New Firmware for the A&ultima SP1000 and SP2000 adding Roon Ready support will be available on March 16th
Astell&Kern, a global leader in portable high-resolution audio players and accessories, announces Roon Ready certification of two players from the A&ultima line of flagship players. The SP1000 and SP2000 will become Roon Ready via a firmware update to be released over the air (OTA) on March 16, 2021.
With the addition of Roon Ready certification, Astell&Kern once again sets the bar for portable high-resolution audio players by adding new features to provide audiophiles with the ultimate audio experience.
Roon is a rich and engaging way to browse, organize, and listen to music. Artist photos, credits, bios, reviews, lyrics, tour dates, and composers are located automatically, then interconnected by links to build a surfable digital magazine. Roon is also a multi-room, multi-user networked audio platform, it offers features such as bit-perfect playback, DSD and PCM upsampling, multichannel support, and Signal Path display.
Being Roon Ready means that Astell&Kern players transparently discover and connect to Roon without any configuration, and bit-perfect audio is delivered from Roon to the player.
Together, Roon and Astell&Kern deliver the power, flexibility, and performance of networked audio, with the easiest setup and highest reliability available.
The first two Astell&Kern players to receive Roon Ready certification are:
Astell&Kern A&ultima SP2000
The SP2000 is the current flagship portable player from the Astell&Kern A&ultima line that integrates the latest Asahi Kasei DACs, the AKM AK4499EQ. The SP2000 features two AK4499EQ DACs, arranged in a dual-mono configuration to provide a wider soundstage and better stereo separation. The SP2000 was the first Astell&Kern player to use separate, independent audio channels between the Unbalanced and Balanced outputs. This design offers much more power than ever before, with 6Vrms for Balanced output and 3Vrms for Unbalanced output and offers the ultimate audio experience as Astell&Kern’s current flagship player.
The SP2000 supports up to 32-bit/768KHz bit-to-bit playback of high resolution PCM audio and native playback of DSD up to DSD512. It also features an Octa-Core CPU, a 5-inch touchscreen, 512GB of internal memory (double of previous Astell&Kern players), MQA support, microSD card slot supporting up to 1TB microSD cards and dual-band Wi-Fi with a stereo antenna, for improved network performance when streaming music. The A&ultima SP2000 is available in Stainless Steel and Copper bodies with a unique crown pattern volume/power wheel.
The A&ultima SP2000 is available now for $3,499 at authorized Astell&Kern dealers worldwide.
Astell&Kern A&ultima SP1000
The SP1000 is the first player in the Astell&Kern A&ultima line that integrates the popular Asahi Kasei AKM AK4497EQ DACs. The SP1000 features two AKM DACs, arranged in a dual-mono configuration to provide a wider soundstage and better stereo separation.
The SP1000 supports up to 32-bit/384KHz bit-to-bit playback of high resolution PCM audio and native playback of DSD up to DSD256. It also features an Octa-Core CPU, a 5-inch touchscreen, 256GB of internal memory, MQA support, microSD card slot supporting up to 1TB microSD cards and Wi-Fi.
The A&ultima SP1000 is available in limited quantities from select authorized Astell&Kern dealers.
More information on Roon support for other Astell&Kern player models will be announced at a later date.
To learn more about Astell&Kern and Roon, please visit the Astell&Kern Roon Partner Page at https://roonlabs.com/partners/astellkern