Astell&Kern KANN CUBE

[thecrow]

Yes, see a few posts back. I have the Shure BT headset and use it with my andromeda’s sometimes. At first they were pretty much useless until we discovered the problem with the case. The leather case blocks out a huge amount of both wifi and bluetooth, but without the case its really quite good. I was getting about 8 metres range with aptX HD and I’ve also used it with A2DP on my helmet headset, it worked ok (better than the aptX HD) before I found out about the case so I’m sure it would be much better without the case too.

I think its the moisture content - bluetooth won’t transmit through water. Google say leather is around 10% compared to plastic at 2%, so a plastic case would probably be much better even though it would look terrible.

So without the case is there many dramas with bluetooth or is all pretty good? How long have you now been using it without the case in that regard?
Cheers

 

[Pow3lley]

Reading these posts about Bluetooth and connecting to Bluetooth speakers, as the conversion from digital to analogue would be carried out by the receiving device you wouldn’t be making the best use of the Cube, you might as well use a mobile phone. The quality of the sound would be limited to the quality of the DAC in the device, to get the best out of it in this instance I’d plug the 3.5mm jack from the cube to the speaker then use the AK phone app to connect to the cube, at least you’d be using the DACs in the cube.
I love my AK70mk2 for its portability, but the sound from the Cube is in a different league in my opinion. All depends on your hearing and preferences.

 

[jmills8]

Reading these posts about Bluetooth and connecting to Bluetooth speakers, as the conversion from digital to analogue would be carried out by the receiving device you wouldn’t be making the best use of the Cube, you might as well use a mobile phone. The quality of the sound would be limited to the quality of the DAC in the device, to get the best out of it in this instance I’d plug the 3.5mm jack from the cube to the speaker then use the AK phone app to connect to the cube, at least you’d be using the DACs in the cube.
I love my AK70mk2 for its portability, but the sound from the Cube is in a different league in my opinion. All depends on your hearing and preferences.

If you use bluetoorh that means you are not really using the Cube.

 

[KevP]

Its the case, Ive posted about it earlier in this thread...both wifi and bluetooth are badly affected by the wonderful case!

Remove the case and it works much, much better!

Thanks. I’m using the Miter case. I’ll try it without it and see if it makes a difference. Also noticing that battery life has diminished significantly since a two-day blast of importing 7,000 Tidal tracks

 

[KevP]

Thanks. I’m using the Miter case. I’ll try it without it and see if it makes a difference. Also noticing that battery life has diminished significantly since a two-day blast of importing 7,000 Tidal tracks

No noticeable difference to WiFi for me after removing the case. Maybe the A&K case is the specific problem.

 

[Nails]

No noticeable difference to WiFi for me after removing the case. Maybe the A&K case is the specific problem.

Definitely the AK case is a problem with bluetooth esp HD bluetooth, wifi seems to be affected too, but not as much as a HD bluetooth connection. it would be interesting to know if those Miter cases give good results with HD bluetooth, they don’t look too bad imo. They are ‘plastic leather’ but that might help

 

[Tristy]

Does anyone have any issues when using the Cube as a DAC with a MacBook via a tidal Hi-fi account? Some songs require me to lower the volume significantly while other I have to raise it. Strangely when I go back and test the songs that were quiet before the song is now playing at a higher volume? Its important to note that this happens without any notice and I have quiet a shock when going from quiet to loud songs (the volume number stays the same). Also when the player goes to the variant the quality of the song seems to increase as well. So strange.

Has this happened to anyone else? Do I need to install some sort of updated DAC driver for Mac OS?

 

[fedfan6]

Does anyone have any issues when using the Cube as a DAC with a MacBook via a tidal Hi-fi account? Some songs require me to lower the volume significantly while other I have to raise it. Strangely when I go back and test the songs that were quiet before the song is now playing at a higher volume? Its important to note that this happens without any notice and I have quiet a shock when going from quiet to loud songs (the volume number stays the same). Also when the player goes to the variant the quality of the song seems to increase as well. So strange.

Has this happened to anyone else? Do I need to install some sort of updated DAC driver for Mac OS?

Are you listening to shuffle play or continuous albums? The Tidal app on my Macbook has a setting for Loudness Normalization, if not selected you might try it.

 

[Tristy]

Are you listening to shuffle play or continuous albums? The Tidal app on my Macbook has a setting for Loudness Normalization, if not selected you might try it.

I have checked and setting was on but I will attempt to change it later on with the player and off to see if it makes a difference. Thanks for your input!

 

[nicodem]

Sold Kann Cube. Too big and heavy for usage with KSE1200. Too much together.
I still got SR15 but thinking about selling as well and going for SP1000M - do you find this interesting for a change? Maybe other ideas/solutions?
Generally speaking - I must have Tidal offline with MQA, not really big size like CUBE mostly for use with KSE1200 and Andromeda S.

 

[Cat Music]

Sold Kann Cube. Too big and heavy for usage with KSE1200. Too much together.
I still got SR15 but thinking about selling as well and going for SP1000M - do you find this interesting for a change? Maybe other ideas/solutions?
Generally speaking - I must have Tidal offline with MQA, not really big size like CUBE mostly for use with KSE1200 and Andromeda S.

I understand that the Kann Cube is not for you because of the size, but was its sound quality amazing?

 

[nicodem]

I understand that the Kann Cube is not for you because of the size, but was its sound quality amazing?

Yes. Soundwise - this is almost same as SR15 with little better overall control. And on top of this - perfect power to drive literally any phones I got at home. But I have expanded my desktop system so CUBE was then used only for mobile one. And its just too big and heavy when I have to connect also with KSE1200 amp.
Now looking for something more portable and with even better SQ. But not important that much power.

 

[Cat Music]

Yes. Soundwise - this is almost same as SR15 with little better overall control. And on top of this - perfect power to drive literally any phones I got at home. But I have expanded my desktop system so CUBE was then used only for mobile one. And its just too big and heavy when I have to connect also with KSE1200 amp.
Now looking for something more portable and with even better SQ. But not important that much power.

It seems that Kann Cube fulfilled your expectations about its sound quality, but I feel at the same time you have tried better DAPs, thanks for your comment

 

[chapter11]

My final setup: Kann Cube + 2.5mm balanced super litz cable from Campfire + Solaris. Like it!

The wifi is slow on Amazon Music, but using Tidal is much faster. Overall, it's okay.
The warming problem is accepted. I think the slow wifi and warming problem can be solved by software update.

 

[audio-]

Yes. Soundwise - this is almost same as SR15 with little better overall control. And on top of this - perfect power to drive literally any phones I got at home. But I have expanded my desktop system so CUBE was then used only for mobile one. And its just too big and heavy when I have to connect also with KSE1200 amp.
Now looking for something more portable and with even better SQ. But not important that much power.

Curious to know what your desktop system is. I am thinking of purchasing a desktop system as well. I have looked at quite a few components but haven’t made any decisions yet.