Heavy Metal Marmalade

Astell & Kern KANN Music Player

- Mark Fleischmann

ASTELL & KERN’S KANN (ALONG with the recently announced AK70 MK II) makes its debut at a time when the dedicated music player is looking more and more like the passenger pigeon. Apple has just killed the innovative, shape-shifting iPod nano and the puny iPod shuffle, leaving only the now unprecedentedly cheap iPod touch, basically an iPhone without the phone, at $199. With Apple uncharacteristically catering to the middle of the market (let’s not even contemplate the $20 nano knockoffs on Amazon), that leaves the high-resolution music player carriage trade to companies like Astell & Kern, FiiO, and HiFiMan, as well as newly hi-res-conscious big brands like Sony, Onkyo, and Pioneer.

Astell & Kern may sound like a company with a royal warrant to supply marmalade to Buckingham Palace. But it’s actually the offspring of South Korea’s IRIVER, which has made sweetly overbuilt, true hi-res music players since the debut of the excellent AK100 five years ago. At $999, the KANN isn’t Astell & Kern’s most expensive music player. That would be the A&ultima SP1000 ($3,499).

Nor is it the least expensive. That would be the AK Jr, which cost $499 when we reviewed it (May 2016 issue and soundandvision.com) and is now down to $250. We haven’t yet tested the AK70 MK II ($699), but the KANN just might be the real sweet spot in the A&K line.

Big Fella