Introducing Shanling M1 Plus - New Generation of Compact MTouch Players at just $209

[Shanling]

How does this compare with the M1s is it just a different form factor or is the sound signature better.

No, M1 Plus is overall upgraded version of M1 Plus. Better DAC, better amplifiers, more power, for many people also more useful desgin when it comes to buttons/ports.

Hi Shanling,

Is there a black or brown case coming?

For now we have just the green one. Not sure if or when we will be adding more colors.

arrived couple of minutes ago. rn its charging, but man does it look sexy! well done Shanling from a build and aesthetics point of view.
I wish we could get a clip case similar to the one of the m0 pro.

@Shanling Could you please share a table with short descriptions of what the effects of the filters are? We got such a table in another thread, where the manufacturer forwarded the Infos by ESS.

edit some hours later:
Some minor things i am wondering, while its still breaking in and i havent listened to it yet:

- The quick start guide says that the status indicator light will light up on charging. Mine does not. Do I have to change some settings?
- We would need less swipes, if the desktop carussell would be infinite instead of having to swipe twice back, to get back to first screen
- Even ota update requires an sd card?
- tidal option to sort albums, titles etc would be nice
- coax spdif cable? where to get? none of mine works. thought its an optical combo jack like you get on many ibasso devices. Could someone pls share a link to such cable? i have seen the drawing in the quick start, but dont know what to search for tbh

edit 2:
It does not see my Fiio BTA30 pro Bluetooth transmitter, so i cannot connect both. Really hope its just me or temporary and can be solved, sadly otherwise would be showstopper to me

Digital filters are fairly complex and highly personal topic of Hi-Fi, not something to simply put into a chart/

You can read up on it in many places, here is our recommended article on this topic: https://addictedtoaudio.com.au/blogs/how-to/how-to-pick-the-best-filter-setting-for-your-dac

- Charging light is on when unit is still active or in standby mode. It turns off when completely powered off.
- You can adjust items on the main menu, in our experience most users actually only end up with 1 page of icons.
- Yes, even OTA update requires card, as the unit doesn't have its own memory just for downloading firmware.
- Our Tidal options are limited by what Tidal provides.
- It's coaxial output, so please do not use optical cables.
First result on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Luochahaishi...Z9QNJ1T/ref=pd_lpo_sccl_1/137-2160477-8660645
Just make sure to search for 3.5mm Coaxial cable and look for ones using 4pin TRRS connector.

The software really needs to respect more tags/metadata, and provide more sorting options. The biggest issue for me by far is that it doesn't seem to see the "disc number" tag, so if you ripped and tagged albums with multiple CDs, or downloaded albums that have multiple discs in the tags, all the tracks get mixed together (ie: if you try to play the album in order, it'll play track 1 from disc 1, track 1 from disc 2, track 2 from disc 1, track 2 from disc 2, and so on). Every other music player I've used since the Zune in 2008 (which they fixed with an update) has understood that disc 1 plays before disc 2. So your only workarounds are: 1) play through folders (clunky, since there's no way to get it to not start playing the following album afterwards, but a functional workaround)

- That strange, our other MTouch players correctly sort tracks according to disc number. Thanks for report, will get it to software team.
- In folder playing, you can have it stop at the end of folder, just run of the folder skip in playback settings.
- Noted on the date sorting.

quick update about the bt issue: after a couple of restarts i managed to see the BTA30 pro in the M1 BT settings, but no matter how hard i try, when i tap to connect, it says "connecting" for about 6 seconds and than i can tap it again without anything happening. I tried all codecs and what not. first device of a lot, that does not connect to one of the best known transmitters. me sad.

overall the bt detection seems very unreliable. it does not see every device everytime it searches and it wont forget devices that already were turned off again. i managed to connect directly to my intel bt card in my laptop tho. but its aac only. willl try phone etc later.

edit: it would be nice, if the battery could be bypassed, when connected to a laptop via usb, as i dont think we will be able to change the battery easily

btw, does anyone know when the og m0 non pro came out? I sill use this incredible little device from time to time.

Will report the BTA30 to our software team for a check.
Could you maybe do a factory reset on BTA30 and try to connect M1 plus as the first device?

To power device while avoiding charging battery would require additional power circuit inside. So far there is no Shanling device with such feature.

 

[FriendlySparrow]

Thank you very much for your impressions!!!!

Does the folder navigation work properly?
How long do you estimate the battery life to be?

I think the same...they make great hardware with buggy software.

Thanks, the battery life seems really good to me. I've been letting the battery drain fully to ensure it's calibrated properly and I think 10-12 hours seems accurate (playing mostly 16-24 bit WAV files, and doing a lot of scanning, messing around with settings, etc) but I don't have an exact number for you just yet - I mostly want to test it with the screen off now that I’ve got it configured and don’t need to mess with it as much. I also use the "double tap to wake" function and I've noticed very little phantom power drain. I have noticed what other people are saying about the battery indicator occasionally fluctuating (seeming really low when I wake it from sleep, then it mysteriously gaining a couple bars), but I see this sort of thing in lots of stuff, especially newer devices, so I'm not too worried about that.

Folder navigation works perfectly fine, but it's not as "pretty" as the standard metadata views, as it doesn't show album art, and doesn't show a "play all" function. That said, you can just play the first track, and it will play all the tracks in the folder in order (and through to the next folder if you enabled the "play through folders" option). Not the most luxurious user experience, but it works just fine.

....and screen resolution like in a 1980's Texas Instruments calculator

Honestly this is cool by me and I even kinda like the lo-fi approach to the display - makes it all about the music. I got enough gadgets with awesome screens for other stuff, I don't really need one for a dedicated music player as long as it sounds great. One less thing to drain the battery, even if album art obviously doesn't look amazing on it. Hell, I'd accept an even more minimalistic screen as long as it's good enough for me to easily pick an album or playlist and be able to occasionally see what song I'm listening to. Really all it could maybe use are some font size options, and an option to enable/disable the automatic scrolling when a title or option doesn't fit on the screen. The touchscreen is also maybe a little twitchy on settings that you can click and drag (like brightness or track seeking) since it's hard to be perfectly accurate, but that's not really a big deal.

 

[FriendlySparrow]

For now we have just the green one. Not sure if or when we will be adding more colors.

I got the case too, and I really love it honestly. Looks classy and kinda retro, love the unique green-blue color. Really stands out from my growing collection of black rectangles over the years.

- That strange, our other MTouch players correctly sort tracks according to disc number. Thanks for report, will get it to software team.
- In folder playing, you can have it stop at the end of folder, just run of the folder skip in playback settings.
- Noted on the date sorting.

Thanks! Your comment made me look further into this so I tested the same album converted to different formats, and I found that it's because I'm mostly using the WAV format (storage is cheap these days). AAC, MP3, FLAC all sort by disc number just fine. Only WAV has the problem. It's good to know I can at least get my files into a lossless format that will sort correctly. I'll edit my original comment since I know I'm a weirdo outlier and maybe not too many other people are tagging WAV files.

I realize WAV file tagging is a little newer and only actually started actually getting decent over the past couple years, and may not be as well supported everywhere. Still, it would be nice if they add this support for WAV files. I haven't had an issue with Android/iOS apps sorting WAV files by disc, and the MTouch software seems to read all the other WAV tags just fine.

Update 9/24/2024: Shanling has fixed this problem entirely with the latest firmware update, and now it has no problems sorting WAV file disc tags!


Re: folder playing: stopping at the end of the folder was only a little annoying because the discs had to be in separate folders to stop them from mixing together, so I couldn't get it to just play the whole album and stop without making a playlist. Now that I know the problem though, I'll probably just convert them all to FLAC. Or better yet, hope that the Shanling engineers can add disc number tag support for WAV.

By the way, you rock for being so on top of this thread answering questions. Thanks again.

 

[FriendlySparrow]

I'm just curious re DSD 512:

Testing some DSD512 and it sounds freakin’ awesome (dsf and dff files respectively).

 

[marekm]

My major gripes:

• Dodgy BT performance,
• When it eventually connects to TWS, plays much quieter than any of my phones (Android & iOS),
• Bulky - not shirt pocket friendly,
• OS - dated and not particularly user friendly,
• Poor screen resolution - adds to the feeling of a dated product.

Minor niggle: access to the volume wheel is somewhat awkward when the player is in the leather case.

My M0 Pro has all of the above "qualities" as well, but it is way cheaper and significantly smaller / lighter.
Sound quality of M1 Plus is higher, but when out and about the difference is not that significant. I acknowledge that M1 Plus has way more power. But then, I never connect demanding headphones to a DAP, whose primary function is to provide entertainment outdoors (my use case).

To cut a long story short, I have decided to keep my M0 Pro and return the M1 Plus.

Just a personal opinion, do not shoot

 

[Shanling]

• When it eventually connects to TWS, plays much quieter than any of my phones (Android & iOS),

For the Bluetooth headset volume, we have dedicated menu to adjust this, please check in Bluetooth settings.

 

[Wahid]

M1 Plus offers better DAC, better amplifier, much more power, better form factor.

M1 Plus will also be normally available from all Shanling Sellers, not limited to Aoshida like M1s.



They are using completely different DACs, amplifiers and overall approach to audio design. M5 Ultra and XM5 are both a significant step up in sound quality.



Yes, 20 000 files limit for music library.
Unlimited for folder browsing.



2TB.

What is the size? I cannot find a picture of it anywhere with someone holding it or any known object beside it.

 

[Shanling]

What is the size? I cannot find a picture of it anywhere with someone holding it or any known object beside it.

86 x 61 x 17 mm

 

[ybbobserrot]

Testing some DSD512 and it sounds freakin’ awesome (dsf and dff files respectively).

Where did you get the dsd files?

 

[marekm]

For the Bluetooth headset volume, we have dedicated menu to adjust this, please check in Bluetooth settings.

I am aware, but even at max BT volume (set on M1 Plus) it is significantly quieter via TWS than a smartphone.

 

[MOHCTPO]

Hello everyone. I received my Shanling M1plus today. It is really small and very comfortable, it is about the size of Zishan DSD, like a modern version of Zishan. The sound reminds me of Fiio Ka17, maybe M1plus is a bit brighter in the highs. I just received it , so I plan to listen to it tonight.

 

[ChristianM]

Hello everyone. I received my Shanling M1plus today. It is really small and very comfortable, it is about the size of Zishan DSD, like a modern version of Zishan. The sound reminds me of Fiio Ka17, maybe M1plus is a bit brighter in the highs. I just received it , so I plan to listen to it tonight.

Some said Fiio KA17 does not sound very good and has 2D soundstage and Hiby R3 II sound better than KA17 and some said KA17 sound better than R3 II. People have different opinions based on their gears.
I order M1 Plus on Friday (Silver), for the first time I ordered something without waiting for reviews because there's still no review of M1 Plus anywhere, don't know if Shanling products are not very popular or what. I hope I did not make a wrong decision.

 

[ToneDeafMonk]

Some said Fiio KA17 does not sound very good and has 2D soundstage and Hiby R3 II sound better than KA17 and some said KA17 sound better than R3 II. People have different opinions based on their gears.
I order M1 Plus on Friday (Silver), for the first time I ordered something without waiting for reviews because there's still no review of M1 Plus anywhere, don't know if Shanling products are not very popular or what. I hope I did not make a wrong decision.

You made a good decision the player is nice , I have not spent a great deal of time as I have been busy but my first few listens were very favorable

 

[ChristianM]

You made a good decision the player is nice , I have not spent a great deal of time as I have been busy but my first few listens were very favorable

Well that's a relief. Thanks

 

[Wanamy]

I want to thank everyone that has the device and is engaged in this forum. One question for y'all, for tracks that have lyrics embedded in the track data, is that showing when you navigate the currently playing screen? I noticed that smaller players do not show this information and getting them to do so have very long work-arounds.