Astell & Kern unveils a wireless speaker to match its premium music players

[What Hi-Fi?]

The rotary volume knob and brutalist, angular aesthetic on the metal-grille are carried over from Astell & Kern's portable high-end audio players.

Astell & Kern unveils a wireless speaker to match its premium music players : Read more

 

[Navanski]

Premium music player, - given the undisputed Nyquist theory, is it really worth getting one? Well that's a whole debate which I'm not going to get into.
What I am going to question is the validity of having a hi res music file or stream and pushing it, through Bluetooth, to a large speaker. Despite aptx and LDAC and their best efforts, maximum bitrate is 990khz, not even enough to cope with most FLAC files.
That makes phrases like '– the Bluetooth chipset is equipped with a 50ps clock to promise supremely accurate sound.' seem a little pointless.
Given the fact that this box has a 32bit DAC inside perhaps Astell & Kern should have considered some digital inputs. USB could have been particularly useful. Just stick a phone or a PMP on the end and away you go.