Following the announcement of the KANN Cube, Astell&Kern is ready to unveil its first player to support 32-bit/768kHz high-resolution PCM and DSD512 native, bit-to-bit playback and it's called the SP2000.

Additionally, this is the first Astell&Kern player to use separate, independent audio channels between the Unbalanced and Balanced outputs. Why? Well, because this design offers much more power than ever before, with 6Vrms for Balanced output and 3Vrms for Unbalanced output.

As the SP2000 is the latest flagship portable player from the Astell&Kern A&ultima line, it gets the newest flagship Asahi Kasei DACs, the AKM AK4499EQ. Moreover, the SP2000 features two AK4499EQ DACs, arranged in a dual-mono configuration to provide a wider soundstage and better stereo separation.

The new player also sports an Octa-Core CPU, a 5-inch touchscreen, 512GB of internal memory (double that of previous Astell&Kern players), MQA support (pending final testing and certification) and dual-band Wi-Fi with a stereo antenna, for improved network performance when streaming music.

The A&ultima SP2000 will be available in Stainless Steel and Copper bodies with a unique crown pattern volume/power wheel. The A&ultima SP2000 will be available in July 2019 for £2999.

Astell&Kern will be showing the SP2000 at Munich High End, alongside three other new products: the KANN Cube portable player, SP1000 AMP accessory, and AKT9iE earphones.

For more information, go to Astell&Kern.