I’ll get straight to it: I just tested the Astell & Kern’s A&norma SR25 MKII hi-res digital audio player (or DAP, as audiophiles tend to call them) and it delivered a stone cold sonic masterclass to my iPhone 11, Samsung Galaxy S21 and older iPhone 7 (audio reviewers often have two or three phones on the go and that’s totally not weird).  To call it the best MP3 player at this level is actually to do it down, too – saying the A&norma SR25 MKII is a good MP3 player is akin to saying Karim Benzema is good at kicking balls or that Patrick Mahomes is good at throwing them.  And it’s not even the sublime sigh-inducing audio quality that makes me love it so much – although we’ll come back to that later.
…
Read more