ASTELL & KERN A&NORMA SR25
The Astell & Kern A&norma SR25 is the latest in a long line of excellent, What Hi-fi? Award-winning, ‘entry-level’ portable music players – each new generation proving more talented than the last. The SR25 doesn’t let us down, propelling its lineage forward from the A&norma SR15 to set a new performance benchmark.
It pushes the price along too, with £649 now the minimum you can pay for a current A&K player. There’s now a gap for a truly budget player in the line-up, which makes one wonder why the company hasn’t gone after the Apple ipod Touch or budget Sony Walkmans of the portable music player world. For now, at least, A&K is focused on delivering top-end specification and sound quality for middle-market money, and it does that brilliantly.
The A&norma SR25 marks more of an evolution than a revolution of the brand’s entry-level player, but the strides it takes are nevertheless significant. The SR25 now supports native DSD256 and 32-bit/384khz audio, which is more or less where file support in digital hardware tops out, and is beyond what most people will actually need.
For those with an impressive hi-res music library, the new Performance Mode has been designed to get the most out of it. By automatically optimising the player’s memory allocation according to the data size of the song being played, this mode, according to Astell & Kern, prevents sonic losses in the data transmission process during the playback of higher-quality files.
The newly designed circuitry inside the SR25, still based around the pair of Cirrus Logic CS43198 Master Hi-fi level DAC chips found in its predecessor, is also aimed at improving sound quality.
In a first for an A&K player, the SR25 expands Bluetooth support to include Sony’s LDAC codec alongside aptx HD and A2DP for high-quality wireless playback through a pair of compatible headphones, such as the Sony WH-1000XM3.
Interface improvements
The 3.6in HD screen is now more responsive thanks to a faster Quad-core CPU and an upgrade to version 9.0 of the Android operating system. Music streaming service apps can be added via the Open APP platform, and there are small interface improvements to ease navigation. For example, on the playback screen, the album art no longer needs to be touched in order to bring up the back, playlist, repeat and shuffle functions either; they now sit below it.
Thankfully, battery life hasn’t taken a hit – at 21 hours, the SR25 lasts longer than any other A&K player and twice as long as the SR15 and previous-gen AK70 MKII. Astell & Kern has ditched the micro-usb charging socket to make way for the popular USB-C interface, too.
The SR25 is aesthetically similar to the SR15, with its distinct form, side volume wheel, 3.5mm and balanced 2.5mm headphone jacks, and microsd slot (to expand its internal 64GB storage).
Its aluminium chassis, now in an attractive ‘Moon Silver’ finish, has filled out a bit and gained 24g in weight. However, it could still be described as slimline, and is manageable to hold and use with one hand.
Raising the bar
The SR25’S sound is familiar, smooth and full of detail, and picks up where the SR15 left off. The bar has undoubtedly been raised a peg or two, though, especially in terms of subtlety.
The new A&K player more faithfully delivers The Tallest Man on Earth’s I Love You, It’s A Fever Dream, capturing more intricacies in the production – the echoic atmosphere, the creak of his seat – as well as paying greater dynamic attention to his strumming and the crispness of those leading notes. The soundstage has been prized wide open, too, allowing the track’s scale to soar and detail to unfold.
It’s even more dynamically fluid and varied in its rendition of Peter Broderick’s Eyes Closed And Travelling, communicating greater emphasis on the extra burden of piano keys at the end of each sequence. The extra space and information it surfaces creates a more ominous feel to the opening of The Doors’ L.A Woman. We are suddenly plunged into a sense of anticipation as the drums and cymbals build and the guitar melody quickens.
Notably more expressive and eloquent than any other portable music player we’ve encountered at this price, the SR25 demonstrates just how good music on the move can be, while remaining reasonably affordable. Which begs the question: how much can Astell & Kern continue to squeeze out of its entry-level portable music player?