Do not adjust your magazine. For reasons unknown, Astell & Kern’s new entry-level portable music player has an extra-wonky 3.6in touchscreen display. At £649, you could try to use it as leverage for a retailer discount, but dive into the specs and you realise where the money is going. An upgrade of the award-winning (and almost as wonky) SR15 model, it supports native playback of DSD256 and 32-bit/384KHz high-res audio. There’s newly designed circuitry to improve sound quality and, in a first for A&K, LDAC Bluetooth support lets you wirelessly stream 24-bit audio to compatible speakers and headphones, while battery life is boosted to 20+ hours.
£649 / astellnkern.com