The new Astell & Kern A&Ultima SP3000 is a high end portable, with a case is made of high-quality 904L stainless steel.
Coincidentally have a Rolex on your wrist? Then the stainless steel of the new Astell & Kern A&Ultima SP3000 may look (feel) familiar to you. Could be right, because the case of this new music player is made of the exact same material. Furthermore – perhaps more interesting – it is the first portable player to use the new AKM AK449EX DAC chip. Internally, that’s a HEXA DAC that handles analog and digital signal processing completely separately. Furthermore, separate circuits are provided for balanced and unbalanced audio. The Astell & Kern A&Ultima SP3000 runs on a modified version of Android, controllable via a spacious 5.46-inch touch screen. The SoC running the OS is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6125 octacore.
Roon Ready
In terms of connectivity, you can go either way with the Astell & Kern A&Ultima SP3000. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5 (with support for aptX-HD and LDAC): you name it. Furthermore, a variety of file formats are supported, including FLAC, AIFF, MQA and Native DSD512. A nice bonus is that the player is Roon Ready. The price of the A&Ultima is $3699, with a choice of black or silver finish.