About the Astell & Kern AK Junior
High-resolution audio to go
High-resolution audio to go
It's small enough to slip into your shirt pocket — yet it delivers all the detail and depth of your high-resolution digital audio files. That's the Astell & Kern AK Jr. You'll want to use this tiny-but-capable AK Jr with a great set of headphones to fully appreciate the quality of the sound. And the AK Jr can also serve as a stand-alone digital-to-analog converter (DAC) for high-resolution sound from files stored on a computer, played back through its USB digital input.
The 3.1" touchscreen features simple, intuitive controls.
Uncompromising sound quality
The AK Jr uses a high-quality Wolfson digital-to-analog converter (DAC) capable of decoding sampling rates up to 24-bit/192kHz. You can play high-resolution downloads from sites like HDtracks on the AK Jr without any additional equipment or file conversion. Even with lossless files or compressed formats like MP3, the AK Jr can help your music sound its best. Its high signal-to-noise ratio and low distortion lets the subtle details of your music come through. Its high-fidelity, low-impedance output gives your headphones more power than most portable music players, for optimal performance.
Touchscreen and push-button controls
The player's 3.1-inch color touchscreen is simple to navigate. And it displays artist and title info as well as album artwork. And because this is a high-resolution audio player, the AK Jr features an analog volume knob, so you can make small, nuanced adjustments.
Expandable memory
To add music to the AK Jr, connect the player to your computer with the included USB cable. Then just drag and drop your selections to the AK Jr while its built-in battery charges. The player comes with 64GB of internal memory and a microSD card slot lets you expand the storage up to 128GB. And of course you can have more tunes on extra cards and bring them along for easy swapping.
Product highlights:
- digital music player — plays MP3, FLAC, WAV, ALAC, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, AIFF
- plays Direct Stream Digital (DSD) files (.dff and .dsf formats up to 2.8MHz resolution)
- DSD files are converted to PCM for playback
- Wolfson WM8740 24-bit/192kHz DAC for bit-perfect playback of high-resolution audio files
- USB input allows for use as an external digital-to-analog converter (DAC) with a computer
- 64GB internal flash memory
- microSD card slot for cards up to 64GB (up to 128GB total memory)
- 3.1" color touchscreen
- analog volume wheel provides fine level adjustments
- Bluetooth 4.0-compatible
- built-in rechargeable battery provides up to 8 hours of playback
- high-speed USB interface (cable included) for drag-and-drop file transfer and battery charging
- brushed aluminum casing
- output impedance: 2 ohms
- total harmonic distortion: 0.005% (1kHz)
- signal-to-noise ratio: 112 dB
- 2-1/16"W x 4-5/8"H x 3/8"D
- weight: 3.28 oz.
- warranty: 1 year
- MFR # 3PPE117C-CMSIN1
What's in the box:
Astell & Kern AK Junior owner's manual
- AK Jr. digital music player
- 39" USB cable (Type A USB on one end and Micro USB on other end)
- Instruction Book
- 2 Large protective films (rear)
- 2 Small protective films (front)
- Warranty booklet
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Features
Overview: The Astell & Kern AK Jr. from iRiver is a portable high-fidelity audio player, capable of playing high resolution digital audio tracks. It has a sleek, silver aluminum body with a large 3.1" full touch screen display and an analog rotary volume control on the side. It has a smaller form factor than other A&K players, making it extremely portable. The AK Jr. has a built-in 64 GB flash memory with a microSD slot for adding even more memory. The unit is powered by a built-in rechargeable battery, and charges via a Micro USB cable.
Digital-to-Analog Converter: The AK Jr. is equipped with a Wolfson WM8740 24-bit, 192kHz DAC, the same as found in some high-end audio equipment (AV receivers). The DAC delivers outstanding performance with a 112dB signal-to-noise ratio, a clean 0.005% THD+N rate, a -120dB Crosstalk specification for superb left-right separation, and a 10Hz-70kHz Frequency Response (+0.03dB).
External DAC: When connected to a PC or Mac via USB, the AK Jr. can be used as an external USB DAC. You can convert the digital music files on your computer for listening with headphones, a powered speaker, or through the Auxiliary input of your car or home stereo. The AK Jr's EQ settings are disabled when used as a USB DAC. The unit supports UAC 1.0 (USB Audio Class 1.0 / 24-bit, 96kHz) audio output.
Bluetooth: The AK Jr. has built-in Bluetooth 4.0 technology. This allows you to stream music from the device to a compatible Bluetooth speaker or to your car stereo.
Supported Audio Formats: The AK Jr. is capable of playing high resolution digital music up to 24-bit, 192kHz, the same as used in the music mastering process. The device supports many of the most popular high-res audio formats, including WAV, AIFF, FLAC, and ALAC. These lossless files provide approximately 6-1/2 times more detail than a CD (16-bit, 44kHz), and can be played at sample rates of 8kHz-192kHz and 8/16/24-bits per sample. In addition, the unit can play MP3, AAC, WMA, OGG, and APE (normal, high, fast) compressed audio files.
DSD Support: In addition to the above-mentioned audio formats, the AK Jr. supports DSD (Direct Stream Digital), the digital audio format originally developed for SACD (Super Audio CD). The AK Jr. converts 2.8 MHz DSD files, either in DFF or DSF formats, to PCM.
Built-in and Optional Memory: The Astell & Kern AK Jr. is equipped with 64 GB of internal memory (actual usable memory: 57.76 GB) and a microSD card slot, that supports up to 64 GB. That gives you a total of 128 GB of storage space that is capable of holding more than 1250 high resolution songs (based on 4-minute songs at 24-bit/96kHz taking up 90MB each).
3.1" LCD Touchscreen: The full-color, 3.1" LCD touchscreen has a resolution of 240 x 400 pixels (WQVGA). That's about 1.4x larger than the Astell & Kern AK100. The screen displays the title and artist of the currently playing song, along with the bit and sample rates, elapsed and remaining time, with full color album art (1:1 aspect) in the background. Below the album art, you'll find touchscreen controls for play/pause, next track, and previous track, as well as random and repeat, and menu.
Rotary Volume Knob: The AK Jr. has a side-mounted analog-style, textured aluminum rotary volume knob. The volume control range is 00.0 to 75.0 with detents at every 0.5. As you adjust the volume, the volume range is shown numerically on the display.
Hardware Control Buttons: There are four physical buttons on the unit: a top-mounted power button, along with side-mounted Play/Pause, Previous/Rewind, and Next/Fast Forward buttons.
Equalizer: The AK Jr. has a 5-band Equalizer that lets you set the EQ levels by touching and sliding your finger on each band on the touchscreen. You can set the levels of each band from -10dB to +10dB at 62Hz, 250Hz, 1kHz, 4kHz, and 16kHz. A non-adjustable Pro EQ setting is also available.
Higher Output: The AK Jr's top-mounted 3.5mm headphone jack has a higher output level (1.95 VRMS) and lower output impedance (2 Ω) than the AK100 (1.5 VRMS / 22 Ω) to produce a much higher output. The AJ Jr. will drive many types of headphone, making a separate headphone amplifier unnecessary.
Micro USB: The AK Jr. has a Micro USB port on the bottom of the unit for connecting the unit to your computer for downloading music files and for charging the battery. Future firmware upgrades are also available via USB. The AK Jr. is compatible with Windows XP, 7 and 8 (32/64 bit), as well as Mac OS X 10.7 and up.
Power Requirements: The AK Jr. is equipped with a 1450mAh 3.7V Lithium-Polymer battery.
Specifications:
- Frequency Response: 20Hz-20kHz (±0.04dB) / 20Hz-70kHz (±0.3dB)
- Signal-to-Noise Ratio: 112dB (1 kHz)
- Crosstalk: 120dB (1 kHz)
- THD+N: 0.05% (1 kHz)
- Output Impedance: 2Ω
- Output Level: 1.95 VRMS
- Dimensions: Width: 2.144" Height: 4.62" Depth: 0.362"
- Weight: 3.28 ounces
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This device is for audiophiles on the go. I highly recommended this. Plays 24bit 192hz flac files. With a nice set of headphones and headphone amp...you will be in heave .
Frank from Long Island NY