If you are planning to use streaming services I would steer away from A&K because the company doesn't bother to update firmware to keep up with streaming service changes. I have an AK70, at the time a $600 player. Tidal (better quality, more $$ to artists than Spotify) was integrated -- until Tidal changed some some kind of login requirement and AK basically shrugged and said "not our problem."
I don't know if they followed through with their promise a year ago to update newer/pricier players either. It's not exactly the most organized support site.
https://www.astellnkern.com/aknews/akNews_detail.jsp?newsNo=10&searchParamUrl=newsCategoryNo=7&pageSize=10&langType=1&page=1
I don't think a luxury-priced company should do that to its customers.
Also,
A&norma is really an ugly bit of typography.
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Astell&Kern has identified the issues users are having with the embedded Tidal app. Tidal has changed the authentication method used when logging into third-party Tidal apps. Astell&Kern is working as quickly as possible to make the required changes in the embedded app.
New firmware updates for the SP2000, SP1000, SP1000M, SE200, SE100, SR25 and KANN ALPHA will be released in May 2021, which will contain an updated embedded Tidal app to fix the authentication issues.
There is an issue with the new Tidal authentication policies on the following players – KANN CUBE, SA700, SR15, CT15 and CT10. We are looking into ways to continue to support the Tidal app on these players. More information will be available in May 2021.
Tidal is dropping support for older model Android devices. Unfortunately this means
Tidal can no longer be supported on the following players due to the new authentication requirements -
AK380, AK320, AK300, KANN, AK70 MKII, AK70, AK240, AK120II, AK100II.
Source:
https://www.facebook.com/astellnkern/posts/1949740605179952
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