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Astell & Kern AK HC5: two-minute review
Astell & Kern builds some outstanding digital audio players, and the company also knows how to charge us for them. But it’s taken pity on those of us without the wherewithal, and has developed this HC5 headphone amp/DAC.
It is a portable device intended to transform your bog-standard smartphone into a viable source of hi-res audio for anyone with the wired headphones good enough to take advantage of it. With high-end AKM digital-to-analog conversion components on board, Astell & Kern’s ‘digital audio remaster’ and ‘high driving mode’ technologies included, and both balanced and unbalanced headphone outputs, the HC5 is specified to get the job done. It also features half- a-dozen digital filters, as well as a huge range of volume adjustment and some slightly imprecise-feeling physical controls that serve to undermine the robust and tactile overall nature of the device just a little.
In operation, the Astell & Kern is slightly lightweight at the bottom of the frequency range — it doesn’t have quite the heft or substance that it really should have, and can lack a little apparent punch as a result. In every other meaningful respect, though, it’s a very accomplished device indeed. It’s dynamic, lavishly detailed, creates a large and well-organised soundstage, and communicates through the midrange like nobody’s business.
If you want to turn your humble smartphone into a device that bears comparison with some of the best three-figure digital audio players around, and if you have suitable headphones too, then you ought to be after one of the best DACs around. And you should absolutely hear the Astell & Kern HC5.
Astell & Kern AK HC5 review: Price & release date
The Astell & Kern HC5 headphone amp/DAC launched at the very end of 2025 and hit shelves in January 2026.
In the United Kingdom it sells for £399. You’ll need to part with more like $489 in the United States, while in Australia the going rate is around AU$779.
This makes it a reasonable (rather than ‘cheap’) option, of course — at only $85 / £85 (or around AU$120) the iFi Go Link 2 Max would be an example of something more affordable, while the $4,499 / £4,499 (around AU$8,999) iFi iDSD Phantom (albeit a desktop solution) proves this A&K is hardly at the costly end of the market either.
Astell & Kern AK HC5 review: Features
- AK4191EQ digital processor
- AK4499EX DAC– 32bit/768kHz; DSD512
- Granular volume control
Apparently this is the first time that AKM’s flagship AK4191EQ digital processor and AK4499EX digital-to-analog converter have appeared in a product as small and as relatively affordable as this one. AKM suggests that splitting the d-to-a decoding into two stages preserves signal integrity — and Astell & Kern agrees. Mind you, that hasn’t stopped Astell & Kern bolstering the AKM chipset with its own ‘DAR’ (digital audio remaster) upsampling technology; it functions with both PCM and DSD content, increasing the sampling rate by quite a degree, and it can be switched off if you so desire. The upshot, though, is a DAC that supports 32bit/768kHz and DSD512 resolutions.
Astell & Kern’s ‘high driving mode’ technology is also making its debut appearance in an affordable product. The horizontal op-amp layout helps keep the physical size of the HC5 to a minimum, but also allows for significant driving power. It’s worth bearing in mind, though, that the HC5 has no power supply of its own, and the prodigious amplification power it can muster will cut into the battery life of your source player more than somewhat.
There are a total of six digital filters for the user to explore, but this is the extent to which you get to influence the sound of the Astell & Kern. Perhaps oddly, there’s no sign of the EQ adjustment that’s commonplace on quite a few of the HC5’s nominal rivals.
Astell & Kern AK HC5 review: Sound quality
- Open, revealing and organised sound
- Dynamic and detailed in more-or-less equal measure
- Bantamweight rather than heavyweight where bass is concerned
The proof that the digital-to-analog conversion abilities of your smartphone or laptop are pretty rotten can be found in the number of extremely affordable USB DACs that are on sale now — TechRadar has rounded up the best of them, as I’ve previously alluded to.
But there’s no denying that spending $489 / £399 (or equivalent) on an Astell & Kern HC5 takes the sound of your laptop or smartphone to another level entirely. Provided you have the headphones to properly exploit its talents, anyway.
Load up a 24bit/48kHz FLAC file of Off Course by Oh Sees and all will rapidly become clear. When it’s dealt with by the HC5 the recording is more open and spacious, and yet somehow more singular and unified at the same time. The soundstage from which it comes is big in every direction, and the spaces and silences on it suddenly become almost as significant as the actual occurrences. Each participant has more than enough room in which to operate without crowding any other.
There’s real positivity and energy to the way the Astell & Kern delivers the recording, a sense of engagement and enthusiasm which is strongly at odds with the sound served up by a bog-standard smartphone. But at the same time the presentation is poised and balanced despite its direct and upfront nature — there’s never any suggestion the HC5 is not fully in control. This authority is especially apparent at the bottom of the frequency range, where the attack and decay of bass sounds is observed with such care that rhythmic expression is always confident and naturalistic. Down at the bottom end is where the Astell & Kern’s most significant shortcoming lurks, though. Just like the rest of the frequency range, the low end is lavishly detailed where timbre and texture are concerned — there’s more than enough information revealed and contextualised to let you know you’re getting a very full account of a recording. But there’s an appreciable shortage of body and substance to the low frequencies the HC5 generates. It can dig respectably deep but it doesn’t hit as hard, or with as much weight, as is ideal.
Otherwise, though, the frequency response is just as pleasing and convincing as everything else about the Astell & Kern. It’s articulate through the midrange, communicating the attitude and intention of a voice every bit as willingly as it reveals the details of tone and technique. The top of the frequency range is bright and similarly detailed, but carries enough substance along with it to prevent it sounding thin or aggressive — and this is true even if you like to listen at considerable volume.
There’s ample dynamic headroom available for when the attack or intensity or simple volume of a recording ramps up, and a similar facility with the less obvious (but no less important) dynamics of harmonic variation. It’s not enough for the HC5 to identify and reveal the most fleeting, most minor details in a recording – it is able to put them into the sort of context that means they serve as part of an overall picture, rather than treating them like some kind of academic exercise.
- Sound quality score: 4 / 5
Astell & Kern AK HC5 review: Design
- 64 x 32 x 16mm (HxWxD)
- Aluminium construction
- 46g
There’s ‘portable’ and then there’s the Astell & Kern HC5. Unlike quite a few nominal rivals, (some of which look like hip flasks) this headphone amp/DAC is sufficiently small (64 x 32 x 16mm, HxWxD) and light (46g) enough to be taken out even by those not wearing a coat with sturdy pockets, or carrying a bag of some kind.
The aluminium construction is impeccable, the proportions are almost instinctively suitable for a palm, and those concave sides only add to the tactility. Obviously Astell & Kern is a past master at this sort of thing, but it’s nice to be reminded it can do it for a £400 product as readily as it can for something costing £4K.
Astell & Kern AK HC5 review: Usability & setup
- Supplied with USB-C and Lightning cables
- Clear, legible display
- Physical controls feel imprecise
At one end the HC5 has a USB-C input — it’s supplied with both USB-C / USB-C and USB-C / Lightning cables, so you should have no problem connecting your source of music. At the other there are 3.5mm unbalanced and 4.4mm balanced headphone outputs.
Next to the USB-C input there’s a relatively large, knurled dial that takes care of volume — the HC5 features a frankly excessive 150 steps for ultra-granular control. It feels just slightly wobbly and a little less premium than the main body of the device.
That’s also true of the little button on the side of the HC5 that is basically your control for everything that isn’t volume; it feels just fractionally imprecise. Thankfully the display it works in conjunction with, which occupies fully half of the front of the device, is crisp and bright and legible. Here’s where you’ll turn the digital audio remaster algorithm on or off, and choose between the six available digital filters — and this, in essence, is what constitutes ‘set up’ where the Astell & Kern is concerned.
- Usability & setup score: 4 / 5
Astell & Kern AK HC5 review: Value
- It’s a very little product
- …but that is one of its biggest strengths
- It more than levels up your phone’s audio without you noticing it’s there
If — and it’s quite a big ‘if’ — you have wired headphones capable of taking advantage of the HC5’s unarguable sonic abilities, and if you have a streaming service subscription that includes lots of hi-res content, then there’s no arguing with the difference the Astell & Kern can make to your portable listening experience. Which has to count as ‘value’ in anyone’s language, doesn’t it? OK there are cheaper devices out there too, but none look or feel quite as good as this one — and there are also much more expensive ones out there…
Should I buy the Astell & Kern AK HC5?
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Astell & Kern AK HC5 review: Also consider
Where price and performance is concerned, the most obvious rival to the Astell & Kern HC5 is the Chord Mojo 2. In absolute terms it probably has the edge over the HC5, and its EQ adjustment facility is worthwhile too — but it stretches the meaning of the word ‘portable’ quite a distance…
How I tested the Astell & Kern AK HC5
At one end I connected the Astell & Kern HC5 to an Apple iPhone 15 Pro, a FiiO M15S digital audio player, and an Apple MacBook Pro — this way I was able to access a whole lot of content of various genres and resolutions, and also to assess the device’s performance against the extremely impressive D-to-A abilities of the FiiO DAP.
At the other end I connected a pair of Austrian Audio The Arranger open-backed over-ear headphones to the 3.5mm unbalanced output and a pair of Sennheiser IE900 in-ear monitors to the 4.4mm balanced alternative.
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