Astell&Kern (A&K) has announced its latest portable digital audio player (DAP) and it not only boasts a huge number of audiophile-friendly features, but it also ships with a home charging dock that doubles as a two-channel analog source for hi-fi systems. The A&K PS10 will officially debut at CanJam Singapore, 5 – 6 April 2025 and be available at authorized Astell&Kern dealers worldwide in May 2025 for $2,500.
The PS10 is a departure for A&K’s portables. The company has seemingly ditched the highly angular chassis designs of its previous players, in favor of a far more conventional, smartphone-like appearance. Fans of A&K’s portables will note another major change on the PS10: the absence of a rotary knob for volume control, something every A&K player has featured, going back to its debut product — the AK100 — from 2012, with the exception of the budget-friendly, Activo-branded, P1.
The company describes this move as “presenting a novel take on Astell&Kern’s iconic volume wheel design.” Novel, in this case, apparently means buttons: you control the PS10’s volume via a pair of plus and minus buttons on the side of the device. A&K says it’s designed to deliver a more intuitive and distinctive experience of ‘optimal sound.’ It should still feel like a very premium device in the hand, as it’s made from stainless steel and glass.
Whether you like the new design or not, it’s hard to argue with what the PS10 has under the hood. It reads like a recipe for audiophile-level hi-fi, including:
- World’s first use of new AKM AK4498EX DAC chips in a DAP
- Impedance-adaptive dual amplifiers with “Smart Gain”: The PS10 measures the impedance of the headphone/earbud connected and automatically switches between the normal and high gain amps
- Quad-DAC design with dual AK4191EQ chips dedicated to handling all-digital pathways
- Separate signal paths for balanced and unbalanced headphone outputs
- 256GB of internal memory with support for microSD cards up to 2TB
- Dual-band 2.4/5Ghz a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi
- USB digital audio output
- USB-C for data transfer and charging
- External DAC modes: Via Bluetooth or a direct USB connection to a Mac or Windows-based PC
As we’ve become accustomed to with A&K’s players, the PS10 can decode a wide range of audio formats, with support for PCM at up to 32-bit/768kHz and native processing of DSD up to DSD512.
It pack a variety of hi-res audio Bluetooth codecs, including aptX HD, LHDC, and LDAC, and these can be used bi-directionally with broadcast out for wireless headphones, and in receive mode when you want to stream in Bluetooth from a external source.
The rechargeable battery gives a claimed 15 hours of continuous playback and charging time is rated at 3.5 hours when taking advantage of the PS10’s Power Delivery 3.0 support.
Then there’s the docking cradle mentioned in the intro. It angles the PS10 for easy reading and navigation, and packs both XLR balanced outputs and a USB-C port that supports USB DAC/USB Digital Output capabilities. The XLR jacks can be volume controlled from the PS10 itself (for use with a set of external speakers), or they can be set to a fixed output level for component use. Speaking of component use, the PS10 is Roon Ready certified, for those who like to control their music through that platform.