Our favorite high-end music player brand just unveiled a successor to its 5-star entry-level DAP — though its definition of 'entry-level' might differ to yours

Astell & Kern is launching an ‘entry-level’ DAP to supersede the SR35
We’ll have to believe it for now, because no actual price has been provided
Highlights include EnviroTune ambient noise awareness and an Octa-DAC mode

Astell & Kern has straightened things out. We gave its wonky, quirky SR35 digital audio player a glowing five-star review, and now a successor is here in a more conventional form factor.

The A&K PD5 is the new ‘best’ in question, and very much an upcoming contender for our best high-res media player list. And we’ll decide whether it is, as soon as we learn a few key details about it such as when it’s actually coming out and how much it’ll cost.

Pitched as an entry-level audio player, this hopefully won’t cost a huge amount, but we’ll have to wait to find out. It’s been unveiled as part of an AV show in Hong Kong, and it’ll be making its way around a few other similar shows in Shenzhen and Southern California before its wider release.

It’s always listening

(Image credit: Astell&Kern)

The PD5’s biggest spec is that it packs in eight DACs at once, and you can choose between 4-DAC or 8-DAC playback. The former lets you listen for longer (28 hours, to be precise), the latter allows you to enjoy higher-quality listening. A&K refers to ‘class-defining performance’. Woof.

Another tool here is EnviroTune, which apparently is always listening to you… and, specifically, ambient noise around you. Then it can tweak the sound you’re hearing to cater for different environments. It sounds like a proto-ANC, in other words.

For raw specs, the PD5 plays back in 32-bit/384kHz PCM and DSD256, with support for dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.3 and a vast range of codecs. The player runs on Android, though Astell & Kern didn’t say which build of Android it’ll run.

The player is housed in an aluminum shell, but A&K didn’t provide dimensions, so it’s impossible to tell how it compares size-wise to the SR35.

The real question here is still the price. This might be Astell & Kern’s best entry-level audio player of all time, but its definition of ‘entry-level’ might vary wildly from yours. Evidently, we’ll have to wait and see what the chips fall.