Английская Википедия:Astell & Kern

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Astell & Kern is a South Korean consumer electronics company founded in October 2013, and is wholly owned by Dreamus. The company manufactures media players, CD players, headphones, and home cinema products. It was launched as a premium successor to iriver products.

History

Roots and founding

In January 2013, iriver debuted the AK100 media player at CES 2013, to polarizing reception from critics at release. In July, a pair of in-ear monitors dubbed the AKR01 were released to complement the media players. In August, the AK100's successor, the AK120, was released with minor design enhancements but notoriously the addition of two Wolfson WM8740 DAC chipsets, and was released to better reception. In October, Astell & Kern was founded by iRiver to develop the in-brand products. A limited edition called the AK120 Titan was released shortly in December.

Growth, icons and debuts

On 9 January 2014, the company debuted the AK240 for CES 2014, with it debuting Wi-FI connectivity, and an operating system based upon Android instead of Linux directly. Following the acquisition of Wolfson by Cirrus Logic, the company replaced the Wolfson DAC duo with Logic 4398 chipsets. At CES, the AKR02, the successor to the AKR01, debuted in February; Astell & Kern also revealed Home cinema products, such as a valve amplifier and cylindrical speaker, as well. In May, collaborating with Jerry Harvey Audio, the company released the AKR03 monitors, successing the AKR02, as well as the AK120II and AK100II players, the second-generation of the AK120 and AK100 players respectively. In honor of the 75th anniversary of Blue Note Records, the AK240 announced a "Blue Note Special Limited Edition" on 17 October.

In January 2015, the "AK T5p" headphones, which were co-produced with Beyerdynamic, were released. In February, the company debuted the stainless steel model of the AK240, the AK240SS, and the AK500N, a Network Audio System which can store 1TB of files in a solid-state drive, can stream lossless from PCs and NAS devices, and is noiseless when plugged in. In April, the AK Jr. was released. Unlike other models, Jr. is an entry-level and much smaller media player than other models.

Expansion and product debuts

In August, the all-in-one system AK T1 was released, along with the Super Junior x AK Jr collaboration and the Beyerdynamic-produced AK T8iE monitors. In November, Hyundai Card collaborated with Astell & Kern to create the AK100II x HCC model, as well as the AK320's debut and Beyerdynamic-produced AK T1p. In 2015, Astell & Kern collaborated with Japanese voice actress Kana Hanazawa to create the limited AK100II Kana Hanazawa edition, which would include a special song titled "Tadoritsuku Basho" (A Place to Reach) pre-installed in the player.

On 21 January 2016, the company released a Copper Edition of the AK380. In February, the company released four sets of monitors co-produced with Jerry Harvey Audio: Layla II, Roxanne II, Angie II, and Rosie. In July, the company developed a new media player: the AK70.

Products

Mastering Quality Sound (MQS)

Astell & Kern markets 24-bit audio with a 44.1 kHz to 192 kHz sampling rate under the name Mastering Quality Sound (MQS). Music sold with this tag comes in both the lossless formats: WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, APE as well as lossy formats: MP3, AAC, WMA and OGG.

Hardware

Year	Model	Type	Spec
			Capacity	Input	Battery
2013	AK100	Media player	microSD	micro USB	16 hours
	AKR01	In-ear monitors	Шаблон:N/a	Phone jack	Шаблон:N/a
	AK120	Media player	64GB 64GB Шаблон:Small	microUSB 2x microSD	16 hours
	AK120 Titan		128GB 64GB Шаблон:Small		14 hours
	AK10	USB DAC/AMP	Шаблон:N/a	micro USB	11 hours
2014	AK240	Media player	256GB 128GB Шаблон:Small	microUSB microSD	10 hours
	AKR02	In-ear monitors	rowspan="2" Шаблон:N/a	Phone jack	rowspan="2" Шаблон:N/a
	AKR03
	AK100II	Media player	64GB 128GB Шаблон:Small	microUSB microSD	Шаблон:N/a
	AK120II		128GB Шаблон:Small		Шаблон:N/a
	AK240 Шаблон:Small		256GB 128GB Шаблон:Small		Шаблон:N/a
2015	AK T5p	Headphones	Шаблон:N/a	Phone jack	Шаблон:N/a
	AK240SS	Media player	256GB 128GB Шаблон:Small	microUSB microSD	Шаблон:N/a
	AK500N	Network Audio System	1TB	AES/EBU BNC Coaxial Optical	7 hours
	AK Jr	Media player	64GB Шаблон:Small	microUSB microSD	6–8 hours
	AK380		256GB 128GB Шаблон:Small		10 hours
	AK T1	Sound system	Шаблон:N/a	Auxiliary Optical microUSB microSD	Шаблон:N/a
	Super Junior x AK Jr.	Media player	64GB Шаблон:Small	microUSB microSD	6–8 hours
	AK T8iE	In-ear monitors	Шаблон:N/a	Phone jack	rowspan="3" Шаблон:N/a
	Layla		rowspan="2" Шаблон:N/a
	Angie
	AK100II x HCC	Media player	64GB 128GB Шаблон:Small	microUSB microSD	Шаблон:N/a
	AK320		128GB Шаблон:Small		Шаблон:N/a
	AK T1p	Headphones	Шаблон:N/a	Phone jack	Шаблон:N/a
2016	AK70	Media player
	AK300
	AK380 Copper		256GB 128GB Шаблон:Small	microUSB microSD	10 hours
	AK T8iE MkII	In-ear monitors
	Angie II		rowspan="4" Шаблон:N/a	Phone jack	rowspan="4" Шаблон:N/a
	Layla II
	Michelle
	Rosie
	Roxanne II
2017	KANN	Media player	64GB Шаблон:Small	USB-C SD + microSD	15 hours
	AK70 MKII		64GB Internal 256GB microSD	micro-USB microSD	Шаблон:N/a
	A&ultima SP1000 (SS/CU/BK)		256GB Internal 256GB MicroSD	USB-C microSD	12 hours
	Michelle Limited	In-ear monitors
	AK CD-Ripper MKII	CD ripper
2018	A&norma SR15	Media player	64GB Шаблон:Small 400GB Шаблон:Small	USB-C microSD	Шаблон:N/a
	A&futura SE100
	A&ultima SP1000M		128GB Internal 400GB microSD		10 hours
	Billie Jean	In-ear monitors
	Diana
	AK T5p 2nd Generation	Headphones
2019	A&ultima SP1000M Gold	Media player
	A&ultima SP2000
	KANN Cube
	SA700
	SP1000 AMP	Amplifier
	AK T9iE	In-ear monitors
	Layla Aion
2020	A&futura SE200	Media player	256GB Internal 1TB microSD	USB-C microSD	10 hours (AK4499EQ) 14 hours (ES9068AS)
	A&norma SR25		64GB Шаблон:Small 1TB Шаблон:Small	USB-C microSD	21 hours
	KANN Alpha		64GB Internal 1TB microSD	USB-C microSD	14.5 hours
2021	A&ultima SP2000T	Media player	256GB Internal 1TB microSD	USB-C microSD	About 9 hours (Standard : FLAC, 16bit/44.1 kHz, Unbalance, Volume 50, LCD Off, LED On, OP AMP Mode)
	A&futura SE180		256GB Internal 1TB microSD	USB-C microSD	About 10.5 hours (SEM 1: ES9038PRO x 1) About 10.5 hours (SEM 2: AK4497EQ x 2) About 13 hours (SEM 3: ES9038Q2M x 4) About 14 hours (SEM 4: AK4493SEQ x 2) (FLAC, 16bit, 44.1 kHz, Vol.50, LCD Off)
	A&norma SR25 MKII		64GB Internal 1TB microSD	USB-C microSD	Up to 20 hours (based on MUSIC: FLAC, 16bit, 44.1 kHz, Unbalance, Volume 50, EQ Off, LCD Off)
	AK Solaris X	In-ear monitors
	AK ZERO 1
2022	A&ultima SP3000	Media player	256GB Internal 1TB microSD	USB-C microSD	About 10 hours (Standard: FLAC, 16-bit/44.1 kHz, Vol. 80, LCD off)