UI itself is ok yet sluggish in operation. FYI: The early non-release firmware of the AK380 was a bit sluggish when hitting play on a song, yet the newer release firmware is fast. Odds are AK could offer new firmware for the Jr and fix the slug (crossing fingers). The Jr here is still breaking in. Love the solid build and form factory for incredibly easy portability.
 
Just can't get myself to carry around a band-aid'ed set of bricks as I see others do. This is 2015... and not 1985 when I had to walk around with a heavy Sony Discman D10 / D-25 / D-555 / etc., yet the D-88 was a fun lil toy

I know what you mean about portability.
 
The Jr. is sleek and sexy, and amazingly small and light. It's supremely pocketable. Unlike the ZX2. I simply find it too thick and heavy to carry on my person regularly.
 
In regards to break-in: do you believe that need exists for the Jr.? We know with the ZX2, Sony specifically told everyone that the caps needed the break in time. And everyone who owns one agrees that the nature of the device changes substantially over the break-in period. Do you think something similar is needed for the Jr.? And if so, do you have a time frame that you suspect is sufficient for full break-in?

 

[craigp]

  I don't think the UI is crappy at all... It is a music player, not a high power Android phone or an iPhone.  

 
Here's a quick video I did tonight to give everyone some perspective on the UI and its responsiveness.
 
 

 
Well I've received one of these players the other day and so far I am bitterly disappointed.  Like many others my biggest gripe is the horrendous UI.
 
I briefly used an A&K player at the Bristol show earlier this year and was very impressed with interface.  From memory it was silky smooth and looked great.  The JR however is not at all pleasant to use.  Big pauses when returning to album/artist list, and awful scrolling through long lists (missed/inconsistent swipes).
 
Thanks HiFiGuy for sharing the video above.  It is interesting and I agree that the performance demonstrated in your video is acceptable - not fantastic but certainly usable.  My own experience, and seemingly many others too, is nothing like what is shown though.
 
I notice that there isn't a lot of music on your device currently (in terms of numbers of artists/albums etc) and wonder if this is the problem.  I have so far added around 30Gb of music to the device but this is only about a quarter of my music collection.  I wanted to see how it would perform before I added an SD card to the mix, which I fear will slow things down even more.
 
I wonder if you could you try filling up your device with more content and see if the response is still as good for you?

 

[HiFiGuy528]

   
Well I've received one of these players the other day and so far I am bitterly disappointed.  Like many others my biggest gripe is the horrendous UI.
 
I briefly used an A&K player at the Bristol show earlier this year and was very impressed with interface.  From memory it was silky smooth and looked great.  The JR however is not at all pleasant to use.  Big pauses when returning to album/artist list, and awful scrolling through long lists (missed/inconsistent swipes).
 
Thanks HiFiGuy for sharing the video above.  It is interesting and I agree that the performance demonstrated in your video is acceptable - not fantastic but certainly usable.  My own experience, and seemingly many others too, is nothing like what is shown though.
 
I notice that there isn't a lot of music on your device currently (in terms of numbers of artists/albums etc) and wonder if this is the problem.  I have so far added around 30Gb of music to the device but this is only about a quarter of my music collection.  I wanted to see how it would perform before I added an SD card to the mix, which I fear will slow things down even more.
 
I wonder if you could you try filling up your device with more content and see if the response is still as good for you?

 
I actually had more music than what was shown in the video.  I realized this morning that the reason those albums wasn't in the music library was because I didn't rescan the files.  I now have auto scan turned ON.  

 

[craigp]

   
I actually had more music than what was shown in the video.  I realized this morning that the reason those albums wasn't in the music library was because I didn't rescan the files.  I now have auto scan turned ON.  

 
and in your opinion performance is still about the same as in your video?

 

[craigp]

Here is a quick look at how the UI works on mine.  Forgive the quality of the video - I was holding the iPhone in one hand and swiping with the other!
 

 

[clee290]

Yep, swiping does suck. That's why I've opted to drag the scroll bar on the right side instead. Allows you to go through your list much faster too, if you have a huge list of albums/artists/songs.

 

[craigp]

  Yep, swiping does suck. That's why I've opted to drag the scroll bar on the right side instead. Allows you to go through your list much faster too, if you have a huge list of albums/artists/songs.

 
I agree that it's better to use the right hand side but even that is far from pleasant to use.  If you move your finger quickly a reasonable distance and then keep your finger dead still it takes the Jr 2 or 3 seconds to catch up.
 
There are other issues with the firmware too though (previously mentioned in the thread but wanted to confirm that I'm getting these issues too):
 

1. Missing artwork (and all my music is tagged with reasonable size images - around 500x500 and no other player struggles with any of them)
2. "Z" before "A" in Album view? (the list starts with digits, then goes to Z, then to A-Y)

 
Normally I would agree with people that say sound matter above all else but I'm finding the experience so bad I've barely listened to it. 

 

 

[Conext]

• Missing artwork (and all my music is tagged with reasonable size images - around 500x500 and no other player struggles with any of them)
• "Z" before "A" in Album view? (the list starts with digits, then goes to Z, then to A-Y)

I vaguely recall coming across a situation with the album artwork in the past, like this. I don't remember which player was suffering from the issue, but the ultimate determination was that the player couldn't handle jpgs (whether embedded in the tags, or as a separate file sitting in the album directory) which had "progressive" encoding. Once the offending artwork was re-encoded with "standard" encoding, it worked just fine.

 

[hifistarter]

Has anyone contacted Astell & Kern / iRiver directly?  I do understand that their Customer Support is fairly poor.  Maybe ALO may know more given they carry Astell & Kern.

 

[bonve]

Hi everyone, is it worth to upgrade from x5 to this ak jr? I am planning to get one.thanks

 

[dbdynsty25]

Hi everyone, is it worth to upgrade from x5 to this ak jr? I am planning to get one.thanks

Have you not been reading? Pretty sure the JR isn't an upgrade over the x5 unless form factor is the most important aspect.

 

[bonve]

Have you not been reading? Pretty sure the JR isn't an upgrade over the x5 unless form factor is the most important aspect.

thanks man, i really want to have an ak120ii but the price is so high, and i see this ak jr.

 

[DigitalFreak]

  Here is a quick look at how the UI works on mine.  Forgive the quality of the video - I was holding the iPhone in one hand and swiping with the other!
 

Whoa that's pretty bad. My unit performs on par with Hifiguy's video and I'm rocking a 128 GB card. I'm wondering if there'a a bad batch out there now.

 

[bretemm]

Is the ak jr good to get? Or would the ak100ii be better? Or possibly the ak120?