If you’re looking for something that sounds better than your phone but is still nice and pocketable, you could do a lot worse than Astell & Kern’s A&futura SE180 – and this brilliant portable music player is currently available for just £999. A great deal as we build up to the Amazon Prime Day sales.
The offer comes as part of a bundle over at Amazon, which includes the Astell & Kern A&futura SE180 player itself, a black leather case, and an extra DAC module. When we tested the SE180 the player alone was priced at £1399, making this a hefty saving when you consider the contents of the package.
The Astell & Kern A&futura SE180 followed up our five-star review by taking home the 2022 What Hi-Fi? Award for the best portable music player over £1000, with its novel modular design and excellent performance-per-pound making it a clear winner.
This particular offer comes with the SEM4 DAC module, which A&K says “enhances signal separation and amplification” to provide a rich and immersive soundstage. Of course, you also get the default one, which includes an ESS ES9038PRO that supports 32-bit/384kHz PCM, native DSD256 and MQA audio. They can be switched in a matter of seconds, and both offer 2.5mm, 3.5mm and 4.4mm outputs, so you can plug in all kinds of headphones.
Elsewhere there’s a five-inch, Full HD touchscreen that allows you to enjoy album artwork while you listen, with an Android-style interface for easily navigating the menus and browsing your music library. There’s also a light-up volume dial on the side that changes colour depending on the bitrate of the song that’s currently playing.
Both wi-fi and Bluetooth are onboard, so you can stream directly using apps such as Tidal and Deezer, which come pre-loaded, or play via a connected device using the player's BT Sync mode. There’s also 256GB of built-in storage if you prefer to store digital files locally, with a microSD card slot for expanding it by up to 1TB.
While there’s no denying the Astell & Kern A&futura SE180 is a fairly niche proposition, it’s a great piece of kit – and this offer makes it better value for money than ever.
MORE:
Read our Astell & Kern A&futura SE180 review
See our pick of the best portable music players you can buy
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