Astell&Kern is renowned for high-end audio hardware, and its portable players are a particular delight. But, while the "budget" Activo audio player is a lot of fun, the best of its portable players are a lot more expensive.
Until now, at least.
Astell&Kern is running a winter promotion that takes a whopping 31% off the SR35 audio player, bringing it down to just £599 on Richer Sounds and other UK retail sites. That's still a chunk of change, of course, but in audiophile land it's a bit of a bargain, and you get the case included too.
So check out the deal and also see my five good reasons why you should consider the A&K SR35 below.
5 reasons to buy the Astell&Kern SR35 at this amazing price
It sounds fantastic
The SR35 contains not one DAC but four: four Cirrus Logic CS43198 DAC chips, to be precise. The sound they produce persuaded our sister title What Hi-Fi? to give the SR35 five out of five stars, saying it set a new benchmark for sound quality.
It doesn't cut out
The SR35 supports dual band Wi-Fi for stable streaming, and that streaming covers all the key apps and standards.
It is Roon Ready and it also supports streaming from Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal and Qobuz. For Bluetooth there's support for both aptX and LDAC, both of which deliver much better audio quality than standard Bluetooth codecs.
It's got loads of room
If you're serious about sound you've no doubt already amassed a large library of digital music that you'll want to carry across.
The SR35's 64GB of on-board storage gives you about 625 hi-res tracks at 24-bit/96kHz, and you can up that to 1TB with a micro-SD card.
It's hard as nails
If like me you love Astell&Kern's distinctive design language, you'll love not just the way this looks but the way it feels.
Its metal construction feels wonderfully hefty in the hand and it feels very much like you could use it as a tool in the event of an apocalypse.
The only downside is that with its weight and those sharp corners it can be a bit of a pocket destroyer, so watch out for that.
It's a weapon
No, really. According to Astell&Kern: "The bold line at the side of the device that widens at the bottom symbolises a warrior’s sword of battle while the concave surface of the refined volume crown represents a shield." You didn't get that with an iPod.
