UPDATE 22/07/2024: We originally reported on the arrival of the new Astell & Kern Activo P1 back in May during the High End Munich show (full story below), where we had our first glimpse of the new portable player and got details of all the specs and features for this new wallet-friendly alternative to the brand's more premium products. The Activo P1 digital music player has now been officially released and is available to buy for £399 (further prices pending) at Amazon.
That's considerably lower than the cheapest Astell&Kern player currently in the brand's main line-up – the Award-winning A&norma SR35 (which launched at £799 but can be picked up for £599 now) – and considering the dearth of options for a hi-res player in the more affordable end, could shake things up.
ORIGINAL STORY 09/05/2024:
Some years ago, Astell & Kern and its parent company (then iRiver, now Dreamus) developed the Activo CT10 portable music player for the hi-res download and streaming service provider Groovers Japan. The affordable Activo packed plenty of proprietary Astell & Kern hardware, so it wasn’t surprising that it sounded superb for the money – but some technical gremlins and design impracticalities somewhat let it down.
Fast forward to today and Astell & Kern is relaunching the Activo sub-brand with an all-new player, the P1, at the Munich High End show this week. Pricing is yet to be revealed, but we expect the P1 and subsequent portable offerings to undercut Astell & Kern’s premium catalogue, which in the digital audio player category starts at the £799 / $799 / AU$1299 A&norma SR35.
The P1 certainly seems to address our criticism of the CT10’s small screen (“too small to allow for an easy, user-friendly interface”): the front of its aluminium/polycarbonate body is mostly a touchscreen measuring a respectable 4.1 inches and with a resolution of 720 x 1280. All told, it doesn’t look a million miles away from the modern Sony Walkman.
Features look on-point too, with the Activo P1 offering dual-band wi-fi with access to music streaming service apps for both online and offline listening, a 20-hour battery life, and support for 32-bit/384kHz PCM and DSD256 audio files. Those wishing to store their own music have 64GB of internal memory to play with, though naturally a microSD slot can expand on that further. A balanced 4.4mm output sits beside the more typical 3.5mm jack, too, while Bluetooth aptX HD and LDAC support allow for music to be sent wirelessly to Bluetooth headphones, speakers and the like.
Despite the portable music player world’s decreasing size, it is arguably still short of budget offerings, with the current Sony NW-A306 Walkman our only true affordable recommendation following the demise of the iPod Touch, so we hope the Activo P1 is as good in practice as it looks on paper. We hope to find out in July, when the player is expected to ship. Pricing and retailer availability will be announced closer to that launch date.
MORE:
Best portable MP3 players 2024: top hi-res music players tested by our experts
Read our Astell & Kern A&norma SR35 review
