Can't say AK a greedy company or not only they offer products that the market is willing to buy and that's the market dynamic. We all have to respect their vision with all these new models packed in such a compact launch window and so far it has been great success.
Sorry, Tosh! Making a $1200 player redundant less than a year after the general public put their faith and money into it. Hmm, No matter how driven they are in developing what a grateful and waiting public want they could have waited another year. What they are really saying when replacing a model so quickly is they got it wrong and are trying to sort it out by bringing a new model out.
Don't get me wrong, I personally love the sound of mine but its buggy and keeps freezing every once in a while. There comes a point where a responsible company says no to consumer demands and waits till the thing is fully functioning and ready, especially at this price point!
But I do not just knock A&K for that! iBasso, Hifiman, Colourfly, and the new one of which I cannot remember the name all do the same.
You know, I have been in this hobby for over 30 years and as the price has gone up the quality of a finished product has gone down. I think this is market driven as due to the immediacy of the internet and forums such as this, there is a pack of slavering consumers ( and though not that now I do count myself as once being one!) chomping at their corporate doors beating them down to release the product. Thats our fault and we need to change that as a community.
However, equal blame must be laid at the companies feet for acquiescing to our demands and releasing products simply not ready to be released.
The funny thing is that the more a DAP goes up in price the more this happens. AK240, it needed firmware updates right out of the box. If they had delayed launch by a year, sorted it all out then great but they know they can get away with it as forums such as this have bread a culture where its fine to have a half product as long as we get firmware updates to fix it!
In all the years of owning Sony products, from their very first Walkman Cassette player (yes, I am that old!) through their portable CD player, Mini Disc and then 2G mp3 the things sounded great and never needed updating, returning to manufacture to fix or anything else. They just did their job until sheer use wore them out and they were much cheaper!
I have to say that this will be my last player from any of these "new" companies as having owned products from A&K and HifiMan I don't really feel like supporting this sort of business practice anymore. I am jumping ship with my 120 and when that gives up the ghost I will go back to Sony I think!
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. Ok, I'll start with this, will it matter if I use mp3's with the AK 120/240? Or in order to take full advantage of what the AK can offer, I have to use high-resolution files. (But I do agree with your second sentence 100%) 