[bmichels]

Since it is A&K good news day today.... Still no rumors about a coming soon SP3000 ?

 

[arftech]

Since it is A&K good news day today.... Still no rumors about a coming soon SP3000 ?

You just had to.

 

[NYanakiev]

No Sp3k just yet please! Just spent £3000+ on this thing!!!

 

[Vitaly2017]

So I guess what I wrote will not be considered?

Will it be not great if the aka ui be more a step smarter? And user more friendly?

 

[JasonNYC]

I would like to report some issues I had with my Sp2000 it is related to software ui usability. I think A&K can easily address this as this is benefiting all users at end.

1 Transfering old or from another dap playlist is quiet a nightmare. I had to 1 by 1 copy each playlist to internal memory storage and not the playlist folder. Why ? cause A&K dont read the playlist if you copy them directly there. Ok Problem 2 related to playlist ! If you simply copy them to internal storage yea they will be readable and you can play the music. But wait a minute! here is the surprise ! you add your tracks to the playlist and restart your dap. Oooops all the new songs you just added are ALL GONE! Yep so the solution to this. Inside the A&K you need to manually copy all the playlists to the internal a&k playlist folder. To do this you just open your playlist in ak dap and select all your songs and copy them into a new playlist you created with your ak dap. Voila now you can add new songs and it wont be deleted!
Problem 3 with a&k playlist transfer I have to transfer each playlist file 1 at a time then disconnect my dap from pc and reconnect so it can reset the read file or it looks like a refresh folder sync thing. ok so I did have to add 8 playlist like this, fine took me almost 1 hour to figure all this thing out not saying the time and songs I lost before realising the issue with disapearing songs in my playlists.

Problem with songs being duplicated in the playlists. To this there is no solution at all and it is very hard to do cause not only the songs are not placed in order but they are showing up in order of the last one being added at the bottom of the list. So its pretty much a mission impossible to solve the duplicates. If At least a&k could a feature to sort the songs by alphabetical order this could help.

I also had trouble with song transfering to a&k from pc, it was slow and had many errors on the process and some songs I am sure have never got copied. The solution for this is to take out your sdcard and do it on pc, but first dont forget to format your card in your a&k dap for best performance.
The problem is when you want to copy songs to the 500gig internal memory then that a whole long and painful process as its never done right, at a point where I also had to do it with folders by folders or it would simply stop copying... I guess files are to big? I made sure I copied a time 3 files not more then 25 to 35gigs.

Why is it so complicated with a&k managing our songs ? It sims like its a simple task that a flagship should have no issues with it at all.

The rest A&K sp2000 does everything right and I dont have issues. Its a very stable device and runs rock solid. I never shut down my dap and never had a bug or a slow down.

I did had a battery scenario once. I forgot to charge my dap and it have dead depleted the battery. Funny thing is that after that situation, my dap now charges faster and seems to last a little longer was that a battery burn in?


@JasonNYC @Samuel777

I was told by a number of SE100 and KANN CUBE users that most of the playlist issues have been fixed in the firmware updates released this week for both players. I have not had a chance to confirm for myself. I am waiting to follow up with the dev team when they are back to work on Monday and hoping to test myself this weekend.

 

[NYanakiev]

From what I can see all of the changes that did not appear for sp1k and sp2k were introduced in the Aug 2020 firmware update.
I haven't seen any reports of those issues ceasing to exist back when the update was released..

Kann Cube's recent update:

[Improvements]

- Added option to save favorite tracks
- Added bookmark feature in folder view
- Added AK Connect Speaker selection on the Home screen
- Added year/name sorting capabilities in the Artist-album menu
- Added option-specific search function in searchMQS, DSD, Album, Artist)
- Added resume function
- Added ability to change listed order of playlists
- Added option to select DAC Filter
- Operational stability improvements

vs SP2K in August 2020

[Improvements]

- Added option to select video streaming or music-only streaming in V-LINK app
- Added option to save favorite tracks
- Added bookmark feature in folder view
- Added AK Connect Speaker selection on the Home screen
- Added year/name sorting capabilities in the Artist-album menu
- Added option-specific search function in searchMQS, DSD, Album, Artist)
- Added resume function
- Added ability to change listed order of playlists
- Added option to select DAC Filter
- Operational stability improvements

 

[JasonNYC]

@JasonNYC Great news. Does it fully decode an MQA stream from Roon? If so does it show the mqa symbol, green or blue dot and sample rate as in the native Tidal app? Wiuld a screenshot be possible? appreciated.

Two MQA versions of the same song. The one with the green dot is an MQA track being played in Roon from my internal library. File is directly from MQA team.

The other version of the song is playing in Roon via Tidal. It has a blue dot.

 

[JasonNYC]

@Progisus Here is another at 24/352.8

 

[Progisus]

@Progisus Here is another at 24/352.8

That looks great. Thanks for the preview!!!

 

[JasonNYC]

From what I can see all of the changes that did not appear for sp1k and sp2k were introduced in the Aug 2020 firmware update.
I haven't seen any reports of those issues ceasing to exist back when the update was released..

Kann Cube's recent update:

[Improvements]

- Added option to save favorite tracks
- Added bookmark feature in folder view
- Added AK Connect Speaker selection on the Home screen
- Added year/name sorting capabilities in the Artist-album menu
- Added option-specific search function in searchMQS, DSD, Album, Artist)
- Added resume function
- Added ability to change listed order of playlists
- Added option to select DAC Filter
- Operational stability improvements

vs SP2K in August 2020

[Improvements]

- Added option to select video streaming or music-only streaming in V-LINK app
- Added option to save favorite tracks
- Added bookmark feature in folder view
- Added AK Connect Speaker selection on the Home screen
- Added year/name sorting capabilities in the Artist-album menu
- Added option-specific search function in searchMQS, DSD, Album, Artist)
- Added resume function
- Added ability to change listed order of playlists
- Added option to select DAC Filter
- Operational stability improvements

playlist issue fixes would be included under the "operational stability improvements." As there are operational stability improvements in both the upcoming SP1000 and SP2000, it is possible playlist issue fixes would be in there. Again, I have not see what fixes are being implemented in the latest firmware updates.

 

[gryphonos]

Roon Ready endpoint with just basic play/pause, next track, previous track. The pic above of the Fleetwood Mac track playing is the actual Roon interface on the SP1000. In the other pics, you can see I am controlling it with Roon Remote on my Android smartphone.

@JasonNYC
Am I able to use Roon Remote on my iPhone to control the SP2000 as I do to remotely control my music sever (as a core)?

 

[JasonNYC]

@JasonNYC
Am I able to use Roon Remote on my iPhone to control the SP2000 as I do to remotely control my music sever (as a core)?

yes

 

[innocentblood]

my interest in the SP2000 got rekindled when I saw the news about Roon so happy to see that it will do the full MQA unfold in Roon. how about Tidal Masters? is the full MQA unfolding already happening with the Tidal app? I'm also interested to know about bit perfect playback with Tidal Masters for both streaming and offline downloads. thank you for any input that you can share with me before I decide to put my Sony NW-ZX507 and Audioquest Dragonfly Cobalt for sale

 

[Dionysus]

If your already familiar with the way Roon operates, then it will be no different that any other Roon ready device.
so, with this update and your core, the Roon device in this case sp1000/2000 connected on the same network will stream to your “ sp2000/1000” endpoints.
and uses the Roon RAAT tech, using two way playback, so this should be the same for Tidal as the sp1000/2000 do full MQA unfolding.

Other than the limitations from Android mentioned below on Roon partner page Below. the only short coming I see is in multi zone configurations. Jason if I’m wrong here please enlighten us.

* Limitations of the Android Operating System used on this device can sometimes lead to unreliable RAAT group sync. Learn more.

 

[CharlyBrown]

I own the SE200 but I think the features should be the same as SP2000. Yes, Tidal works bit perfect both for streaming and offline listening!

Note that you need to sideload Tidal again for offline music and full features.

From tidal.com:

What is Astell&Kern?​

Astell&Kern is a global leader in portable high-resolution audio players and accessories. All players feature internal memory, support for microSD cards up to 2TB, and premium DAC chipsets. All Wi-Fi enabled Astell&Kern players feature Tidal music service built-in. Current generation players add MQA decoding and support 24-bit streaming via Tidal Masters. Astell&Kern’s mission is to provide listeners with “Music the way it was meant to be heard,” exactly as it was recorded in the studio by the artists and engineers, in full resolution, without compromise.