Some things I’ve tried with this unit already … beyond plugging in headphones/IEMs and playing files off local storage:
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USB DAC (macOS) - Instantly recognized, with support for all PCM formats directly via the OS, as well as via Audirvana+ and Roon (as a local unit - network “Roon Ready” support is supposed to be coming imminently).
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USB DAC (iOS) - from both an iPhone XS (via the Lightning to USB adapter) and an iPad Pro 11" (via a standard USB-C to USB-C cable). Again, instantly recognized - but make sure you maximize the volume on the source device as the SP1000M presents as a DAC with variable volume but STILL has it’s only amp-stage that is also variable-volume the level for which is not controlled by the source).
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USB Transport - using a standard USB-C to Micro USB cable my Hugo 2 worked flawlessly as a DAC simply by changing the USB-mode of the DAP (available in the notification bar).
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WiFi Streaming via TIDAL, using the built-in client, works very well. Navigation is a little more limited than with the full TIDAL client (which you can side-load via the “Open APK” service … and doing so gets you OFFLINE TIDAL replay as well) - ideally you want your music added to your “My Music” collection.
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I stuck a full 512Gb microSDXC card in the thing and it read and indexed that without issue. The files on it are indexed in the background and as each one is indexed it becomes available in the normal UI (you don’t have to wait for indexing to finish to use the player). You can also use folder-browsing mode to access both a storage card and the internal storage directly.
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There is no discernible hiss/noise with any of the IEMs I’ve tried so far, either via the 3.5mm single-ended or the 2.5mm balanced outputs. That’s not untypical of A&K units (my original AK120 was similarly silent), but most of the other DAPs I’ve used over the years exhibit some hiss/noise with sensitive/low-impedance IEMs.
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Battery life is pretty much the 10 hours A&K claim with my tia Fourté, Zeus XR(A), Focal Utopia and HD820. Fast-charging is supported. The unit will play and charge at the same time, also.
That’s a quick run-down of things that are often problematic with highly-featured DAPs and that I wanted to check out sooner than later.