Astell & Kern is a South Korean consumer electronics company founded in October 2013,[1] and is wholly owned by Dreamus.

In January 2013, iriver debuted the AK100 media player at CES 2013, to polarizing reception from critics at release.

At CES, the AKR02, the successor to the AKR01, debuted in February; Astell & Kern also revealed Home cinema products, such as a valve amplifier and cylindrical speaker, as well.

In February, the company debuted the stainless steel model of the AK240, the AK240SS,[14] and the AK500N, a Network Audio System which can store 1TB of files in a solid-state drive, can stream lossless from PCs and NAS devices, and is noiseless when plugged in.

[17] In November, Hyundai Card collaborated with Astell & Kern to create the AK100II x HCC model, as well as the AK320's debut and Beyerdynamic-produced AK T1p.

In 2015, Astell & Kern collaborated with Japanese voice actress Kana Hanazawa to create the limited AK100II Kana Hanazawa edition, which would include a special song titled "Tadoritsuku Basho" (A Place to Reach) pre-installed in the player.