In the spirit of (well sort of) the Apex Pinnacle thread.

I would like to solicit opinion on the Astell & Kearn 120 portable player.

The title should tell you what my initial opinion is.

I question the logic and value of a 1300 (plus taxes) player in todays market . I sincerely believe that a more feature rich item can be built and sold for under 800 dollars.

So just what would YOU expect for 1.3K$? And how does the Haagen Dasz player measure up?

There is a brief review here
http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/index.php/internet-audio/594-astellakern-ak120-portable-player.html?start=1

It's somewhat difficult to form an opinion about a product that isn't yet available (except to reviewers, apparently).

I'm pretty happy with my AK100, and there is nothing in the disclosed feature-set of the AK120 that I can't live without.

I do find it surprising appalling, in light of the controversy over the AK100's output impedance, that Hi-Fi World couldn't be bothered to measure that performance parameter.  The review, overall, is a joke.

I'll refrain from making any comment about the price until I see a published teardown/BOM analysis, other than to say that one more WM8740 and an extra 32 gigs of internal memory don't seem likely to cause a multi-centi-buck increase in BOM cost.  From a marketing perspective, it was probably inevitable that the "better" AK120 would be priced above the AK100, and there is no shortage of people who will fall for the "more expensive = better" pitch, whether it's true or not in any particular case.

Finally, as far as Haagen-Dazs is concerned, make mine Butter Pecan.

Quote from: XRG1 on May 13, 2013, 04:32:14 AM

In the spirit of (well sort of) the Apex Pinnacle thread.

I would like to solicit opinion on the Astell & Kearn 120 portable player.

The title should tell you what my initial opinion is.

I question the logic and value of a 1300 (plus taxes) player in todays market . I sincerely believe that a more feature rich item can be built and sold for under 800 dollars.

So just what would YOU expect for 1.3K$? And how does the Haagen Dasz player measure up?

There is a brief review here
http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/index.php/internet-audio/594-astellakern-ak120-portable-player.html?start=1

It's somewhat difficult to form an opinion about a product that isn't yet available (except to reviewers, apparently).

I'm pretty happy with my AK100, and there is nothing in the disclosed feature-set of the AK120 that I can't live without.

I do find it surprising appalling, in light of the controversy over the AK100's output impedance, that Hi-Fi World couldn't be bothered to measure that performance parameter.  The review, overall, is a joke.

I'll refrain from making any comment about the price until I see a published teardown/BOM analysis, other than to say that one more WM8740 and an extra 32 gigs of internal memory don't seem likely to cause a multi-centi-buck increase in BOM cost.  From a marketing perspective, it was probably inevitable that the "better" AK120 would be priced above the AK100, and there is no shortage of people who will fall for the "more expensive = better" pitch, whether it's true or not in any particular case.

Finally, as far as Haagen-Dazs is concerned, make mine Butter Pecan.

Haagen Dazs was a little company in the Bronx which knew no one would buy a premium product from there. Give it an exotic sounding euro name, and Voila a marketing strategy is born!

Sort of like a name like iRiver not being able to sell upmarket.

I will be interesting to hear a real review. Thus far my issue is simply, for that price the hardware is not there to justify a purchase.

I would like to hear what folks on here would like to see in a 1.3K$ player. At that price point the feature list should be almost unlimited.

For 1.3K? A 256GB SSD and a proper amp.

It's cute that iRiver is trying to act all European and rip people off, but they have a ways to go before matching the other continent's Vertu level of exclusive douchebaggery.

The SEATO way, take the concept improve on it and sell it back to you. Expect escalating douchebaggery a'plenty if this one goes over.

The SSD or at least connectivity via usb to external drives. If they are going to tout this as a home player worthy solution SD cards are not going to cut it.

Why, you don't need a killer amp when you have duelling DAC chips splitting the digital stream all over the place!

We need a diy solution in the PortaDAP arena ASAP.

Does anybody actually know who Astell&Kearn's actually are? I have visions of some expat sign making company on Patpong 1 that an iRiver exec strolled by on a sexual holiday being the inspiration for the name.

Well, it's not easy DIY-ing a DAP. First of all it would need to be almost fully SMD, secondly it requires acquiring a processor chip and someone should be proficient in writing the UI/OS. In the end it would still end up looking like the QA350.