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Astell & Kern Junior (AK Jr.) Impressions Thread
Jul 26, 2015 at 11:48 PM Post #857 of 3,321
I just got the blue pleather case for my Jr. Paid about $43 out the door from a local distributor. There is no denying its not leather but its very well made and fit is perfect. Wish they would have used real leather and include cut outs of the buttons. Not so sure if its worth the money though.
 
Jul 27, 2015 at 7:20 AM Post #858 of 3,321
I had a quick three way trial with AK Jr, Plenue 1, and ZX2 today. 
 
SQ:
Plenue 1>ZX2>AK JR
Somewhat expected. Plenue 1 has a really rich signature(with headphone mode off, all eq setting off). I've never heard my Z5 play Norah Jones like it did. On the other hand, if you don't like warm signature, Plenue 1 might not be so great. ZX2, is also pretty good, though it's quite different from Plenue 1 too. It has it's own engine that alters the sound. Sound stage is absurd(good way), and separation is awesome. It has a capability of creating a sound scape like nothing else. It also smoothens out the treble with some sort of magic it performs. It also works really well with Z5. And my AK Jr. It's good. It can sound a bit edgy, but for half the price of the other two DAPs, I really can't complain. Besides, AK Jr. was perhaps the most analytical of all three. So if you like that sig, I don't see why you won't choose AK Jr. as your go-to DAP(unless you have something like AK380 of course)
 
Form Factor/Other things
AK Jr>P1=ZX2
AK Jr is the smallest and is as solidly built as the other two, making it the winner. However, all of them are built extremely well, although ZX2 was surprisingly very heavy. For a Sony DAP, it's really not what you would expect. Nevertheless, it also packs really good power.
 
Jul 27, 2015 at 11:33 AM Post #862 of 3,321
i tried AK Jr for a full hour with Focal Spirit Pro. my daily DAP is DX90 and while i love the sound but i hate the small artwork and the tiny area for scrolling, and i loathe the thickness and sharp corners.
 
AK Jr it feels so so good on my hand, i want to carry it home as soon as i hold it. and the huge screen is just a thing of beauty. but then i find myself trying really really hard to like the sound of it. coming from DX90, AK Jr felt much too warm, sounds 2D (for lack of better word) and slightly cramped (less soundstage), and the details of guitar is drowned (listening to Muse - The 2nd Law). the excitement and impact of house/trance songs are gone (listening to Armin Van Buuren - Intense). both album on ALAC, 24/96 or 16/441
 
but the beautiful form factor still nags me. so i'll be back to the store with my UM iems to give it another go. hopefully this time i'll like it. it's just so so beautiful and fit my pockets like a golf. i mean, glove. *still doesn't make sense huh*
 
Jul 27, 2015 at 12:53 PM Post #863 of 3,321
mosshorn said:
If the MK2 didn't have hiss I may want that too
tongue.gif
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No hiss problems, and without a doubt the Alien MK II has great sound for the $$$. JMHO.
 
Jul 27, 2015 at 3:32 PM Post #867 of 3,321
mosshorn said:
  Arrived today, no worries :)
 
Initial impression: sounds great, now if only it would load my SD card to the library...
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Heh. Yeah, the Jr. can be awfully finicky with loading music.
 
In my experience, using a media manager program, like Media Monkey or Media Go had no problems loading files to the Jr. every time I tried.
 
But, when I tried to manually load files via Windows, as though it was just another "hard drive"...it wigged out on me more than a few times. Quite annoying. And frankly, simply ridiculous for a "premium" product.
 
Jul 27, 2015 at 5:00 PM Post #868 of 3,321
conext said:
 
Heh. Yeah, the Jr. can be awfully finicky with loading music.
 
In my experience, using a media manager program, like Media Monkey or Media Go had no problems loading files to the Jr. every time I tried.
 
But, when I tried to manually load files via Windows, as though it was just another "hard drive"...it wigged out on me more than a few times. Quite annoying. And frankly, simply ridiculous for a "premium" product.
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Yeah, pretty annoying. I'm not a stranger to finicky DAPs, though the Fiio line has spoiled me. I would be in an ideal spot if I could have both the JR and the X5ii.
 
Jul 27, 2015 at 5:43 PM Post #869 of 3,321
Just received the AK Jr and Sennheiser Momentum On-Ear (BH Photo deal) today, will be selling the Momentums.  I immediately updated to FW 1.02 and so far I've loaded about 39gb on internal storage and about 20gb on 128gb MircoSDXC (exFat format, no problems recognizing in the AK Jr, showed about 119gb available), all FLAC (mix of 16bit and 24bit).  So far no problems.  Transferring to internal storage was a little slow, but not much slower than any other DAP.  I used a 3.0 USB card reader to transfer to the external microSDXC card and that went a lot faster, I will finish loading the microSDXC tomorrow.  It only took a few minutes to scan about 2000 files.  Been listening to my music for the past couple of hours and really enjoying what is coming out of this little DAP.  So far no issues with scrolling through library.  I am really particular with my music library, all sorted in folders by Artist then Album.  All my files are tagged using Mp3Tag software and all album art is embedded (all JPEG and 600x600).  No text files, image files, etc exist in the folders, ONLY FLAC, AIFF, and MP3.  I have found having a clean music catalog helps these DAP's to play nice.  IMO, garbage in = garbage out.
 
One question to all that have owned the AK Jr for awhile; does it require burn-in?  If so, about how long?  So far, I really like the sound.
 
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