Astell&Kern’s new portable player wants all of your FLACs
A music machine so powerful it had to be wrapped in aluminium
An iPod Classic? Pah! What’s 160GB worth when you can’t carry your entire carefully curated audio collection around in fully lossless quality? Nothing, that’s what. No, what you need is Astell&Kern’s £899 Kann, an aluminium-wrapped machine that eats FLAC files for breakfast. With 64GB of storage (expandable up to 576GB via two memory card slots), it’ll handle the toughest of files – including top-end 32-bit/384kHz PCM audio, a format usually reserved for master tracks. There’s clever software trickery on-board, too, including a parametric equaliser, as well as the ability to work as an external USB-C DAC and – get this – a choice of four analogue output ports.
Chris Rowlands
Freelance contributor 
