[MartyMcfly3004]

Always nice to hear a sunshine story! I also always said that I don’t need streaming on my portable device (longtime Sony WM1-owner). But having streaming is just darn convenient!

Yeah. I will continue to buy all my music but having the option to try in hi def in this quality is fantastic.

 

[Figjam]

@JasonNYC - are there any plans to add Radio Paradise as a supported app in Open App Service? If not, is there a way to request it?

 

[Tomm11]

Me as well. Always said i wouldnt use streaming. And i still don’t

 

[chi2]

Tried my Kann Alpha with the DCA Stealth today. Even in balanced mode not usable at all. It was clipping even at very low listening levels. Extremely poor and disappointing behavior. The nominal 12vrms voltage swing don't mean anything as they are measured without any load.

 

[newworld666]

Tried my Kann Alpha with the DCA Stealth today. Even in balanced mode not usable at all. It was clipping even at very low listening levels. Extremely poor and disappointing behavior. The nominal 12vrms voltage swing don't mean anything as they are measured without any load.

For sure, at 24 ohms with less than 90db sensitivity => the Kann Alpha can't drive at all the DCA Stealth nor the HEDDphone one.. we get loads of clipping and loads of distortions.

 

[Figjam]

Does the Kann Alpha only resolve Amazon Music HD to 16/44?

Running the app on my phone, it resolves to 24/192. I have the latest Amazon Music app installed.

 

[Tomm11]

Tried my Kann Alpha with the DCA Stealth today. Even in balanced mode not usable at all. It was clipping even at very low listening levels. Extremely poor and disappointing behavior. The nominal 12vrms voltage swing don't mean anything as they are measured without any load.

Wish there was a standard for stating power specs across all DAP manufacturers but there isn't and probably never will be. A&K is not the only manufacturer guilty of specifying voltage with no load, unfortunately. Cowon does the same and Ibasso did as well, at least in part, until fairly recently.

That said, Alpha has plenty of power. Definitely appears to have more than either my old Fiio X5iii or Ibasso DX220 which both claim, bs or not, in the 750-800mW range. I'm guessing that the issue with driving those phones is more one of current rather than voltage. But I could be wrong.

I love the Alpha but as it turned out, I pretty much only use it for iems and it drives all of those that I have without breaking a sweat. Obvious a much different use case than yours (and others). But, I too would be upset if I bought it because I thought it would be best at driving a specific headphone or headphones only to find out it wouldn't. Then again, I was aware of the cheesy way that they spec the output power so I wouldn't have been going in completely blind.

 

[MartyMcfly3004]

Does the Kann Alpha only resolve Amazon Music HD to 16/44?

Running the app on my phone, it resolves to 24/192. I have the latest Amazon Music app installed.

You need to edit you user settings in the app on the alpha. You have to set the streaming and download quality to lossless.

 

[aravaioli]

I just sold mine and I could not see it gone soon enough. Certainly the last A&K DAP I will buy.
Reason for saying this is that this DAP is highly hyped as a very powerful one: however the truth is that it has a lot of voltage but not a lot of power (which possibly explains why the specifications are silent about it). What does that mean? It means that it will do about fine with high impedance headphones (yet far enough from a reasonable desktop amplifier) but fails with low impedance low sensitivity headphones. With my Dan Clark Audio Aeon closed RT it failed miserably and was put to shame by my iBasso DX160 which, unlike the Alpha, did not show audible distortion. The Alpha obviously started clipping at mid volume. With the LCD-X and Arya the situation was better but still not satisfactory and again the DX160 won. The Arya in particular is powered surprisingly well by the DX160 which truly amazes me.
Conversely, going to 300 ohm HD600 no problem, sounded fine. But then moving to my Fiio K9 or Flux Audio FA-10 the difference is very noticeable.
Overall sound was ok but never impressed me too much: in fact many headphones, IEMs in particular, sound more pleasant to my ears out of a cheap Fiio BTR5: Final E5000 and Moondrop Kato are the ones I use the most on the go. Overall the sound on the Alpha is more muffled and lacking clarity when directly compared to BTR5 in both single ended or balanced.
Interface? Also in this area, some bad news. Besides not being based on full Android version (with Google play), and this you knew it already, the search for a track stored by Tidal or Amazon Music (both supported with sideloading the apk file) took really long (minutes) when stored in the MicroSD card. I did not try local storage as I did not need it with a 512 GB card.
Overall I learned my lesson ("you do not necessarily get what you pay for") and let it go at no loss (as I bought it used). Do not trust voltage if you need to use it with low sensitivity planar headphones. And if you only need IEMs or easy to drive headphone do not expect an outstanding sound out of this device: in my experience cheaper ones will do same or better.
From now on BTR5 and DX160 cover my mobile needs.

 

[aravaioli]

Tried my Kann Alpha with the DCA Stealth today. Even in balanced mode not usable at all. It was clipping even at very low listening levels. Extremely poor and disappointing behavior. The nominal 12vrms voltage swing don't mean anything as they are measured without any load.

My very same experience with the DCA Aeon RT Closed. Just awful and unlistenable.... These are my favorite closed back full size headphones at the moment so it was quite a deal breaker. The truth is that this device is NOT very powerful: it just has a generous voltage delivery.

 

[Figjam]

You need to edit you user settings in the app on the alpha. You have to set the streaming and download quality to lossless.

Thanks but already done. Settings are identical on phone and the Alpha app. I see from other threads this a problem with all A&K players unfortunately

 

[rlw6534]

Thanks but already done. Settings are identical on phone and the Alpha app. I see from other threads this a problem with all A&K players unfortunately

On some A&K players you can get 24/192 to work in Amazon if you play a local 24/192 file prior to starting the Amazon Music app. Also an older version (17.15.6) seems to work better with some hardware. YMMV, but it may be worth a try.

 

[Figjam]

On some A&K players you can get 24/192 to work in Amazon if you play a local 24/192 file prior to starting the Amazon Music app. Also an older version (17.15.6) seems to work better with some hardware. YMMV, but it may be worth a try.

Thanks, I could get an ULTRAHD song to play by by playing a 24/192 local song from the player first, but it only worked for that song. As soon as the next track played, it dropped back to HD. The best the player could resolve songs to in version 17.15.6 was 'standard'.

Thanks for your help, but it is all a bit too hard, so will cancel.

 

[Gilles De Rais]

My very same experience with the DCA Aeon RT Closed. Just awful and unlistenable.... These are my favorite closed back full size headphones at the moment so it was quite a deal breaker. The truth is that this device is NOT very powerful: it just has a generous voltage delivery.

Strange. I’ m looking at Daps to try in a semi-transportable set up and the Kann Alpha was one i auditioned extensively with both iems and an Aeon closed. The dap i tried had no problems driving the Aeon playing large scale classical music - a real tester for current delivery - on high gain. Used several different recordings including some notorious for their demands on a system (Abbado’s CSO Prokofiev Lieutenant Kije Suite, Gergiev’s Rite of Spring, jurowski’s the Planets). Took it up to 110 and my hearing gave up before the KannAlpha - no distortion to my ears. In listening to EDM Trentemoller, DeadMaus and Yotto no issues either. Still prefer the SE180 or the DX300 but the Kann Alpha was not disgraced and had more current and voltage than its rivals. All imo…

 

[darkarth]

for someone who prefers high output levels and wants to use headphones with high impedances, I would not recommend the ALPHA.

So highest impedance on single ended is not a thing here? I thought the KANN series was designed for support exactly this? what a bummer.