Astell & Kern has released a new entry-level music player. It is called the A&norma SR25; successor of the SR15.
South Korean manufacturer Astell & Kern has released a new ‘budget’ music player. Although you shouldn’t take the word budget so literally, because the A&norma SR25 still costs $699. And that’s not something that everyone’s willing to pay. Or can afford. But it is a beautiful and versatile device. The SR25 looks special because of the slanted screen. It runs on Android 9.0 and can handle DSD256, 384 kHz / 32 bit. The latter is an improvement over the SR15, which converts 32-bit music via downsampling to 176 kHz / 24 bit. Another good thing is that Astell & Kern’s A&norma SR25 supports Sony’s LDAC-Bluetooth codec. And – to complete the picture – MQA.
21 hours playing time
Inside the Astell & Kern A&norma SR25 you will find a faster (compared to its predecessor SR15) quad core cpu. As DAC, the manufacturer has chosen the Cirrus Logic CS43198. It’s also nice that the playing time on a full battery charge is no less than 21 hours, a doubling compared to its predecessor. Practical is the so-called Performance Mode, where use of the system memory is automatically optimized depending on the file size of the track you are listening to.