Read the full review: Astell & Kern A&futura SE180 With built-in wi-fi as well as direct access to streaming service apps in its menu, the SE180 doesn’t make hard work of your music however you would like to play it. Whether you consider the modular design valuable or not, even straight from the box, the SE180 is one of the best performance-per-pound offerings in the company’s line-up. It supports 32-bit/384kHz PCM, native DSD256 and MQA audio and has 2.5mm, 3.5mm and 4.4mm outputs to cater for a wide range of headphones. The SE180 is an all-in-one player in itself, too, with the default module containing the ESS ES9038PRO DAC. The concept: Astell & Kern releases a series of DAC modules, all with different sonic characters, so that owners can purchase them and swap them in over the standard supplied module if they so wish.
To personally tailor your sound, the SE180 goes one step further than the slightly older SE200 (which has two user-selectable DAC configurations built into the player) in that it features an interchangeable DAC module design.
How about a customisable PMP with interchangeable DAC modules? That's the idea here – and we liked it so much, we gave it What Hi-Fi? 20 Awards trophies. Read the full review: Astell & Kern A&norma SR25 MKII Stock of the SR25 MKII is diminishing, but there are still a fair few left online if you want to nab a deal.
If your budget can stretch to it, this is a truly stunning player with superb build quality to match – it'll make you forget the iPod Touch ever even existed. However, it's worth noting that this model has now been replaced by the even newer SR35 model (below). And we stress the word 'reasonably', because while it pushes performance forward, it also pushes what is acceptable as an entry-level price. Notably more expressive and eloquent than any other portable music player we have encountered at this price, and far beyond anything that smartphones are capable of, the SR25 MKII demonstrates just how good music on the move can sound while also remaining reasonably affordable. The SR25 MKII doesn’t let us down, propelling its lineage forward from the 2018-introduced A&norma SR15 to set a new performance benchmark, nabbing a What Hi-Fi? 2022 Award once again in the process. The Astell & Kern A&norma SR25 MKII is the latest in what has been a long line of excellent, What Hi-Fi? Award-winning, ‘entry-level’ portable music players, with each new generation invariably proving even more talented than the last.
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