Astell&Kern Announces 2 New Players

There’s just no denying it – Astell&Kern are capable of coming up with some of the most ridiculously interesting and intriguing designs for their products. If you’ve been in this portable HiFi game for a little while, you’re sure to be well-acquainted with the A&K brand. Astell&Kern is pretty much the equivalent of Vacheron Constantin in the DAP world. Now, they’ve announced 2 brand new additions to their product family – the A&futura (SE100) and the A&norma (SR15).

The Astell&Kern A&futura (SE100)

Size-wise, the A&futura is very similar to the $3499 A&ultima. It measures just a hair wider and almost 1mm thicker, but it too sports a 5-inch 1280×720 touch-display, giving it a pixel density of 294 PPI. That’s still 5% less than the $199 Shanling M2s, and roughly 15% less than the $499 iBasso DX150 and $899 DX200.

In terms of audio-goodies, Astell&Kern have fitted the A&futura with an ESS SABRE ES9038PRO 8-channel DAC chip, making it the first portable music player to feature this new chip. And as is the trend these days, there is both a conventional 3.5mm unbalanced output, as well as a 2.5mm balanced output, but no 4.4mm Pentaconn output.
Thankfully A&K have also incorporated a USB Type-C connector for charging and data transfer.

The Astell&Kern A&norma (SR15)

Filling the gap for a more budget-friendly option, the A&norma features a 3.3-inch 800×480 display giving it a pixel density of 283PPI. It’s also the more compact device of the 2 new additions, coming in at roughly 40% less bulky and also 36% lighter than the A&futura. For reference, this is around 6% bigger and 14% heavier than the Shanling M3s. Perhaps the most odd (yet interesting) design element is the tilted touch-display. Sitting at an off-axis angle of around 5-degrees, the A&norma sure does have quite a unique look.

Under the hood A&K opted for dual CS43198 DAC chips from Cirrus Logic. Here we again see both 3.5mm and 2.5mm outputs, and still no 4.4mm Pentaconn. We are also stuck with a regular microUSB connection rather than the newer USB Type-C connection for data transfer and charging purposes.