Hi everyone,
I am Luis Mad from Madrid, Spain. I have been lurking around the head fi for some time. Opinions and informations here have been extremely helpful to me. I am a big music fan but not an audiophile expert.
I come from Ipods, iphones with dragonfly black etc. I started recently in the dap world with a Sony nwa-55 which has an excellent sound quality for the price, provided you uncap the volume in Europe, and good battery. It also has a function I love and use, Bluetooth receiver.
I wanted something that could stream too: Apple music, Deezer and files in my pc, things I currently do with the Iphone plus dragonfly. I bought a Sony nwa-105 but the capped volume in Europe is simply ridiculously low. I loved the interface, and sound, but the volume was far too low. Battery time was also extremely bad. I returned the sony nwa-105.
I was considering the Sony nwzx-507 but importing from Japan without warranty worried me, a European capped model was out of the question after returning the lower model.
Finally, last week I bought the Astell and Kern sr-25! The sound is simply WOW compared to anything I have experienced before. It is in a different league from my other players. I was afraid there was going to be little difference between the sr-25 and my other players, boy was I wrong! This is so much better! Clarity of sound and amplification both. I have compared files I know very well like Brahms violin concert with Janine Jansen in Hires flac 24/96 that I have played countless times with the iphone with dragonfly black with the vox app and with the sonys. With the Astell, I can hear details on my headphones I haven’t heard before with my other players. I was blown away by the sr-25. Also I never feel my headphones underpowered with this player. My headphones are Sennheiser HD599, my favourite, Sony WH-1000XM3 excellent both with Bluetooth and cable, Jabra elite 65t (very nice sound cancelling but the sound is poor to my taste) and in ear Sennheiser cx 5 which have been kidnapped by my wife. I am now expecting Final f4000 that should arrive in a few days. Already planning for some future headphones…. Expensive hobby…
Anyway, my impressions on sr-25:
- Player looks and feels good. Really small and portable. Operation peculiar but easy to learn. Here only criticism is lack of any case which at the prices is ridiculous. Official cases are sold out in my country. Also, included screen protectors should come installed!
- Sound with internal files is amazing. I have a 400 g card that was already formatted and filled with classical music and prepared from the sony. The sr-25 scanned it very fast and works wonderfully with them.
- Normal flac cd quality files sound excellent. Hi res even better and DSF, DSD files sound beautifully. That was a strong point of the sony for me, but here is even better probably better amplification, I do not know. Only down side the player seems to get very hot with DSD files.
- Streaming from Apple Music and Deezer works flawlessly. I have tried also to download and play offline files from both Apple music and Deezer without problems.
- Downloading and installing the approved apps is really very easy. A little bit peculiar having to connect the pc but it is easy.
- I also use foobar2000 which connects flawlessly to my pc files. Also I can download pc files from the pc to the sr-25 inside foobar2000.
- Ak connect is also a dlna based system and works equally very well. I had everything there set in my pc with foobar2000 and ak connect immediately recognised the server and started to work. I cannot say if direct DSD streaming is possible since I have not been able to make streaming of those files in their format, they are converted to PCM in all my players when streaming.
- Furthermore, you can control the sr-25 in ak connect mode both for internal and external files with the ak connect app, available at least for iphones and ipad. That is, you can remotely control the sr-25 from the phone or tablet, but, as far as I can tell, not for so called services (other apps, Apple music, Deezer etc). Maybe somebody knows how to control those remotely?
- Battery is extremely good. I cannot give reliable estimates since I am now playing a lot with the thing, turning the screen on, trying different features, learning how to use it, but it is simply excellent. I am streaming a lot and the battery drains very slowly unlike the sony nwa-105.
- Line out works wonderfully. I am going to use this a lot, something that I originaly had not planned but the sound quality shines with any half decent stereo system, like the ones I have that are Denon, Yamaha and Bower and Willkins speakers, nice but not high end at all. Well in these systems using the sr-25 as a source brings remarkable quality to my ears.
- In summary I am truly pleased with the sr-25. Excellent sound quality, better than anything I knew before, magnificent battery and does everything else I required flawlessly: streaming apps and dlna playing of pc files. Line out at this quality a discovery for me. Only feature I did not find and would like is Bluetooth receiver.
