Astell & Kern AK UW100 Review: AUDIOPHILE-LIKE Sound Quality!!

These AK UW100 earbuds from Astell & Kern are honestly, crazy good.

So let’s talk design first, starting with this chunky boy. The case is one of the biggest I’ve seen so far. It was a bit of a shock when I got these because I looked at the case and I was like, that’s definitely not going to fit in my jeans pocket. And yeah, I typically only bring these out when I’ve got a bag with me. The case is huge, but, well, at least it looks nice when it’s sitting on my desk I guess? On the front, you get an LED indicator for battery status and charging, and there’s a USB-C port on the rear, although there’s also wireless charging here, which is nice.

Moving on, the earbuds are pretty in line with Astell & Kern’s aesthetics. I tried the T9iE a couple of years ago, and there’s that same angular design on the UW100 as well, which is pretty nice. The earbuds themselves are also quite big though, and people with smaller ears will definitely start to feel a bit fatigued after a couple of hours.

These use the AK TWS app, but I had a major problem with pairing the earbuds to the app, until I forgot them on my phone, then repaired via the Bluetooth menu and then through the app. Small matter, it probably was just a hiccup with my unit, but worth taking note of. The app itself looks pretty nice. You get individual battery levels, the ability to turn on ambient mode as well as choose between four levels of ambient mode. I did find the ambient mode at the strongest level 4 to be quite distracting through,