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“With its previous players Astell&Kern firmly established itself as a purveyor of the finest (and most expensive) portable players available, but the company was never in the running to offer the best value for the money at entry level. But with the AK70, A&K has a player that offers more usable features and flexibility at an affordable price than any of its previous offerings. With the ability to easily handle a wide range of earphones thanks to its balanced and single-ended connections, combined with features such as AK Connect, which allows you to play back anything on your home NAS through the AK70, this player delivers more value and bang-for-the-buck than most of the current crop of players priced between $500 and $700.”

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“The midrange frequencies are very pleasant to listen to with a smooth and natural sounding signature. Although separation levels are not on the same level as Fiio’s X7, there is no congestion and tracks sound spaced out with decent levels of resolvement. Vocals are slightly forward with a thicker note presentation that iBasso’s DX90.”

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” The only introduction I’m going to give Ryuzoh this time is the following: you won’t find a better and more adventurous modder this side of Robert Heinlein’s Stone family. Ryuzoh’s mods have it where it counts. I’ve been told I talk too much and too loudly about his hitherto magnum opus, the balanced Mojo-Kai. I speak less about his AK100 Kai, though that’s a mistake.”

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” I can even shave a song forward or back to precisely the second I left off. A vertical bar shows where you are in the song and as long as your finger is on the scrobbler, is always visible. Tapping anywhere on the album art pauses the player. When the DP-S1 is locked, inadvertent changes in attenuator position can be muted. Better yet, the attenuator doesn’t commandeer the touch screen, possibly forcing jumps up or down when all you wanted to do was change tracks or browse music. The only DSP available when playing DSD files is the low-pass filter. The Onkyo DP-S1 doesn’t properly do gapless, but gaps are small, pop-less, and even between DSD files, not terribly long.”