[AlterSack]

  Okay, you guys are probably getting real fed up with this question, but what the hell is going on with album art on the ak 100?
 
1) What resolution and file type does it support?
2) Is there no firmware that would fix this?
3) Also, how do I use line out? Since I updated the firmware there is no maximum volume for line-out setting in the options and the unit just sounds double-amped running from headphones to a Cayin c5.

Hi -
1) as far as I know the best thing is to include the art into the tags. You can do this with mp3tag (Windows)  or kid3 (mac)  or other similar programs.  There has been  lot of discussion about this in this thread on the earlier pages and if I remember correctly there is a description what to do and how to do it.
2) No - considering the state of things and that Ak100/AK120 is a product line that will not be contiunued or rather has been replaced by AK Jr/100 II/ 120/ ... which all use an Android  based GUI  there will be no firmware update solving these issues. The Problems with the GUI surely were part of the reason why AK has switched to Android.
3) AK100 has no "true" line out.  Line out functionality that is being offered is simple - connect your amp to your AK headphone output and and turn up loudness on the AK to 75.  Regulate loudness on the amp. That's it.

 

[RickDastardly]

I currently have two 128GB SanDisk microSD cards in my AK100MK1. It works really well. The AK100 sometimes doesn't see one or other of the cards, but that also happened with lower capacity cards. I am hankering after more space. Has anyone tried a 200GB card? Or two?
 
Cheers,
Rich

 

[gulakpi]

I have a 64GB and a 128GB TF's in my 2 slots, they work beautifully.
Once in awhile the AK100 loses the cards (may be twice a year), I turned it off and on again, and works again!
I have not tried and do not have any cards >128GB.

 

[Marat Sar]

So, I've tried
 
1) using resolutions smaller than 500
2) resolutions exactly 500
3) file sizes under 100kb (jpg files only)
4) all this of course mp3Tagged onto the file itself
 
and still most of the art that didn't show up first isn't showing up.
 
I'm not usually the COMPLAIN AND PITHFORKS guy, but I really want to write a strongly worded letter to iRiver about now. Anyone have their e-mail contact, they seem to hide it well, my google searches have come up empty. 

 

[mathi8vadhanan]

  So, I've tried
 
1) using resolutions smaller than 500
2) resolutions exactly 500
3) file sizes under 100kb (jpg files only)
4) all this of course mp3Tagged onto the file itself
 
and still most of the art that didn't show up first isn't showing up.
 
I'm not usually the COMPLAIN AND PITHFORKS guy, but I really want to write a strongly worded letter to iRiver about now. Anyone have their e-mail contact, they seem to hide it well, my google searches have come up empty. 

What is the ID3 tag version? If it's V2.4 try going lower to V2.3

 

[koziakauzu]

So, I've tried

1) using resolutions smaller than 500
2) resolutions exactly 500
3) file sizes under 100kb (jpg files only)
4) all this of course mp3Tagged onto the file itself

and still most of the art that didn't show up first isn't showing up.

I'm not usually the COMPLAIN AND PITHFORKS guy, but I really want to write a strongly worded letter to iRiver about now. Anyone have their e-mail contact, they seem to hide it well, my google searches have come up empty. 

my whole library (mostly flac) on the Ak100 on latest fw has been transferred from MediaGO with various arts (few are auto found, most are 500~1000px) and no issue at all. Maybe you can try that?

 

[Marat Sar]

  What is the ID3 tag version? If it's V2.4 try going lower to V2.3

 
How can I change the tag version in mp3tag? (I've used the latest version of mp3tag for everything this far)
 
Also, the uncanniest thing! I just added the exact same album art file two two different sets of files, using the exact same version of mp3tag. Shows up on one, doesn't show up on the other.
 
And when I say "uncanny" I mean "beyond annoying".

 

[nomode]

All my cover art in the flac files (i dont listening to mp3) is 600x600jpg under 100kb and its works well.

 

[TheGrumpyOldMan]

The AK100 has always been quirky in the respect, maybe another couple of things to check:
 
- Files can have 2 sets of tags at the same time, the older ID3v1 tag as a fallback and the newer ID3v2 ones, it may be that for your files only one got updated, or there may be a residual different set of tags in v1 vs. v2. One thing you can try is clear them out completely (& save), then re-tag them cleanly (incl. the artwork)
 
- Despite jpeg being a standard, there are variations. Depending on where you sourced them from, they may look OK on your computer but not interpreted properly by the AK100 decoder. You can try an image conversion program, maybe even do an intermediate save in a different format (ex.: the lossless PNG format to not further deteriorate the image quality), then resave as a freshly re-encoded jpeg.
 
- I'm using it via OS X, and found out quickly has the text encoding has to be Windows format (1251, latin-1 or some such thing), not even the international standard UTF-8, so it *may* affect embedded images if their filenames aren't clean (i.e. included special characters beyond basic ASCII)
 
It's a huge PITA, and I still have a couple of albums without art on mine, couldn't be bothered any more since they look fine everywhere else...
 
Good luck!
 
P.S.: I only use MP3 Tag (via Wine) for DSD file tagging, and haven't dealt with tag conversion, but in Kid3 for example, there are 2 simple Tools menu items "Convert ID3v2.4 to ID3v2.3" & "Convert ID3v2.3 to ID3v2.4"

 

[Hifi01170]

Hi,
 
I have the RWAK100-S running on fw 2.40.
 
is their a consensus on which firmware is the best in terms of sound quality? 
 
Cheers,

 

[robm321]

I'm curious myself. 

 

[gulakpi]

I'm using FW 2.4 with Shure 535s.  I did not notice a change in SQ when I switched from FW 2.3.to 2.4.

 

[MistahBungle]

No difference whatsoever. Apparently Listrid sounds a bit different according to some, in the brief (1 day) I used it, wasn't noticeable to me.

 

[Mark2010]

Hi does anyone know if its possible to upgrade the firmware on the AK100 so it will support gapless playback ?

 

[drofeel71]

Hi does anyone know if its possible to upgrade the firmware on the AK100 so it will support gapless playback ?

It already supports hapless playback. But must be turned on via the settings menu.