Astell&Kern AK UW100MKII Review : Premium Audio Quality At Entry Level Price

Astell&Kern AK UW100MKII price is Rs.4,999 in India. It is available for purchase on the Headphone Zone website in a single black colour.

The Astell&Kern AK UW100MKII  packs the following items inside the box:

• Earbuds
• Cable
• Additional Eartips
• Manual

Before we talk more about the headphones, let’s see what on-paper specs look like:

• Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.2
• Supported OS: Android and iOS
• Battery: 29 hours (case), 9.5 hours (earbuds)
• Weight: 65 grams

The Astell&Kern AK UW100MKII boasts a unique design with a hexagonal earbud case. The design stands out compared to other traditional earphones, and the pentagon shape of the earbuds will remind you of an IEM.

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The case is made from plastic and has a brushed matte finish.

The top has the Astell&Kern branding, while you get the regulatory logos at the bottom.

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The front has an LED indicator that notifies you about the battery level. The cool thing about this indicator is that it tells you about the remaining battery of the case and the earbuds with blue and green light, respectively.

On the back, you get a USB-C charging port located in the case’s centre. The large size of the earbuds also means that you need more pocket space to carry them around.

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The hexagonal shape comes to the earbuds themselves, and you get a metal plating that houses the touch control. While it does look cool, the earbuds aren’t comfortable enough to wear due to their large size.

Furthermore, these earbuds have an IPX4 rating to protect them from occasional dust and water splashes. Despite having large ears, I found them uncomfortable and loose during my usage. Since comfort is mostly a personal preference, you might have a different experience.

I was most excited to try out the sound quality of the Astell&Kern AK UW100MKII during my review. It is the first Bluetooth earbuds I have tried that come with a DAC.

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It has a balanced audio quality with natural vocals and detailed mid-range. There isn’t much emphasis on bass, and you don’t get the boomy bass feeling typical of other earbuds in this range.

Instrument separation is simply amazing and one of the best I have heard in a while. Evident in songs like Jiya Lage Na by Sona Mahapatra, it is comparable to flagship earbuds from Sony and Sennheiser.

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Even when listening to songs like Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones and Bring Me To Life by Evanescence, there is clarity in the audio as you can easily distinguish between the separations and the vocals. During my review of the Astell&Kern AK UW100MKII, I turned on aptX Audio and set the audio quality to Lossless in Apple Music.

If you are someone like me who prefers natural sound quality over bassy ones, you will certainly enjoy the AK UW100MKII. I set the equalizer to natural or balanced in the app and had no complaints.

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The 32-bit DAC sets it apart from other earbuds, as you get high-quality audio with support for wireless 24-bit audio and a bitrate of 420 kbps. To give you an idea, I have used the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 and the AK UM100MKII, which have comparable audio quality, although the feature set might not be vast enough.

I use the Oppo Enco Air 3 Pro and Sony WF-C500, two of the best earbuds from mainstream brands under 5K, as my daily drivers, and the Astell&Kern AK UW100MKII manages to outperform them both.

The Astell And Kern UW100 MKII packs a massive battery, and I did not have to charge it once during my review except for the first charge after the unboxing. The company claims it can last 29 hours on a single charge with the case and 9.5 hours with the earbuds alone.

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A simple 10-minute charge can provide 1 hour of playback, and you also get wireless charging support, which is great. The battery backup is solid enough, and it can easily last a week on a single charge.

The Astell&Kern AK UW100MKII is packed with features as it supports SBC, AAC and aptX codecs. You also get support for aptX Adaptive, although it only works on phones with Snapdragon processors.

In addition, you get wear detection, so as soon as you remove them from your ears, the music pauses, and it resumes when you put them back in. Furthermore, dual-device connectivity allows you to pair it with two devices simultaneously.

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However, the dual-device connectivity is finicky for me. I connected the earbuds to my Realme GT Neo 3T and the Xiaomi Pad 5. However, the earbuds constantly beeped after connecting to both devices, even when I was listening to songs or watching videos on my device.
The only solution I found was disconnecting one device for a smooth experience.

The rest of the experience was pretty smooth as the Astell&Kern AK UW100MKII pairs via the AK Control app available on Android and iOS. I had to sideload the app since the version is currently incompatible with Android 14, and the company is working on an update. However, it worked flawlessly once I managed to sideload it.

You don’t need to sign or register to use the app, and it recognizes the earbuds once you pair them with your device. Plenty of options are available, including the ability to adjust Ambient Mode, change the equalizer settings and enable wear detection.+

You can also customize the touch gestures, adjust the DAC filter and choose the voice language for the earbuds. Furthermore, you can choose between three DAC filters: sharp roll-off, slow-roll, short delay sharp roll-off and short delay slow roll-off. The app also lets you update the firmware, and the interface is easy to use.

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Unfortunately, unlike other earphones in this price range, there is no active noise cancellation (ANC). Thankfully, the passive noise cancellation is good enough that I didn’t realize it lacks ANC until I saw the product page.

An ambient mode works as advertised, and you can choose four different levels. You can also control the ambient mode levels using the touch controls of the earbuds.

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While I didn’t feel the lack of ANC in most cases, you will only realize it in noisy environments such as your office or public transport where there is constant chatter. The Bluetooth connection is stable enough, but there are occasions when the audio will suddenly drop while watching videos or listening to songs. I tried them with two devices with a Snapdragon processor and faced the same issue.