Astell&Kern KANN CUBE

[cj3209]

... If chord releases the 2go I could be persuaded to go in that direction as long as it ships w/2 slots and abandon the a&k brand as a result. This comment is just for the guys who read this from a&k so they know.

Yah, good luck with Chord's 2go (and any related future) product. I had it for a few months and it was just too much work to get it to work on a consistent basis; spent more time trying to connect and reading the forums for band-aid solutions than listening to music...jumped off that ship in a hurry and it damaged my perception of Chord as an audio company to release a product like that to the public...

 

[lcasadonte]

Yah, good luck with Chord's 2go (and any related future) product. I had it for a few months and it was just too much work to get it to work on a consistent basis; spent more time trying to connect and reading the forums for band-aid solutions than listening to music...jumped off that ship in a hurry and it damaged my perception of Chord as an audio company to release a product like that to the public...

I definitely hear you on that.

 

[udesign48]

yea... 3.5mm, dual 3.5mm balanced, 4.4mm balanced, 2.5mm balanced. Let's see them all in AK400 maybe.

 

[GiullianSN]

I have an SE100 and love it, but the 2.5mm balanced is too delicate. Considering we are in 2019 and electronics became so small, 4.4mm shouldn't be a problem to implement. Releasing DAPs without 4.4mm today is like swimming against the current.

Another product that makes hold my money for the future Sony DAPs, hoping they will have offline streaming services.

 

[Hifi2jungle]

Introducing KANN CUBE - The latest player in the KANN Performance Line from Astell&Kern.

KANN CUBE makes its debut at the 2019 Tokyo Fujiya Avic Spring Headphone Festival and features dual ESS Sabre ES9038PRO DACs, 128GB internal memory and a microSD card slot for additional storage. KANN CUBE supports up to 32-bit/384 kHz PCM and DSD256 playback natively and features a 5-inch high definition screen. Power output on KANN CUBE is almost double of the original KANN player, giving users the ability to drive any headphone on the market. KANN CUBE features support for MQA and OpenApp Service, allowing the most popular music streaming services to be installed. More information is available here - https://us.astellnkern.com/blogs/ne...n-kann-high-resolution-audio-player-kann-cube

Will there be an option that gains access to digital filters?

 

[dickcheneyx]

I have an SE100 and love it, but the 2.5mm balanced is too delicate. Considering we are in 2019 and electronics became so small, 4.4mm shouldn't be a problem to implement. Releasing DAPs without 4.4mm today is like swimming against the current.

Another product that makes hold my money for the future Sony DAPs, hoping they will have offline streaming services.

Same here, was looking at this as something to drive my more demanding hifimans but ill continue to wait....hopefully, getting antsy waiting for a new sony dap.

Any technical reason they excluded the 4.4mm ?

 

[udesign48]

or they should quickly create KANN CUBE Mk II with 4.4mm balanced.
2.5mm balanced jack is too fragile .. I'm not a huge fan.

I don't see any point of using it when you can have much better 4.4mm balanced.
I hope AK guys are reading this and they'll change their minds.

Head-fiers... please comment about 4.4mm here again and again to make AK guys understand they're wrong.
When you spend over $1k on DAP, you need 4.4mm balanced.

 

[DaYooper]

And don't forget to mention the lack of a SDXC slot.

 

[GiullianSN]

And don't forget to mention the lack of a SDXC slot.

I actually understand the SDXC card not being on a "portable" product as this one takes a lot of space, compared to micro SD. 4.4mm and 2.5 would be an smaller jump in space usage.

 

[DaYooper]

Really? The original Kann has both so the not-enough-space argument doesn't work for a dap that is LARGER than the original.

 

[Hyde8767]

No 4.4 Pentaconn no buy

 

[CANiSLAYu]

@JasonNYC will KANN Cube receiving Roon support as well along with the previous players? Thank you.

 

[DarginMahkum]

This DAP really looks like a big question mark to me:

- 2 extremely powerful DACs but not supporting DSD512.
- If the sound wouldn't make use of the full potential of ES9038PRO (I read also on Facebook that Cube didn't sound as clear and refined as SP1000/M, and it was even warmer sounding compared to SE100), wouldn't it be better to develop a better amplification stage with proved to be working, less power hungry ES9028PRO? True, A&K already has experience with ES9038PRO but was it really that difficult to switch to ES9028PRO?
- Wouldn't less power hungry DACs like ES9028PRO give better battery life?
- 2.5mm rather than 4.4mm which has become the standart for all other DAPs and DACs?

I really wanted to consider it and it is amazing that it was possible to squeeze in two mighty desktop DACs in a portable device, but who would want to use an HD800/820 with a DAP that has 2.5mm balanced connection, and that does not fully utilize its DACs/components? What makes it better than a 60% of the price DX220+AMP8 which has 4.4mm connector, DSD512? I really wish that I am wrong about Cube and I might even buy it for making my own experience, but I am surprised that A&K comes up with this after amazing SP1000M.

 

[CANiSLAYu]

Doesn't DX220 ship with AMP1 MKII? So AMP8 would be another $200, making it 73% of the cost ($400 difference), not 60%. I also don't think it's fair to focus just on the DAC and discount the output power, as that's the main USP of the KANN. The KANN also has balanced line out to connect to a desktop system. If people don't value those things, then yeah, probably not the right player for them.

 

[Whitigir]

This DAP really looks like a big question mark to me:

- 2 extremely powerful DACs but not supporting DSD512.
- If the sound wouldn't make use of the full potential of ES9038PRO (I read also on Facebook that Cube didn't sound as clear and refined as SP1000/M, and it was even warmer sounding compared to SE100), wouldn't it be better to develop a better amplification stage with proved to be working, less power hungry ES9028PRO? True, A&K already has experience with ES9038PRO but was it really that difficult to switch to ES9028PRO?
- Wouldn't less power hungry DACs like ES9028PRO give better battery life?
- 2.5mm rather than 4.4mm which has become the standart for all other DAPs and DACs?

I really wanted to consider it and it is amazing that it was possible to squeeze in two mighty desktop DACs in a portable device, but who would want to use an HD800/820 with a DAP that has 2.5mm balanced connection, and that does not fully utilize its DACs/components? What makes it better than a 60% of the price DX220+AMP8 which has 4.4mm connector, DSD512? I really wish that I am wrong about Cube and I might even buy it for making my own experience, but I am surprised that A&K comes up with this after amazing SP1000M.

More importantly, what DSP Chip or interface is being used ?

Will the Digital Signal Processing be using Xmos-IC ? Or FPGA ? Or what ?

Will there still be Ribbon Cables in the analog-socket ?

No surprises here. This is competing Sony DMP-Z1! I just need to see more details about the internal components to judge which one uses the better parts/components. Sony is using their own proprietary DSP-IC interface