My first thoughts as well. Just wait till you plug something into it and that warm, sweet, musical melody comes out. That's why I can't send it back. The UI is a bit tiring, and I couldn't get the USB DAC feature to work, but the sound was much too good for me to go back to something else.
Well I've had it for about 24 hours and have used it for possibly 5 - maybe not enough to have a real impression but here are my thoughts.
On the whole it wasn't really what I was expecting to be honest. From the HP out alone with my IE8 I'd say the sound quality near enough matches my 5th gen iPod video being amped by a lower end amp like a Fiio A3. The AK has almost the same sound signature as the iPod which is good for me. It sounds world's apart from the Fiio X5ii in sound signature which was quite flat and analytical with a very obvious left/right soundstage, whereas the AK is warm, lush, quite thick with it's presentation (almost somewhat congested) but with a very 3D soundstage.
Rating these players amped/unamped based on back when I actually had them (all I own now is the 5g and AK) I'd put them as -
X5ii+A5 > 5g+A5 > AK > 5g+A3 > X5ii > 5g
I'll flat up say it that the Fiio A5 amping these players sounded better than the AK HP out alone. It made the X5ii and 5g sound almost analogue rather than like digital music whereas the AK clearly sounds digital just like the iPod and X5ii from the HP out did.
I think the AK sounds better out the HP than both the iPod and X5ii. The X5ii was far too neautral and flat for me and it basically just sounds like an iPod 2.0 - higher quality sound (yet the same signature) and a huge amount of flash based storage with a non-proprietary cable.
The AK UI is awful. It's laggy and keeps hanging when scrolling. It came with 1.03 out the box. As far as updates go I'm guessing this player is dead already. It's specs aren't high enough to provide a smooth experience no matter how much it gets updated.
I don't feel this is worth £400 at all. I paid £250 and even that's pushing it a bit. I'd realistically say £200 same as the X5ii should be. The X5ii UI was much better in terms of speed (it was flawlessly smooth) but the layout of folders and the scroll wheel sucked. The decade old iPod has better UI and controls than either of these players and is still getting 18 hours battery life from a 1.5 hour charge compared to 4hr charge/9 hour play after 10 years of near daily use.
I'm going to come out and say it here but i simply don't think a high quality DAP player even exists anymore - not for under £700 or so anyway. These "high end" players for £400 and under all have way too many flaws and sacrifices in the name of sound quality.
The Sony A15 player looks like it has a flawlessly smooth UI (non touch screen) but i don't think it's SQ would be a great deal better than a phone. It's an extremely mainstream high-resolution player and seems like it's more about the marketing and brand than sound. I mean it doesn't even have a computer DAC function.
The moral of the story here in a way is that amplifiers seem to make the biggest difference in bringing out the best in SQ I think. If you want a player to use ampless you can only get so much out of it. Go too cheap and you barely get something that improves on a phone, but go too expensive and you get niche Asian devices with hardware specs and barely functional UI's from 2006 - where you're paying for SQ above all else.
I kind of wish someone like Sennheiser, BOSE, Shure, Klipsch etc would just go ahead and make a decent quality premium player. I'm sad the Pono failed the way it did.
Do I like the AK? Yes and no.
It's a mess of a player and barely feels like a premium product besides the build quality which is excellent. It sounds like my iPod but better which is what I wanted but I guess to me it feels like on the whole it's not really wowing me like I thought it would. Then again based on what I said no player probably will.
