When In Manila, audiophiles tend to have the issue of having a hi-fi set-up or hi-fi player being too bulky to carry around. The only way to get-over this is to find powerful hi-fi players from top audio companies that churn out portable player that play lossless files in high bit-rates, even up to 24bit/192khz. The problem here is that, most of these hi-fi players have the issue of lousy interfaces, laggy response and small capacities even with external SD card slots. Recently though, iRiver, one of the top portable player brands from the 90’s, have finally came-up with their own hi-fi music player. The iRiver AK100 “Astell & Kern”. The iRiver AK100 “Astell & Kern” to me should be the best, if not the best, then one of the top hi-fi music players as of this moment. The innovation is simply, FANTASTIC. Here’s why:
Packaging/Build: The AK100 is definitely thought off from the bottom up. What I meant about this is that, even the slight notion of the packaging is superb. A simple semi-matte box with a beautiful AK100 logo embossed at the front, with an addition of a fancy enclosure where the AK100 is kept. Darn sexyyyyyy… Even the small manual is designed parallel. The whole packaging and build of the iRiver AK100 screams quality over any of the competition. This is the 1st time I have encountered a hi-fi music player that trenches in Apple-like build quality and finish. I’ll let the photos speak for the beautiful design of the iRiver AK100. Only thing that could have been improved is the volume knob. It may be a hindrance to some since it is bulking out. Aside from that though, the design is just astonishing. The iPod has nothing to say about the AK100‘s design for sure. Also to note is that the iRiver AK100 has 2 micro SD card slots, giving you so much space to play with and a hi-fi music player that finally can rival an Apple device’s storage space.
