PORTABLE MUSIC PLAYER/DAC STELL &KERN AK380

We normally use an iPod nano or iPod touch for our portable music needs, but to badly paraphrase Crocodile Dundee, call that a portable music player? This — the Astell&Kern AK380 — is a portable music player.

EQUIPMENT

You see, almost all music players have significant limitations. Take our nano — there are plenty of music formats it won’t play at all, and with only 16GB, space can be a problem, so we’re not inclined to load it up with lossless content.

But the AK380 — well, is there anything it won’t support? Here’s the list: WAV, FLAC, WMA, MP3, OGG, APE, AAC, ALAC, AIFF, DFF, DSF. Yes, actually, there is one format it won’t support: the new Quad DSD or DSD256. But it does happily play DSD128 and DSD64 (in both DFF and DSF file containers), decoding directly to analogue, not going via PCM. As for the PCM tucked inside all those other formats, it’s supported all the way to 384kHz sampling