Audiophilepure

. THX have achieved their goal with the THX AAA-78*2 amplifier architecture of providing a powerful dynamic low distortion and linear solution for portable devices, and FiiO’s implementation takes full advantage of its characteristics. Plus the AKM AK4497EQ is simply one of the most musical DAC chips available, and again FiiO’s utilization and support of this chip is completely admirable, wringing the best possible sound from it.

With its musicality, versatility, and power, it would not be a stretch to say that the M11 Plus LTD is the best portable solution in its price range, able to fulfill almost any use requirement whether as a DAP, a portable USB, or Bluetooth DAC/Amp or a music server for a Bluetooth speaker system. I would say that it would be of benefit to grab up the limited edition bit of magic while they are still available, a full wholehearted recommendation.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/astellkern-kann-alpha-portable-playerheadphone-amp

Nevertheless, not everything about the player feels quite so well thought through. Internal memory is fixed at 64GB, which frankly feels somewhat parsimonious. This can be expanded via a microSD card, with cards up to 1TB supported, but these, of course, will need to be budgeted for in addition to the player itself.

I also found the size of the KANN Alpha’s screen problematic [see boxout, p73] while the control interface threw up its own issues. At its heart, the interface used by all Astell&Kern products is a modified Android platform, but rather than allow apps to be installed via Google Play, they must be loaded via APK and transferred over USB – a process that was not always seamless under test. Meanwhile, the embedded Tidal app ceased functioning during review due to a login problem, although Astell&Kern says this is a temporary issue and would be fixed, around our publication date, via a firmware update for the player.