Shanling ET3 - Dedicated Digital CD Transport, With USB Drive and Wi-Fi Support

[cbellevie]

I've been trying out BubbleUPnP and trying to play Tidal through this. Works well, expect I keep getting the last 20-30 seconds of each track skipped. I thought maybe this was because I had gapless set, but I've removed it both in the renderer settings for the ET-3 and in the app settings for gapless in general.

Anyone experience this or have any ideas on how to fix this? I'd love to use BubbleUPnP for both Tidal and the files on my Plex server.

 

[Shanling]

Random musing on the ET3... any opinions welcome.

Its a CD transport,
yet has a glass lid. (albeit smoked black glass)

What about light getting into the player, any ill effects?
I'm sure Shanling designers factored all this in, but still curious!
I put a towel over the player when playing, and probably just my mind playing tricks, it was slightly different sounding with it on than off.

Any thoughts?

We had transparent lids on many designs over the years of Shanling CD players, some of them have no lids at all, some are completely covered.
In our experience it has no impact on the performance.

 

[gazjam]

We had transparent lids on many designs over the years of Shanling CD players, some of them have no lids at all, some are completely covered.
In our experience it has no impact on the performance.

Thanks for the confirmation, appreciate the quick feedback.

 

[gazjam]

Still looking at fine tuning my ET3 for best sound,
Another question for Shanling,
Thanks.

In the Playback Settings/IIS Output/MCLK Selection,
There are two settings, 512fs and 1024fs?

Without going into i2s theory,
Is this relevant to my own situation, where my ET3 connects by i2s to my Dac (PS Audio Directstream and is the master clock), and it’s FPGA ignores the incoming clock and derives it’s own?

Suspect not,
As toggling the switch doesn’t seem to change the sound at all but still in the dark about its function.

With the ET3 I’ve found some unrelated settings CAN in fact affect the sound (MQA Output selection for instance, even when playing redbook CD or DSD) so I’m curious on its function.


Thanks again.

 

[Shanling]

Still looking at fine tuning my ET3 for best sound,
Another question for Shanling,
Thanks.

In the Playback Settings/IIS Output/MCLK Selection,
There are two settings, 512fs and 1024fs?

Without going into i2s theory,
Is this relevant to my own situation, where my ET3 connects by i2s to my Dac (PS Audio Directstream and is the master clock), and it’s FPGA ignores the incoming clock and derives it’s own?

Suspect not,
As toggling the switch doesn’t seem to change the sound at all but still in the dark about its function.

With the ET3 I’ve found some unrelated settings CAN in fact affect the sound (MQA Output selection for instance, even when playing redbook CD or DSD) so I’m curious on its function.


Thanks again.

If you tested the MCLK settings and heard no difference, you can ignore it in your setup.

The MQA Switch only affects how MQA data are processed, it has no impact on any other processing.

 

[wowser]

I find that with some CDs, when I close the lid I hear a mechanical "chuck-huck-chuck" sound. This is resolved after opening the lid, replacing the CD, then closing the lid. Is there a special way to close the lid to prevent this?

 

[DrDen]

I’ve started thinking about Holo Cyan2 as my second DAC. Initially I considered the Spring3, but since ET3 does upsample my CDs and files quite good (I can hear the difference in my current setup), it seems there’s no need to purchase another oversampling DAC. For the money saved I can buy another ET3 for my other setup. Any thoughts? Is the Spring3 performance much higher than Cyan2 being fed by oversampled PCM, say 192kHz?

 

[DrDen]

I hope that CD playing glitch will be fixed soon (before the Chinese New Year), because I really like how the ET3 sounds.

 

[gazjam]

Sound quality has surpassed expectations,
Playing 16/44 Flac from connected USB, into Dac over i2s is astonishing.

Apple Music airplayed into the ET3 is terrific too.

Think the i2s connection is the secret sauce here.

 

[DrDen]

Sound quality has surpassed expectations,
Playing 16/44 Flac from connected USB, into Dac over i2s is astonishing.

Apple Music airplayed into the ET3 is terrific too.

Think the i2s connection is the secret sauce here.

I like them even via coaxial (upsampled to 192).
Tried to order the customized I2S cable from AliExpress, but seller reply really confused me. He wrote they can’t make this cable because “Shanling doesn’t support”, despite I said it’s the Holo Audio standard.

 

[gazjam]

Suspect it’s just a miscommunication with the Seller?
Standard is a standard.

 

[gazjam]

Holo audio Dacs use the PS Audio i2s standard, as far as I’ve read,
and my ET3 was compatible with my PS Audio Dac with a standard cable, no custom cable job needed.

Is it a Holo Dac you have?
Can’t you adjust the i2s pinout in the menu?

 

[DrDen]

Holo audio Dacs use the PS Audio i2s standard, as far as I’ve read,
and my ET3 was compatible with my PS Audio Dac with a standard cable, no custom cable job needed.

Is it a Holo Dac you have?
Can’t you adjust the i2s pinout in the menu?

I suppose your PS Audio DAC has different I2S configurations to choose. I’m sure your current configuration is not PS Audio, otherwise you would need a custom cable. My DAC isn’t compatible with ET3, while it was with Cayin iDAP6 (PS Audio pinout).
My Audiobyte Hydra Vox has only three menu options (PS Audio is the most universal), others are Rockna and “other” (I don’t know what exactly).

 

[gazjam]

No, that’s not the case.

It’s a Directstream Dac I have,
So No ability to choose different i2s pinout configurations, just the standard PS Audio layout.

As I said before,
My ET3 worked straight out the box with a standard HDMI cable, as well as my standard i2s cable.

I’m unfamiliar with your Dac,
But if set to PS Audio standard it should (on paper) work fine.

 

[DrDen]

No, that’s not the case.

It’s a Directstream Dac I have,
So No ability to choose different i2s pinout configurations, just the standard PS Audio layout.

As I said before,
My ET3 worked straight out the box with a standard HDMI cable, as well as my standard i2s cable.

I’m unfamiliar with your Dac,
But if set to PS Audio standard it should (on paper) work fine.

Does it mean that PSAudio pinout is the same as Holo Audio? It’s surprising.