Astell & Kern has introduced the Kann Alpha, adding greater portability, power and battery life to its Kann line of hi-res audio players.
Available from October, priced at £1099, the Alpha is also the first Astell & Kern player to implement Bluetooth 5.0, providing greater range and more stable connection and superior audio quality.
Following on from the four-star Kann Cube, the Alpha features a more powerful built-in headphone amplifier that promises to drive any pair of headphones. The rearranging of various components and use of smaller resistors and capacitors, meanwhile, means you get that added power in a smaller and more portable chassis.
That sleeker design is coupled with an increased battery life, up more than 50 per cent to an impressive 14.5 hours.
That means you can enjoy your hi-res library for longer without charging, and the Alpha is capable of playing files up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM and DSD256, while also supporting MQA playback via both downloaded files and the Tidal music app.
Complete with a 4.1-inch touchscreen display, which offers album artwork alongside file type and volume information, the Alpha comes with 64GB on-board memory that can be expanded up to 1TB via its microSD card slot.
With its interface running on a customised version of Android 9.0, there is support for major services including Tidal, Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, Qobuz, Bandcamp, Audible and TuneIn.
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