Product Comparison: Fiio X5-II vs Astell&Kern AK Jr

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Best Pick

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

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Astell&Kern AK Jr Hi-Res Music Player 64GB

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General Specifications

Brand

Fiio

Astell&Kern

Model

X5-II

AK Jr

About the Product

All new X5 2nd gen - native DSD decoding, more musical, more portable. One small step in your eyes, one giant leap for your ears.

The Astell & Kern AK Jr is the high-end audio company’s slimmest, most affordable portable music player, capable of handling Hi-Res Audio.

Key Specs

Memory

0 GB

64 GB

Display

Yes

Integrated Speaker(s)

What customers say about "Key Specs"

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

Love how smooth the interface is, the display is clear, crisp, and easy to read.
The screen has nice color reproduction, good for those of you that love album art.
The large artwork screen.
The menus are sharp on the display.
The slight delay between displaying the artist list and the albums is shorter if you have a huge selection, thus saving on battery life a bit.
The display is small and uses a tiny font.

Astell&Kern AK Jr Hi-Res Music Player 64GB

The screen display is very sharp and bright.
Songs are displayed as an alphabetical list.
Very convenient that it can also display song titles in other supported languages though running an English menu.
Screen objects seem to either move very quickly or make larger jumps than I prefer. This can't be changed in settings either, as far as I can find.
The touch screen is not very responsive.

Size & Weight

Color

Black

Silver

Height

4.3 in.

4.5 in.

Width

2.5 in.

2 in.

Depth

0.6 in.

0.4 in.

Weight

5.8 oz.

3.52 oz.

What customers say about "Size & Weight"

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

The build seems to be quality and I like the size/ weight.
Nothing compares to the quality of sound that comes out of this little machine, for its size and price.
It looks very similar to an iPod, to be honest, and the weight and size are also comparable.
it's beautiful, like all the other Fiio products I own. It's smaller and lighter than the Gen I, you can actually carry in jeans pocket.
I felt as if it were sturdy by the weight of it.

Astell&Kern AK Jr Hi-Res Music Player 64GB

This Jewel MP3 player, on steroids is crystal clear for its size.
Almost smart phone size. But it packs a lot of power and capacity into its sharp cornered aluminum body.
The pros of this player are its size, build quality, over all cosmetic design (although I would have rounded the corners off a bit for comfort reasons) and yes again the sound quality is good.
Besides the great, neat, compact, and sturdy design, the music quality is stunning.
I really like the fact of high performance in a very compact package.

Features

Supported Audio Formats

AAC, Protected AAC, HE-AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Lossy Files, PCM, DSD, WAV

AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, AIFF, WAV, AAC (Non-DRM), APE, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WMA, DSD, PCM, Lossy Files

Memory Card Slot

Yes

Input(s)

3.5mm Jack

Voice Recorder

Video Playback

Bluetooth Enabled

Yes

Extras

Top shelf PCM1792A from Texas Instrument coupled with new OPA1652 gives great dynamic performance

Wolfson WM8740 DAC

Usability

3.1" WQVGA

What customers say about "Features"

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

A nice feature between the two memory cards is you can create on-the go playlists that combine data from both cards.
The use of removable memory cards that can be directly managed is very convenient, since I personally do not like to have to use software like iTunes to manage my files.
My favorite thing though is simply the versatility of file formats you can use, you aren't limited to the usual formats but you can use the FLAC format.
I like that this fiio device has 2 sd card slots cause I have loads of metal music in my collection and need extra storage space for it but I was hoping for better battery life it's not terrible but doesn't seem to be great either!
Difficult to use: The menus are very slow once you get into the 100 GB range. If you're using the "Categories" section, expect 15-30 seconds delays after choosing an option. To speed things up, I use the folders section since I already organized my folders by artist/album.
Great but it does take getting used to , some controls are a bit odd but over all great expandability and sound.

Astell&Kern AK Jr Hi-Res Music Player 64GB

Supports a wide array of music formats.
Outstanding sound quality. I ripped all my CDs to Flac format and downloaded some high def files in Flac.
However, instead of a warning such as "you have exceeded the device memory capacity" or "no storage space left," the device just hung up and froze.
The device has bluetooth but it is having a hard time connect with my bluetooth headphone.
Bluetooth is practically useless, frequent dropouts.

Power

Battery Life

10 hours

What customers say about "Power"

Fiio X5-II (2nd Generation) High Resolution Music Player (Black)

Plenty of space availability, and the battery life is great!
It takes three hours to charge and I clocked battery life at approximately eleven hours.
The battery life is specified at 10+ hours, which is conservative as I get 11 to 12 hours from its 3300 mAh battery, more if I'm using the Line output which powers off the headphone amp.
Terrible battery life, cumbersome to browse through files.
No indicator which says battery is fully charged.

Astell&Kern AK Jr Hi-Res Music Player 64GB

I am getting roughly the same battery life.
Battery life is about 9 hours if you leave it at about 50-55% volume level and don't touch it or have the display on for very long.
Battery life is not that long, but I usually keep the screen on when I have it sitting on my desk.
Minor gripes are for battery performance and somewhat sluggish but otherwise good interface.
Battery life is so so.

Warranty / Certifications

Certifications

FCC, CE

Manufacturer Warranty

1 year(s)

Accessories

Included With Unit

USB cable