Astell&Kern A&norma SR35 Digital Audio Player Review

Astell&Kern are well known for very high-end expensive players, and while the A&norma SR35 player at $799.00 may seem expensive to some, to Astell&Kern it is an almost entry-level player. But it has inherited features from some of the most expensive digital audio players they offer making it a high-interest offering.

This new A&norma SR35 pocket-sized player can easily match full-size players in audio quality and feature set and is a far cry from the cell phones many of us rely on to play music on the go.

The A&norma SR35 has excellent battery life at 20 hours, dual-band WiFi, and gain matching for different types of headphones. It supports two-way Bluetooth and high-definition codecs (LDAC, Qualcomm® aptX™ HD). And saving what I think is the best for last, it’s Roon Ready, a first for the A&norma series of players, and something that doesn’t exist on most other portable players.

With the apparent reduction of the COVID emergency worldwide, people are traveling again, and many of us will want to take our music with us. Some listen on our smartphones, but almost all of them treat high-quality music playback as an afterthought. Gone are the days where we are content to playback compromised MP3 files.

As a constant traveler, I’m always happy to take my music with me. Streaming services are nice, but there’s nothing like playing high-resolution files on a good headset when you’re away from home.

In my case, my files (about 1800 albums) sit on my Roon Core server. With a modern DAP, it’s easy enough to copy those files to a high-quality digital player like the A&norma SR35 and hear them in all their glory with no compression on a good set of headphones. I can also stream wirelessly to BT devices at some loss of quality, but without having to be tethered to the device.

And of course, the fact that the A&norma SR35 is Roon Ready adds a new dimension to using it around the house.

As a result of this increased demand for music on the go, we’re seeing really fine Digital Audio Players (DAPs) on the market, with increasingly excellent specs and feature lineups. Sony is in the game at a variety of prices, and companies like FiiO, Shanling, iBasso, and of course Astell&Kern, whose SR35 is under consideration today.

A bit about Astell&Kern. The brand goes back to IRIVER, an early producer of MP3 players going back to the late 90s. (We also knew it back then as iRiver). Over the years the IRIVER players got better and better, and the sound became more refined. The Astell&Kern brand was launched in 2012, and their first player, the AK100 was one of the early players that supported high-resolution audio.

So, what does the A&norma SR35 bring to potential customers?

Let’s start with design. With its richly colored black and crimson display, an oversized volume knob, and three outputs for headphones (3.5mm unbalanced; 4.4mm and 2.5mm balanced), the A&norma SR35 is a stunning little jewel of a product.

The screen has a slightly off-center appearance, so the screen edges don’t line up with the shape of the case. I find it interesting, and attractive. It’s not another me too.

Let me talk about the look of the GUI, going beyond the pretty colors. GUIs have continued to evolve other the years, on our computers and of course on our portable devices, like our phones and tablets.

Astell&Kern says the new theme is designed to quickly let you browse through music categories with some simple gestures. There’s a powerful search feature, and album art has been added to the music you import. The company says its new dark theme is designed to reduce eye fatigue, and as an added feature, the darker screens make for longer battery life. Still, everything is easily visible.

The player is packed in an unobtrusive black box. Open the box and you will see the player, while nested below is a getting started guide, along with a USB C to USB C connector for charging and data connections, along with some screen protectors.

The player has 4 buttons down the left side, representing power on/off, play/pause, and forward and backward track movement. On the right is a large, tactile volume control. At the bottom is a USB C port for charging and connecting to your computer, and there is a place for a Micro SD card to add to the 64 GB storage on board. The A&norma SR35 will accommodate up to a 1 TB Micro SD card, which will give most users a prodigious amount of storage space. When initially charged and turned on, you’ll find you can set up a Tidal account if you have one. Some apps support Qobuz, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify. Other services could be added in the future via downloads.

There’s also a software toggle switch to make the A&norma SR35 Roon Ready, and I flipped the switch and instantly the SR35 appeared on my Roon App setup menu as a place music can be directed to. This is the first time Astell&Kern has offered a player that supports Roon in the AK norma series, and for Roon fans, like me, it is a big deal letting the player receive a very high-quality stream from my Roon Library. Astell&Kern has 14 other Roon Ready/Roon Tested products. The SR35 is the 15th overall product and the 10th AK portable player to be certified Roon Ready. So, Astell&Kern is certainly all in on Roon.

The A&norma SR35 was a pleasure to listen to. It sounded as good as any DAP I’ve auditioned, and I’ve listened to many more expensive players. I made sure to listen to music that resided in the player’s internal memory, as Astell&Kern was nice to provide a variety of tracks and albums on the sample I was sent so I had plenty of variety.

I also dragged some high-resolution music over from my Roon Core Server to the internal storage on the SR35, which was a super easy process. And of course, I played music using the A&norma SR35 as a Roon Endpoint, giving me wireless access to my entire collection.

I did most of my listening on headphones, preferring my Focal Clear Mg cans because they are comfortable when used for extended listening. The 2-stage amplification of the SR35 made matching the Focal headphones easy. Other headphones I tried included Sennheiser, B&W, and HIFIMAN. They all had plenty of volume.

Let me offer a couple of overall impressions.

The A&norma SR35 is VERY musical. I tried several of the DAC/Amp options, and they all sounded good. To my ear option 4 sounded the best with acoustic music. With electronic music, the other options were a toss-up for audio quality. There were some subtle differences in the 4 options, but they were not dramatic, and it was hard to choose one over the other.

One strong impression is that music emerges from a very silent background. Some DAPs have low-level electronic noise. The SR35 is clean.

Even streaming from Roon all I hear is the music. Dynamic range is good if the program material supports it. The bass was quite clean, which of course is partly the good headphones, and partly the high-quality amp in the SR35.

One disadvantage of Android-based DAPs is that Android has a mundane OS-based audio system. FiiO is one player that wrote its own music app that bypasses Android audio, but you must turn it on every time you want to listen. The SR35 always bypasses the Android audio section and plays bit-perfect files from its internal storage, a Micro SD card, streaming sources, and Roon.

All in all, I did not find any negatives in music playback.

What I listed to:

First from the sample material on the SR35.

The Astell&Kern A&norma SR35 is not inexpensive at $799.00, but it performed in all ways comparably with some more expensive players I put it up against. At this price, it’s almost entry-level for the high-end Astell&Kern line, which includes players priced in the $3000 range.

As you’ve already gathered, I like the sound of this classy-looking little player. It handled everything I threw at it with a variety of headphones (Focal, B&W, Sennheiser, HIFIMAN) and acquitted itself nicely on a variety of music. It’s full-featured, plays just about any kind of file, and is Roon Ready which, as a Roon user and booster, is a great added feature.

For just using around the house playing local files or streaming, the SR35 is a winner. It’s easy to get music on and off the SR35 by plugging it into your computer (PC or Mac if you are running the free Android app for file transfer). It can function as a DAC, and it seemed to work fine, but most of my listening was direct to the unit with headphones plugged in. I also tried it streaming to powered speakers via Bluetooth, and that worked, and the setup was simple, just like any Bluetooth pairing process.

There is one thing I’d like to see, and I understand A&K is working on it. Roon has an app called ARC that works on Android and iOS. It allows you to access your Roon music collection over the internet. If the SR35 supported that app, I could listen to any music I have at home anywhere in the world with a WiFi connection. It seems a natural for any Roon Ready player, so I hope it’s added.

Still, much of the company’s tech and expertise trickled down to this player and it offers really fine value for the money. I think the A&norma SR35 really is a high-value piece of equipment, and when paired with high-quality headphones will produce truly audiophile sound. Since it also supports most streaming services, and just about every file format available, and works with Roon, your music choices are virtually unlimited.