Astell & Kern PD5 review: the most 'sensible' player yet from A&K visually
but sonically it soars above the competition

Date:
Thu, 29 Oct 2026 22:00:00 +0000

Description:
Astell & Kerns latest affordable* digital audio player eases up on the aesthetic oddity and doubles down on technology and user input(*everythings relative, obviously)

FULL STORY ======================================================================Astell
& Kern PD5: Two-minute review Its been a long time since Astell & Kern has
had a genuinely affordable digital audio player in its line-up, and the
launch of the PD5 does nothing to change that.

Its been a while since the company had anything as visually unremarkable as this in its catalog, too but try not to get hung up on the perceived value and instead concentrate on the priceless nature of its sound quality. And besides, a considerable amount of money put Astell & Kerns way for a PD5 may not buy you much in the way of design or tactility but it gets you an extremely thoroughly specified device. Eight Cirrus Logic DACs? 20-point EQ adjustment? Balanced and unbalanced headphone outputs? The ability to work as a desktop DAC? Enough power to get a tune out even the most uncooperative headphones? The PD5 has all of this, and more and its all in the service of audio performance thats as good as any portable device at anything like this price point. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here:

When it comes to clarity, to detail retrieval and to outright fidelity, the PD5 is extremely hard to criticise and yes, it fully emphatically deserves a place in our best MP3 players guide . And its talents dont stop there, not even close its sound is punchily robust, effortlessly dynamic, brilliantly controlled and organised, and thoroughly engaging. If you take your portable listening experience seriously (or your desktop listening experience for that matter the PD5 is also an excellent USB DAC), this Astell & Kern absolutely demands your attention.

Away from audio quality the PD5 isnt perfect; there are rare occasions on which it can be glitchy in operation, its on-screen menus are approaching miniscule, and it neither looks nor feels quite as expensive as it actually is. All of this, though, is made to seem fairly trivial by the way the PD5 performs its primary function. (Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas) Astell & Kern PD5 (Silver) at Amazon for 899 Astell & Kern PD5 review: Price and release date Priced $1,049 / 899 / AU$1,349 Announced in August 2026;
released in September 2026 The Astell & Kern PD5 digital audio player is on sale now, and in the United Kingdom it costs 899. In the United States it
will set you back $1,049, while in Australia it goes for AU$1,349.

Anyone familiar with such devices knows that for an A&K player, that's actually not so expensive again, note my 'for an A&K player' wording there. This company's flagship DAPs go for $3,999 / 3,799 / AU$6,599 ( Astell & Kern A&ultima SP4000 and its newer T-suffixed sibling, I'm looking at you), but
you can also get a hi-res player from A&K's sub-brand called the Activo P1 for $430 / 399 (around AU$869). Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

There are crucial differences in the specifications which I'll go into, but it's good to have an idea of the market at least, when looking at such a fee and being told by its makers that it is "entry level" . (Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas) Astell & Kern PD5 review: Features Eight (count em!) Cirrus Logic CS43198 DACs Balanced and unbalanced headphone outputs Bluetooth 5.3 with aptX HD support The PD5 isnt the first Astell & Kern product thats been so thoroughly specified that discussing every one of its features in any kind of depth might take up most of your day. So lets say right from the off that no eventuality has been overlooked where the PD5 is concerned, and then lets deal with the headlines and then try not to get too bogged down in all the rest of it

Never knowingly understated, Astell & Kern has fitted eight Cirrus Logic CS43198 DAC chipsets here. The user interface gives you the option of listening using four, or all eight listening in octa-mode offers optimal sound quality, but eats into battery life quite badly (engage all eight DACs and youre looking at 15 hours of playback as opposed to the 28 or so you should get when listening to just four). Taking the battery from flat to full takes around two-and-a-half hours.

In terms of feeding digital audio content to that considerable digital-to-analog conversion line-up, you have a few options. The bare-bones Android user interface Astell & Kern has deployed here, along with dual-band wi-fi, allows you to download the app of your favourite music streaming service(s), and 64GB of internal memory allows you to store some content to the PD5s local storage. Theres a microSD card slot on the bottom of the frame (next to the USB-C slot thats used for data transfer and for battery
charging) too it can accept cards of up to 1.5TB, which should prove
adequate for all the hi-res content you might desire.

The player can deal with resolutions of up to 32bit/384kHz PCM and DSD256,
and is Roon Ready as well as featuring full-on Qobuz Connect integration. Or you might decide to bypass the fancy-pants D-to-A circuitry altogether and
use Bluetooth to drive a pair of wireless headphones (although it does seem a bit of a weird idea to spend 899 on a player in order to use it like a smartphone). (Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas) The PD5 features Bluetooth 5.3 with codec support up to and including aptX HD. It also has two headphone outputs: an unbalanced 3.5mm socket and a balanced 4.4mm alternative thats compatible with five-pole jacks. Use the 4.4mm output, select octa-DAC mode, and the Astell & Kern can summon a mammoth 8Vrms of power so even the most demanding headphones will have to do as they are told. But there are quite a few ways in which the sound can be affected, both by the device and by the person using it, before it reaches these outputs.

The EnviroTune feature uses a mic integrated into the top edge of the PD5 to analyse ambient noise in real time and correct those frequencies affected by it without just making everything louder. The Teraton Alpha audio engine
thats familiar from some of Astell & Kerns uber-pricey DAPs minimises noise from the power supply and creates amplification thats as stable and distortion-free as possible. And Enhanced Signal Alignment technology synchronises outgoing signals in an effort to negate phase distortion and deliver the most coherent sonic image possible.

The end user, meanwhile, gets a choice of digital filters and some quite in-depth EQ adjustment to look into. The default filter is low latency fast, and it is as distinct in its effect as low latency slow, phase compensated fast and phase compensated slow are from each other. A ten-band EQ offers fairly granular adjustment of the sound, and an advanced EQ interface allows frequency response to be defined using a graph with 20 (!) plotting points.

The PD5 will function as a desktop too, thanks to its USB-C slots ability
with data transfer. Simply make a hard connection to, say, your laptop,
select DAC input in the USB Mode sub-menu, and the Astell & Kern
automatically switches on octa-DAC mode in order to give your computer a proper go at sounding decent for once. Features score: 5 / 5 (Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas) Astell & Kern PD5 review: Sound quality Clarity, detail and dynamism in equal measure Organised and fully resolved sound Well-controlled punch and drive The Astell & Kern PD5 is an admirably unpicky device, although obviously there are limits. Give it the sort of standard content available on a proper music streaming service (which means a CD-quality resolution of 16bit/44.1kHz) and it does an admirable job of maximising the information available to it. Step down from there, though, to the sort of squashed nonsense served up by Apple Music or Spotify, and the
PD5 struggles to conceal its disdain. But you didnt spend proper money to listen to compressed poverty-spec streams, did you?

So a 16bit/44.1kHz stream of Hoods Western Housing Concerns is delivered in tremendous fashion. The presentation is open and spacious, with an expansive soundstage on which each element of the recording gets ample room in which to stretch out and express itself. The layout is rigorously observed, and the PD5s powers or organisation mean the stage is locked in place and completely convincing.

Tonality is absolutely neutral, the player offering neither heat nor chill to the colour of the recording. Theres excellent clarity to the presentation, a really dark and quiet background in front of which the band perform and at every stage of the frequency range, theres absolutely fanatical attention to detail. No matter how minor an occurrence, how far back in the mix, or how fleeting, the Astell & Kern will seize upon it and give it precisely the amount of weight and emphasis it requires.

Frequency response is similarly even-handed, and similarly convincing as a result. A switch to a DSD64 file of Michael Jacksons Dont Stop Til You Get Enough reveals deep, textured, tremendously varied and thrillingly solid low-frequency response, and bass is controlled to the point that rhythmic expression is never less than positive and confident. Midrange resolution is no less accomplished, with the singers mic technique made every bit as apparent as his tone and timbre. The top of the frequency range strikes a lovely balance between substance and brilliance, and again theres an absolutely stack of information available. The PD5 doesnt over- or underemphasise any part of the frequency range, and as a result this glossy, audibly expensive recording sounds as natural and polished as it ever did.

Dynamic headroom is considerable when its time to describe big variations in volume or intensity or attack, and the more subtle dynamics of harmonic variation and transient response are never overlooked. The entire
presentation hangs together seamlessly, the Astell & Kern offering a proper sense of unity and singularity to recordings of every type.

And perhaps best of all, theres nothing show-y or even especially analytical about the way the PD5 goes about things. As far as insight into a recording goes its basically untouchable at the money, but thats not what defines the Astell & Kern. Its the energy of its sound, the engaged and engaging nature
of its performance, that makes it as entertaining a listen as youll get from
a portable device costing less than four figures. Sound quality score: 5 / 5 (Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas) Astell & Kern PD5 review: Design 120 x
70 x 16mm (HxWxD) 4.1in touchscreen display 198g Theres absolutely nothing wrong with the Astell & Kern PD5 as a physical object, let me make that clear from the off. The dimensions are nicely palm-sized, the weight is sufficient to make it feel like a premium product without being a burden to a jacket pocket, and the standard of fit and finish is impeccable.

And Im not about to pretend I miss the painfully pointy edges of some
previous Astell & Kern models, either the PD5 is a much friendlier proposition in this respect nor the painfully self-conscious offset screen
of the old SR35. But theres nothing remarkable about the design of the PD5, nothing to set it apart from the pack of products competing with it for your hard-earned. Even the volume dial, previously a little Astell & Kern design flourish, is unremarkable here.

I realise I cant have it all ways, and a calm and sensible aesthetic is preferable to something overwrought and wilful. But I find myself slightly concerned that for the PD5, Astell & Kern may have bypassed its industrial design team altogether Design score: 4.5 / 5 (Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas) Astell & Kern PD5 review: Usability and setup Bright, rather
reflective screen In-depth menus Occasional operational oddities As
mentioned, the PD5 uses a stripped-back version of Android as its user interface and its all the better for it. Too many digital audio players pointlessly include a lot of your smartphones functionality for no reason, as far as I can tell, other than to eat into the machines local memory.

The 4.1in touchscreen is bright, although rather more reflective than is ideal, and its responsive without being on a hair trigger. The Astell & Kerns menus are extensive, and as a result the font size is really very small but squint and you should be able to make out whats what (even if the occasional use of red on black for text is a terrible idea).

Setting up the PD5 to your satisfaction isnt the work of a moment. But when you finally get finished you can at least be sure you have a digital audio player thats primed to do exactly what you want, and in the manner you want it.

There are occasional glitches in operation, though or, at least, thats my experience. I install the Tidal music streaming app, and also insert a
microSD card full of hi-res content. But every now and then, both sources
will play at the same time. Pressing play on a Tidal file usually stops playback from the local storage and vice versa but not always, which is a weird one and no mistake. Usability and setup score: 3.5 / 5 (Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas) Astell & Kern PD5 review: Value Because the majority of the money youve spent on a PD5 has gone on the internals, its difficult to suggest its perceived value is especially high even if you accept that its beautifully constructed and even quite tactile. No, the value for money
Astell & Kern is offering here doesnt reveal itself until you start listening
and then it becomes quickly apparent that your money has been very well
spent indeed. Value score: 4.5 / 5 Should I buy the Astell & Kern PD5? Buy it if...

You have needy headphones The PD5 is equipped to make even the most
difficult headphones bend to its will.

Youre after uncompromised sound quality With the Astell & Kern you get what you pay for and then some.

Youre sharp-eyed as well as sharp-eared Navigating those set-up menus is no job for anyone whos misplaced their spectacles. Don't buy it if...

You want to see, as well as hear, where your money has gone The PD5 is a perfectly pleasant little device, but its appearance doesnt exactly shout almost a grand!

You dont own decent wired headphones The Astell & Kern sounds perfectly fine via Bluetooth, but really your smartphone will do a pretty similar job.
Astell & Kern PD5 review: Also consider

FiiO M23 The FiiO M23 has been around for a couple of years now, but really this only means its now competing almost directly with the PD5 on price. It remains a biggish, bulky-ish device, its true, but it also remains one of the most poised, direct and downright musical digital audio players around. Give it the right stuff to work with in terms of content and headphones, and the sound quality is enthralling. Read our full FiiO M23 review How I tested the Astell & Kern PD5 Listened using Tidal and Qobuz files Popped a 512GB microSD card loaded with extremely hi-res content into it Used Sennheiser IE900 and Meze Audio Strada for most of my testing I installed the Tidal music
streaming app and also deployed Qobuz Connect (its a slicker experience altogether than installing the app onto the player), and I inserted a 512GB microSD card loaded with extremely high-resolution content.

Then I connected a pair of Sennheiser IE900 IEMs using the 4.4mm balanced output, and also used a pair of Meze Audio Strada headphones connected the same way.

I also investigated the PD5s desktop DAC credentials by plugging it into an Apple MacBook Pro and using the Qobuz and Tidal desktop apps to listen to hi-res using the same pairs of headphones. First reviewed in October 2026
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