[Shanling]

This year we saw changes in our line of portable players, with M6 and M6 Pro switching to ESS DACs, due to the shortage of AKM DACs. And few months ago, this issue caught up with M8 too. Right now, you can still find M8 in stock at some of our international sellers, but these are the very last units of M8. From now on, you can consider M8 to be discontinued.

With M8’s discontinuation, we are taking different steps than we did with M6 21 and M6 Pro 21. Instead of just making M8 with ESS DACs, we will be introducing a brand-new model, start of a new generation of Shanling Portable players that will bring many new elements to our portable line.

​

Introducing Shanling M9

With M9, we will be taking a big step forward in the Android platform. Moving to newer and more powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 CPU and upgrading to Android 10, which will assure better performance and app compatibility for the foreseeable future.

Overall design of the player will also undergo quite significant changes, making it stand out more from our previous players. Alongside this goes a new higher-quality display, 6-inch AMOLED screen at 2K resolution.

Next big question is, which DAC should we use in M9? It was developed around the AKM AK4499 DAC, sounding amazing and it would be shame if it would go to waste. As such, we decided to take our leftover stock of AK4499 DACs and use them for a limited run of M9. We are not yet sure how many units will be in this run.

After this limited run, we will switch to different DAC for M9.


We expect to release M9 in late fall.

 

[Whitigir]

Late fall is probably before Christmas ?

 

[Death_Block]

Cant see this much of an upgrade from an M8?

 

[Whitigir]

Cant see this much of an upgrade from an M8?

Probably not by much ? But with this release, I hope Shanling will also release modules for M30

 

[Hanesu]

Wow, the design looks spectacular imo! While I don`t like recent A&K designs that much anymore, this looks somehow fresh and familiar at the same time!

 

[vkenz]

Better wait for their Ti version. Seems to be the trend now.

 

[Whitigir]

Doubtfully ! Has shanling released any Titanium yet ?

 

[Death_Block]

so glad the dial is remaining in new designs. I hate the buttons on the sony zx507. I want a dial again.

 

[zen87192]

Hope they don't replace/upgrade anything in the Ti version if they come out with one! If you know what I mean...

 

[crabdog]

That 6" screen looks delicious.

 

[Devodonaldson]

Waiting to receive a second hand m8. Was sour for a quick second, then I realized I don't need a 6in display for music player. Android 10 is nice, really nice, but Tidal Masters works with Android 5.0 and above, and so do other streaming apps. They will for several more years. So..I don't feel bad anymore, but an this looks good though

 

[Atek2019]

6", 2K... wonder about the battery capacity

 

[horatiu]

We decided to take our leftover stock of AK4499 DACs and use them for a limited run of M9.

At least they admit it, unlike iBasso

 

[Death_Block]

Waiting to receive a second hand m8. Was sour for a quick second, then I realized I don't need a 6in display for music player. Android 10 is nice, really nice, but Tidal Masters works with Android 5.0 and above, and so do other streaming apps. They will for several more years. So..I don't feel bad anymore, but an this looks good though

the screen sizes are unnecessary. You dont need eyes to listen. But its phone tech so its cheap and people fall into it

 

[Levanter]

What Shanling could do is offer a trade in for existing M8 users + extra $ top up. That way they could reuse the AK4499 DACs from the M8 for the M9 for more sales. Win-win situation for everyone lol