Astell & Kern AK240

This high-end portable music player takes hi-fi to an altogether new level

If you adore music, then you must have the AK240, the ultimate portable music player, which also doubles up as a high-quality digital audio converter to send music from your PC to headphones or speakers.

The AK240 is made of aircraft grade duralumin in a gunmetal colour, and features a 3.31-inch WVGA (480×800) AMOLED touchscreen for navigation and control. Its built-in 256 GB memory can store about 2,500 MQS (Mastering Quality Sound) songs. You can expand the storage to 384 GB by using an additional 128 GB micro SD card.

The AK240 features a dual DAC (Digital to Audio Convertor) setup, one dedicated each for the left and right channel; native DSD (Direct Stream Digital) playback; and also assures balanced output, which eliminates all noise sothat what you hear is pure music.

The design of the AK240 may seem awkward to some, but once you have it in your hand, it holds well and feels luxurious. The player weighs 185 gm, and has a battery life of about 5 hours. You can listen to music on AK240 by using a pair of headphones, or by connecting it to your home stereo setup using an optical output. But if you want to use balanced output and get the best experience, you will need to plug in a 2.5 mm 4-pole headphone. This player supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so you can directly stream music from your PC to your player wirelessly.

The AK240 supports a wide range of audio formats, so whether you have your music in WAV, FLAC, OGG, APE, ALAC, AIFF, DFF, DSF, WMA, or MP3 formats, this device will let you listen to pure music, an experience few other portable players can match.

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Gagandeep Singh Sapra