Award-winning Astell & Kern SR15 music player drops to lowest-ever price

Award-winning Astell & Kern SR15 music player drops to lowest-ever price
(Image credit: Astell & Kern)

It's a familiar story: a shiny new kid appears on the block and the old guard receives a heavy discount. However, while a successor to the Astell & Kern A&norma SR15 has been announced in the form of the A&norma SR25, the SR15 remains a coveted piece of kit. It's a What Hi-Fi? 2019 Award-winner, no less. 

While it recently dropped to £429 at Amazon, its price has now plummeted further to £399 at Amazon and Audiovisual Online. That isn't only 33 per cent less than its original price tag, it is the lowest price it's ever been. 

Astell & Kern A&Norma SR15 £599 £399 at Amazon

Astell & Kern A&Norma SR15 £599 £399 at Amazon
Stacks of storage, plenty of hi-res file support, serious levels of detail and dynamic sound from a portable brand that's second to none. It promises a severe step up from your smartphone sound. And at this price, it's a bargain. 

Astell & Kern A&Norma SR15 £599 £399 at Audiovisual Online

Astell & Kern A&Norma SR15 £599 £399 at Audiovisual Online
Stacks of storage, plenty of hi-res file support, serious levels of detail and dynamic sound from a portable brand that's second to none. It promises a severe step up from your smartphone sound. And at this price, it's a bargain. 

The SR15 is a portable music player with dual DACs, 3.5mm and balanced 2.5mm headphone outputs, 64GB built-in storage (expandable via microSD card), and built-in Bluetooth, wi-fi and Tidal.

The A&norma sports a really good interface and support for native DSD playback (up to DSD64) in addition to PCM files up to 24-bit/192kHz. It will also happily deal with downsampling any music you've managed to find of even higher resolution.

Under review, we called the SR15 "an extremely appealing all-rounder" – and that was when the product was £200 more expensive. At this price, it'd be rude not to consider it if you fancy treating yourself to a top-notch portable music player. You could soon be taking hi-res music out for your daily exercise. 

MORE: 

Read all our Astell & kern reviews

Best portable music players 2020: from budget to hi-res music

10 of the best 1970s albums to test your speakers

Becky has been a full-time staff writer at What Hi-Fi? since March 2019. Prior to gaining her MA in Journalism in 2018, she freelanced as an arts critic alongside a 20-year career as a professional dancer and aerialist – any love of dance is of course tethered to a love of music. Becky has previously contributed to Stuff, FourFourTwo, This is Cabaret and The Stage. When not writing, she dances, spins in the air, drinks coffee, watches football or surfs in Cornwall with her other half – a football writer whose talent knows no bounds.