LWR999
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Tidal on the AK70 works very poorly for me. I can be standing 4m away from my router and get dropouts. Meanwhile my XDP100R, Mac, iPad, Roon Server all perform without issue.
New iRiver AK70
- Thread starter AnakChan
- Start date
Finally ordered my Twilight Rose AK70. Since the unit looks very different from pictures (as with the Misty Mint colour), really hoping that the colour won't disappoint me. 
VeteR
New Head-Fier
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- Jan 26, 2017
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Finally ordered my Twilight Rose AK70. Since the unit looks very different from pictures (as with the Misty Mint colour), really hoping that the colour won't disappoint me.
Could you please provide some foto?)
ThomasHK
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No issues so far for me, although as people say the reception is not great. Certainly not as good as what you get with well optimized smartphones for example. I use my phone as 4G hotspot with it all the time and it works flawlessly as well.
JamesAnthony
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- May 5, 2015
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Can anyone help, currently using a pair of grado gr8s, they sound good in my opinion but I have had them a while and feel like its time for an upgrade. Im looking at a pair of Westones maybe, can anyone recommend a good pairing? Would have to be a good all rounder as I dont listen to one specific genre. Any help is appreciated.
Lavakugel
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Are there new ak's coming soon????
Lavakugel
500+ Head-Fier
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Out of my budget...
warrior1975
Headphoneus Supremus
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- Dec 5, 2013
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LoneRanger
100+ Head-Fier
Its a joke.....
http://www.head-fi.org/t/712487/april-fools-astell-kern-ak480-music-player
ThomasHK
500+ Head-Fier
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Been doing some A/B-ing with Mojo + AK70 vs. AK70 SE output.
A neat thing is that if you keep the Mojo (or any other USB DAC) connected and simply swap you HP cable between the two jacks the switching is very quick allowing for decent testing.
Not going to write a long story here, but I'm impressed. I never expected the AK70 output to be as good as the Mojo's (and it isn't) but it's not miles away. Yes, it lacks some detail and spatially things aren't as well defined as the Mojo, but for on the go use it's perfectly adequate. Unless the headphones I use absolutely require more power, I'll be happily using the AK70 on its own.
A neat thing is that if you keep the Mojo (or any other USB DAC) connected and simply swap you HP cable between the two jacks the switching is very quick allowing for decent testing.
Not going to write a long story here, but I'm impressed. I never expected the AK70 output to be as good as the Mojo's (and it isn't) but it's not miles away. Yes, it lacks some detail and spatially things aren't as well defined as the Mojo, but for on the go use it's perfectly adequate. Unless the headphones I use absolutely require more power, I'll be happily using the AK70 on its own.
ddoyle777
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AK70 vs. Calyx M
A Tale of Two Players
I’ve gotten so much good info from Head-Fi that I thought I’d share my narrative as a way of saying “Thanks!”
I’ve had the Calyx M for a while now and I’ve been very happy with the sound it produces. It’s a lush, wonderful, engrossing experience listening to good recordings. But I’ve grown tired of almost everything else. It’s battery life is abysmal, it’s slow, it takes days (well, maybe I exaggerate) to read cards, and it started eating files. The files show up on the cards when in the computer and are fine, yet they just don’t appear in the Calyx. I’ve wiped the card and started over and I’ve re-initialized the Calyx as well - no good. So I’ve been casting a wandering eye at all the players I might be using.
Long story short, my Astell & Kern AK70 arrived yesterday and I wanted to give some first impressions.
Wow - it’s tiny. I opened the box and just looked at it and wondered if I’d been shipped a toy instead of a DAP. It just sat there in it’s mintyness and I wondered if I’d made a serious mistake. After all, the Calyx the has the same dimensions as my iPhone 7 plus and it’s heavier. Well, I guess I’ll try it.
The night before it came I had done some prep for the AK70. I installed the Astell & Kern MQS streaming software on my MacBook Pro and made sure that I had the latest version of Android File Transfer as well. I had read the manual for the AK70 too. I also put the stock balanced cable on my A&K Rosies. (BTW, for those of you familiar with the Rosies I had turned the bass down to the 1 o’clock position as it sounded best with the Calyx.)
First thing I did was put my 256 GB Samsung micro sd card in with all my highest def music and turned the player on. It came up quickly and within 15 seconds I was listening to music over the balanced output. Yes the sound quality was different from the Calyx. It sounded clearer in the top end and a bit shy in the bass. I think it took me about 10 minutes to decide that it was just dandy. I’ve since upped the bass on the Rosies to about 2 o’clock. My experience, after less than a full day admittedly, is that this is a very musical player with all the qualities I like. It is very clear, has sparkling but not overbright treble, solid mids and the bass is only a hair shyer than the Calyx (which I think has outstanding bass). This is comparing a brand new AK70 to a well played Calyx too. I do think it will get better. This really good sound was my first surprise. I didn’t expect it to be as good as it is. I bought the player because of Astell & Kern’s reputation but expected it to be a disappointment and then send it back.
Now on to other matters than the sound. (I did listen a long time yesterday and even more today - it’s on while I’m writing - but the Calyx never disappointed in the sound department.) First, this player is quick. It’s quick to boot, it’s quick to read a large card, it’s quick to connect under the AFT program. These are all things that the Calyx had trouble with. Sometimes it would connect to the Mac, sometimes I’d have to reboot and wait minutes and then still hope I could drag some files over. The AK70 scrolls really fast, the screen is good and I’m enjoying the light weight in my pocket.
After a few tries, mainly because I didn’t quite know what to do, I got the MQS server connected to the player. It was much faster reading my library than I expected. (For the record, my iTunes library is 62,564 songs taking 225 days & 7 hours to play for a total of 1.11 TB). I’d scroll to the end of the albums presented, wait a few seconds and scroll to the next set. It took about 5 minutes to find all the albums. I’m happy with that. I streamed an album and then downloaded a second on to the player. All worked just fine. I walked around the house while playing and didn’t get any dropouts, so I didn’t experience the wifi problems that some have reported.
Next, I hooked it to the computer with a cable and ran AFT. The window came up quickly, I was able to do everything without a problem. The Calyx would often lock up or not read the cards correctly. For the record, the 256GB card is formatted as NTFS (and I use Paragon NTFS for Mac 14 because the Calyx was having trouble with the big card. I decided not to change it for the AK70).
I have two bluetooth headphones: the Bose QC35 and the Apple AirPods. (Remember I’m pretty much all Mac here, so they make sense there!). I can report that I was able to pair both easily and they sound better on the AK70 than they do with my iPhone 7 plus. However, the signal is quite flaky. If I put my hands over the headphone cups while wearing the Bose the signal would cut out. If I went to the other side of the room the signal cut out. I didn’t listen too long, but it works - sorta! The AirPods were better than the Bose in holding a signal.
One thing I forgot to mention is that shortly after I put the AK70 on the wireless network it prompted me to update the system. I did and that all happened flawlessly. So I am running firmware 1.30.
That meant I could use the Tidal service, which I had no prior experience with. With a library as big as mine, it’s rare that I’m in desperate need for something. But I do like to see what new recordings of my favorite, mainly classical, pieces sound like. I’d been using Apple Music, but had recently given up and unsubscribed. So I signed up for the month trial (HiFi) and fired up the player. It connected to my account fine, it was quick and it sounds much better than any streaming service has any right to sound. I used to wonder if I was getting my $10 worth from Apple, but have already decided that $20 is reasonable for Tidal - go figure! I hope Astell & Kern soon allow downloads, otherwise I’m very happy with that. (I used my phone to stream Tidal to my Apple TV playing through a midfi system and it sounds much better than I expected it would.)
One other thing and I’m done. I had the player charging before I went to bed. It reached a full charge and I shut it down. When I turned it on this morning it was still at a 100% charge. The Calyx would have been almost drained, even if I shut it off. Nice.
Preliminary conclusion - with 98% of the sound quality and then balanced goodness on top it’s better in every way. Best analogy I can come up with is this. When I’m at church I often have to use their Dell laptop running Windows ME (Yes ME!). The AK70 feels like coming home to the Mac or the iPhone.
I’ll see what it’s like to live with it for a while and report anything worthwhile I find. Thanks for your endurance!
A Tale of Two Players
I’ve gotten so much good info from Head-Fi that I thought I’d share my narrative as a way of saying “Thanks!”
I’ve had the Calyx M for a while now and I’ve been very happy with the sound it produces. It’s a lush, wonderful, engrossing experience listening to good recordings. But I’ve grown tired of almost everything else. It’s battery life is abysmal, it’s slow, it takes days (well, maybe I exaggerate) to read cards, and it started eating files. The files show up on the cards when in the computer and are fine, yet they just don’t appear in the Calyx. I’ve wiped the card and started over and I’ve re-initialized the Calyx as well - no good. So I’ve been casting a wandering eye at all the players I might be using.
Long story short, my Astell & Kern AK70 arrived yesterday and I wanted to give some first impressions.
Wow - it’s tiny. I opened the box and just looked at it and wondered if I’d been shipped a toy instead of a DAP. It just sat there in it’s mintyness and I wondered if I’d made a serious mistake. After all, the Calyx the has the same dimensions as my iPhone 7 plus and it’s heavier. Well, I guess I’ll try it.
The night before it came I had done some prep for the AK70. I installed the Astell & Kern MQS streaming software on my MacBook Pro and made sure that I had the latest version of Android File Transfer as well. I had read the manual for the AK70 too. I also put the stock balanced cable on my A&K Rosies. (BTW, for those of you familiar with the Rosies I had turned the bass down to the 1 o’clock position as it sounded best with the Calyx.)
First thing I did was put my 256 GB Samsung micro sd card in with all my highest def music and turned the player on. It came up quickly and within 15 seconds I was listening to music over the balanced output. Yes the sound quality was different from the Calyx. It sounded clearer in the top end and a bit shy in the bass. I think it took me about 10 minutes to decide that it was just dandy. I’ve since upped the bass on the Rosies to about 2 o’clock. My experience, after less than a full day admittedly, is that this is a very musical player with all the qualities I like. It is very clear, has sparkling but not overbright treble, solid mids and the bass is only a hair shyer than the Calyx (which I think has outstanding bass). This is comparing a brand new AK70 to a well played Calyx too. I do think it will get better. This really good sound was my first surprise. I didn’t expect it to be as good as it is. I bought the player because of Astell & Kern’s reputation but expected it to be a disappointment and then send it back.
Now on to other matters than the sound. (I did listen a long time yesterday and even more today - it’s on while I’m writing - but the Calyx never disappointed in the sound department.) First, this player is quick. It’s quick to boot, it’s quick to read a large card, it’s quick to connect under the AFT program. These are all things that the Calyx had trouble with. Sometimes it would connect to the Mac, sometimes I’d have to reboot and wait minutes and then still hope I could drag some files over. The AK70 scrolls really fast, the screen is good and I’m enjoying the light weight in my pocket.
After a few tries, mainly because I didn’t quite know what to do, I got the MQS server connected to the player. It was much faster reading my library than I expected. (For the record, my iTunes library is 62,564 songs taking 225 days & 7 hours to play for a total of 1.11 TB). I’d scroll to the end of the albums presented, wait a few seconds and scroll to the next set. It took about 5 minutes to find all the albums. I’m happy with that. I streamed an album and then downloaded a second on to the player. All worked just fine. I walked around the house while playing and didn’t get any dropouts, so I didn’t experience the wifi problems that some have reported.
Next, I hooked it to the computer with a cable and ran AFT. The window came up quickly, I was able to do everything without a problem. The Calyx would often lock up or not read the cards correctly. For the record, the 256GB card is formatted as NTFS (and I use Paragon NTFS for Mac 14 because the Calyx was having trouble with the big card. I decided not to change it for the AK70).
I have two bluetooth headphones: the Bose QC35 and the Apple AirPods. (Remember I’m pretty much all Mac here, so they make sense there!). I can report that I was able to pair both easily and they sound better on the AK70 than they do with my iPhone 7 plus. However, the signal is quite flaky. If I put my hands over the headphone cups while wearing the Bose the signal would cut out. If I went to the other side of the room the signal cut out. I didn’t listen too long, but it works - sorta! The AirPods were better than the Bose in holding a signal.
One thing I forgot to mention is that shortly after I put the AK70 on the wireless network it prompted me to update the system. I did and that all happened flawlessly. So I am running firmware 1.30.
That meant I could use the Tidal service, which I had no prior experience with. With a library as big as mine, it’s rare that I’m in desperate need for something. But I do like to see what new recordings of my favorite, mainly classical, pieces sound like. I’d been using Apple Music, but had recently given up and unsubscribed. So I signed up for the month trial (HiFi) and fired up the player. It connected to my account fine, it was quick and it sounds much better than any streaming service has any right to sound. I used to wonder if I was getting my $10 worth from Apple, but have already decided that $20 is reasonable for Tidal - go figure! I hope Astell & Kern soon allow downloads, otherwise I’m very happy with that. (I used my phone to stream Tidal to my Apple TV playing through a midfi system and it sounds much better than I expected it would.)
One other thing and I’m done. I had the player charging before I went to bed. It reached a full charge and I shut it down. When I turned it on this morning it was still at a 100% charge. The Calyx would have been almost drained, even if I shut it off. Nice.
Preliminary conclusion - with 98% of the sound quality and then balanced goodness on top it’s better in every way. Best analogy I can come up with is this. When I’m at church I often have to use their Dell laptop running Windows ME (Yes ME!). The AK70 feels like coming home to the Mac or the iPhone.
I’ll see what it’s like to live with it for a while and report anything worthwhile I find. Thanks for your endurance!
border66
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2015
- Posts
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- 15
I loved AK connect.It's possible to use Deezer and Vtuner on my AK70.Also I can stream the songs on my iphone to the dap,good job Astell&Kern
Hey all, just a note that I emailed A&K about the EQ, specifically whether the manual/custom setting was working. Got a response at the end of last week:
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