Review: Astell&Kern Acro L1000 – Listed!

Design

The Acro L1000’s design is unique and modern. You either love or hate AK’s design but I for one am a fan. They make gear stand out and they don’t copy other brands in doing so. They’re trendsetters and therefor the L1000 is special. Well actually it’s gorgeous with its mix of straight lines and curves and it for sure draws attention to it. I have had several co-workers ask me about what that beautiful thing on my desk was. Not that they understood what it does, but they sure liked the design.

We’re not the only ones that like the L1000’s design either as Astell&Kern as gotten a Reddot design award for it as well. You can find out all about their award right here.

As it sits on your desk, the 30-degree angle will naturally fit your everyday use and the size of volume wheel is designed to fit your hand. The knurled pattern also allows the perfect feel of being in control of your music and you can set the volume very precisely. The accent of the orange LED rim lights around the volume wheel adds a subtle, yet comfortable music listening ambience, and the 12 dots of LED shows the status of music playback volume. (they all light up one-by-one when you turn on the unit).

It’s classy, stylish and it just finishes off the design.

Usability

Because of the large volume control and the most used headphone outputs on the left side, the L1000 is very easy to use. Switching the volume isn’t only very precise but it’s also fun to do. The only downside in the design to me is that the 4-pin XLR balanced output is placed on the back of the unit and so the cable will be connected a bit weird coming back to the front of the unit where you’ll most likely be sitting. But it does work, it’s just not always easiest or prettiest.

Connecting your DAP or your laptop to the micro-usb port on the back is also very easy, though I would suggest finding a somewhat longer USB OTG cable in case you’re connecting one of your DAP’s to the Acro.

When connecting more than two earphones/headphones, the sound is output to the earphones/headphones of the last connected terminal. When connecting to the XLR balanced terminal, all earphone/headphone jacks on the side of the product should not be connected.

Build Quality

The entire body is made of aluminum, which – according to Astell & Kern – maximizes sound clarity, adds aesthetics, and allows for an ergonomic volume control. As usual with the Astell&Kern, the build quality is perfect and honestly at this level you expect nothing different either.

All the headphone outputs feel sturdy and I don’t think they will wear out any time soon. The speaker plugs on the back not only look tough, they with their gold/copper color finish also look quite sexy.

Everything on the Acro L1000 just screams quality and sexiness. Love it.

Price & Accessories

Often when thinking about AK and their pricing, people expect very high prices but that isn’t always true. The Astell&Kern Jr and AK70II surely have a lot of competitors in their own price range. But yes, AK of course has very expensive gear and that’s actually where this Acro L1000 surprises. I expected the L1000 to cost easily over $1500 but it’s actually going for only $899 which is quite competitive.

Accessory-wise you for this price get the beautiful L1000 which comes in a nice AK worthy box. In side the box you’ll also find a standard power chord, the power adapter, a micro USB- cable, the user guide and a warranty card. A cleaning cloth would have been nice, but I’m quite happy with the content of the box.

Sound Settings

As promised we’ll take a closer look at the three sound settings the L1000 provides.

You have the choice between Neutral, Bass-Boost, and High-Gain filters to suit your preferences.
The Bass-Boost filter brings you deeper bass and the High-Gain filter provides more power output.
You can switch the different sound filters by simple pressing a button on the left side of the L1000.
The color of the LED light changes with the mode selected and you have a blue LED for Neutral and default sound, a green LED for the Bass-Boost filter and Red LED for High-Gain filter.

To be honest, the differences between the different settings aren’t huge and you really have to listen well or use a really good headphone to distinguish the differences.

Specifications

ACRO L1000 / DAM11

Body Color: Gun Metal

Body Material: Aluminum

Dimensions: 4.44 ”(112.87 mm) [W] x 6.29 ”(160 mm) [H] x 4.43 ”(112.75 mm) [D]

Weight: 32.45 oz (about 920.7g)

DAC: AKM AK4490 x2 (Dual DAC)

Inputs: USB Micro-B input (PC/MAC)t

Outputs: PHONES Out(3.5mm, 6.3mm), Balanced Out(2.5mm-only 4-pole supported, 4-pin Balanced XLR), Speaker out (L/R binding posts x2)

Sample rate: PCM: 8kHz ~ 384kHz (8/16/24/32bits per Sample), DSD Native: DSD64 (1bit 2.8MHz), Stereo / DSD128 (1bit 5.6MHz), Stereo / DSD256 (1bit 11.2MHz), Stereo

Output Level: Unbalance 6Vrms / Balance 8.5Vrms (Condition No Load)

Power Supply: 12V adaptor

Sound

Most of the time I have used the L1000 in balanced mode withmy full sized headphones and earphones. The difference between single ended is the typical one we also find in their DAPs: cleaner sound, better sound stage width, improved separation. The “downside”: lighter body overall and less bass impact. All in all you get a higher technical quality sound.

“The ACRO L1000 delivers superb resolution and rich spatial sound”

The L1000’s sound is very easy to describe as it has the sound signature of the AK380 DAPs as they share the identical chip. The L1000 sounds fairly neutral and it doesn’t influence anything particular in the sound. The typical high end AK sound means you get a very clean, high resolution sound with great clarity from top to bottom and a spacious presentation.

The part on sound continues on the third page of this article