Finally! A new flagship DAP from iRiver! AK100

[Randius]

Ever since the H120/140/320/340 were discontinued by iRiver, there had not been any product really worth mentioning coming from them, not until now. iRiver will soon be announcing the Astell&Kern AK100 DAP, which is capable of playing files up to 24/192 resolution, supports DUAL microSD and has optical / coaxial connectors (not sure if input or output). It also features a brushed-look aluminium chassis. No other info is available right now.

Link to news page (in Japanese)

Will this prove to be a contender against the likes of HM-901 / C4 / DX-100? Let's wait and see

 

[kazzzam]

please have 128gb internal and 128gb microsd compatibility

 

[adv_illusioned]

please have 128gb internal and 128gb microsd compatibility

lol-ed at that. is there a market for that?

 

[kazzzam]

lol-ed at that. is there a market for that?

why not...

probably it would be like this

16gb + 64gb + 64gb = 144gb

still not bad

and 24/192 files are pretty big

1 album of 24/192 is about 1gb

 

[racoiaw]

The capacity available will be huge plus point. Waiting for reviews

 

[Cryok95]

Interesting, perhaps this can be a worthy contender for the Studio 3rd Aniv

 

[FatalethaL]

finally a good choice (also a reason) to upgrade my J3... hehehehe

 

[LouisLoh]

OMG dual micro-sd? Finally a high capacity audio player!

From HeadFonia's facebook:

-optical and coax inline
-32gb onboard + 2x32gb microSDHC (tested 64gb and there's no problem )
the player has a touch-screen navigation. But it has buttons for the player function. This Iriver has screen from Tovis. The picture is beautiful.

 

[Haonan]

Still rem the good old days when the iRiver H10's and H120's gets tremendous praises/positive reviews from the portable scene Head-fiers, during that time I also just got into the portable audio scene and was actually quite impressed with what I have heard in terms of SQ from a H120 when ABX-ing against my own set of NW-HD5 as well. (both are 20GB players running on traditional ZIF HDDs but the H100 series comes with their own S/PDIF- line-in/out jacks, and with the ability to be rock-boxed later on via an opensource firmware, which in terms of overall features totally trashed the relatively well-received Sony NW-HD5 back at that time)

Will be interesting to see how their new players fare, in terms of the portable Hi-Fi players market after going low profile and churning out so many lackluster players over the past few yrs. Actually kinda curious what made them gave the green light to actually come out a Hi-Fi portable player now, I mean has the company been doing very well in terms of sales, if not where the money for the expensive R&D/engineering come from? Found new investor liaos? Especially after online reports like this has surfaced before since the portable PMP market in terms of Korea industry haven't been doing particularly well as well.

Anyway is it just me but the player's ergonomics/design looks kinda weird? Like overly wide liao in terms of width dimensions, perhaps something similar to Cowon X9? And what's with the knob ctrls at the right side? At least the Cowon X9 doesn't have anything protruding out like that.

 

[Haonan]

Not sure whether that picture is trustworthy or not, it doesn't seemed to be related in any way to AV Impress Watch's article report which includes the actual AK100's product pictures. (though you can't see the physical ctrls or sides well, but it's there)

 

[Randius]

Not sure whether that picture is trustworthy or not, it doesn't seemed to be related in any way to AV Impress Watch's article report which includes the actual AK100's product pictures. (though you can't see the physical ctrls or sides well, but it's there)

Yah, the preview picture did look kinda weird. Think it may be the little black block next to the pouches?

Ah yes, H120 was what I initially gotten before the DX100. Paired it with the D10/12 + Sysconcept optical cable was pure joy Really hope the AK100 can somewhat bring back the glory days back to iRiver.

 

[Phen8210]

How's a dap different compared to pmp and mp3's? Pardon my noobness :/.

 

[kazzzam]

How's a dap different compared to pmp and mp3's? Pardon my noobness :/.

google is your best friend

A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a consumer electronics device that is capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, video, documents, etc. the data is typically stored on a hard drive, microdrive, or flash memory. In contrast, analog portable audio players play music from cassette tapes, or records. Often digital audio players are sold as MP3 players, even if they support other file formats.[1] Other types of electronic devices like cellphones, internet tablets, and digital cameras are sometimes referred as PMPs because of their playback capabilities.[2] This article focuses on portable devices that have the main function of playing media.

Portable media player - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Haonan]

@Randius: I see, hmm then I think yr comment makes senses then if it's indeed that little black block to the right. Judging from the pic that LouisLoh uploaded in his post in terms of ergonomics-wise it's definitely looking to be a smaller player than the DX100, omg poisonous. If that's the case then I think Cowon X9 is still considerably larger than it.

Definitely cannot be the bottom one cos I believe thats the Colorfly CK4 strapped to a JDS Labs C421 amp, since I had the chance to audition the C421 recently also.

@Phen8210: Hmm don't rly catch yr question actually, but if you are asking abt the differences in the terms btw DAP and PMP, I believe there's no difference it's just the way how various online articles or brand manufacturers call their own products. For example, you may regard the Sony Walkman Z/iBasso DX100 as pure PMPs, cos they have various multimedia playing functionality built-in apart from music playing functions, other players like Cowon Z2/X9 also applies to this category of products.

While for DAPs/MP3, I think it's what ppl who usually term products as those which only have mp3 playing functionality and such, which is kinda rare these days as most of the portable players on the market these days, got FM radio function, some sort of video playing/image viewing support and others especially if they are running on iOS/Android OS platforms.

This is what I think.

 

[Randius]

Why this and the 1964-V6 have to release around same time?! Decisions, decisions

 

[LouisLoh]

Iriver Astell&Kern, korea

CPU
Telechips TCC9201

DAC
Wolfson 8740

Display
TOVIS 2.4” 1600M color with capacitive touch

Storage
Transcend-SD class 6 32G

Battery
2000mAh / 12hours audio playing (FLAC)

Network
Bluetooth 3.0

SD card slot
Micro SD x 2ea (SDHC max 32GB)

I/O
Optical I/O & Headphone Out (3.5mm)

USB
Micro USB 5pin

Audio Formats
WAV, FLAC, WMA, MP3, OGG,AAC,APE

Sampling Frequency
44.1kHz, 48kHz, 96kHz, 192kHz (16/24bit)

Frequency Response
20Khz to 20Khz (+_0.3dB)

Dynamic Range
110dB

THD+N @1kHz
0.0008%

Crosstalk
102dB

Główne funcje i cechy:
No more Down Playing - Bit to Bit playing (WAV, FLAC 24bit 96/192kHz)

Hi-Fi audio sound quality
- Dynamic Range : 110dB
- THD+N @1kHz : 0.0008%
- Crosstalk : 102dB

Optical In / Out
- Optical DAC with PC
- Source player with digital AC receiver & AMP

Dual volume control - Basic / Special - 150steps volume control

Switching UI
- Flick the three screen
- Open GL effects


Bluetooth 3.0
- Catch a phone ring
- Pairing BT devices
- File transfer

 

[racoiaw]

Woah. When will they compare to dx100

 

[Randius]

Thanks to bro LouisLoh, for digging out all the specs. Looks pretty decent, although the battery life is still not great. The design still looks weird.

 

[LouisLoh]

Thanks to bro LouisLoh, for digging out all the specs. Looks pretty decent, although the battery life is still not great. The design still looks weird.

Credit goes to Krzysztof Mikołaj Pyzel posting on HeadFonia's facebook page!

He adds:

I had no opportunity to listen iBasso DX100 (you can not buy iBasso in Poland). Iriver is closer to the sound of Colorfly C4 than Hifiman HM-602.

 

[Phen8210]

@Randius: I see, hmm then I think yr comment makes senses then if it's indeed that little black block to the right. Judging from the pic that LouisLoh uploaded in his post in terms of ergonomics-wise it's definitely looking to be a smaller player than the DX100, omg poisonous. If that's the case then I think Cowon X9 is still considerably larger than it.

Definitely cannot be the bottom one cos I believe thats the Colorfly CK4 strapped to a JDS Labs C421 amp, since I had the chance to audition the C421 recently also.

@Phen8210: Hmm don't rly catch yr question actually, but if you are asking abt the differences in the terms btw DAP and PMP, I believe there's no difference it's just the way how various online articles or brand manufacturers call their own products. For example, you may regard the Sony Walkman Z/iBasso DX100 as pure PMPs, cos they have various multimedia playing functionality built-in apart from music playing functions, other players like Cowon Z2/X9 also applies to this category of products.

While for DAPs/MP3, I think it's what ppl who usually term products as those which only have mp3 playing functionality and such, which is kinda rare these days as most of the portable players on the market these days, got FM radio function, some sort of video playing/image viewing support and others especially if they are running on iOS/Android OS platforms.

This is what I think.

Thanks. that was clear .