Shanling PH300

Asyn9

New Head-Fier
Pros: Small. Well built. Quality appearance. Sound Quality
Cons: Only has 2 inputs, makes a small 'click' in the speakers when turned on
I wanted a small amp for a bookshelf set up. I also wanted valves. This fitted the bill and from the moment I received it I've been happy. Very good looking, very good build quality and a sound quality I really like. It controls my Celestion SL12Si's driven in bi-amp mode by 2 Linn power amps so that's streets away from being used as a headphone amp. It's a real pre-amp and the valves are easily available.

buson160man

1000+ Head-Fier
Pros: worked prettywell with my akg 701 phones
Cons: parts availablity tubes in particular
I bought this amp. I had auditioned it with my akg 701 phones.I also tried the grado headphone amp but it did not perform as well driving the akg 701.The shanling was able to drive the akg 701 ptetty well and it sounded fairly musical with them.But about two or three months later it developed some noise in one of the channels.I took the amp back to where I purchased it and their techs told me tube in the channel I was hearing the noise in was bad.They tried to obtain a replacement tube from music hall which distributed the shanling products at that time and had no success after a couple of months.The dealer apologized for the delay and offered me the music hall amp in its stead.The music hall amp sounded pretty much the same and is basically the same amp in different packaging.I preferred the build quality of the shanling.Since he could not get another shanling I opted for grado rs1i phones in light of the parts availability problems I had with music hall and shanling.Pitty because i really did like the sound and build quality of the shanling.It seemed to be a pretty good match for the akg 701 phones.
Asyn9
Asyn9
I bought this to use as a pre-amp a few months ago. It's fantastic, better by far than I expected. I needed something small to fit some shelves and had already bought the matching CD player. It drives Technics power amps with custom power supplies into a pair of bi-amped Celestion SL600Si's. This little amp has just delivered much better sound than I would have settled for at the price. The build quality is excellent and it looks very stylish. I just bought two sets of spare valves/tubes from eBay for under £10, they seem to be readily available from Russia, so that's a major 'con' dealt with. 
Using the amp just on headphones (top end Bose) it demonstrates it's capabilities, one thing I noticed is how much it shows up poor recordings, which I always take as a clue to fidelity.
 
I'm really pleased. No regrets at all, even the customs charges were reasonable.
Back
Top