Astell&Kern has announced a new hi-res music player: the SE200, the world’s first multi-DAC model! It even includes MQA… What else do you need?
What is in any case already special about the new Astell&Kern A&futura SE200, is that there are two DACs of two different brands on board. This is unique, there is not yet another product worldwide that has two completely different dacs on board.
In short: as a user you can choose between a DAC from AKM and a DAC from ESS. If a particular track sounds ‘not quite good’ to you, you can switch to another DAC to see if the problem has been solved. For each DAC, various manufacturer filters are available to further fine-tune the matter.
Not only is there a double DAC, the amplifiers are also double and adapted to each converter.
MQA
The housing of the Astell&Kern A&futura SE200 is made of aluminium and a ceramic material on the back. According to the manufacturer, compared to the glass back of its predecessor SE100, this should provide improved wifi performance. At the same time, it should provide a more premium feel.
The SE200 offers a maximum quality of 32 bit / 384 kHz and DSD256. MQA support including a built-in full decoder has also been considered. Listening to both downloaded MQAs and streamed MQA via Tidal is no problem.
A fast octa-core CPU ensures a smooth operation. As standard, the Astell&Kern SE200 has 256 GB of internal storage space, while there is also space for micro SD memory cards up to 1 TB. Practical is that you can install Android apps via Open App. This way, you can quickly add music services as desired, such as Apple Music, Amazon Music, Qobuz, Tune-In and others. Available from this month, for an amount of $1799
