[PenguinHeadphoner]

Good to know. Well anyway read responses ITT. many users reporting different sound signatures with different fw updates. Many reverting bc they like sound better on older fw.

So despite you not deliberately changing sound there's enough user evidence here to prove fw updates affect sound.

Hi,

People hear differences ?
Or do they THINK they hear those differences ?
And especially if ONE person posts here that he hears a difference, how many will claim the same even if, by themselves, they hear nothing ?
If you believe in numbers, only a detailed measurement of the output BEFORE the upgrade and AFTER the upgrade would show evidence of sound alteration.
If you do not believe in numbers, then of course, you have to trust your own ears or others people claims...

Me, I NEVER noticed any sound improvement or regression from a firmware to another.
I really do believe that Shanling does indeed not affect sound on it's firmware changes.
Then again I am not blessed with the golden ears so many people in here have
I am for instance not able to tell the same track in 24/96 apart from it's 24/192 sibbling...
When other people claim they can.
I would really like to see the results of their golden hearing in a double blind test with level matching...

Regards.

 

[Hisma]

.

 

[Hisma]

Hi,

People hear differences ?
Or do they THINK they hear those differences ?
And especially if ONE person posts here that he hears a difference, how many will claim the same even if, by themselves, they hear nothing ?
If you believe in numbers, only a detailed measurement of the output BEFORE the upgrade and AFTER the upgrade would show evidence of sound alteration.
If you do not believe in numbers, then of course, you have to trust your own ears or others people claims...

Me, I NEVER noticed any sound improvement or regression from a firmware to another.
I really do believe that Shanling does indeed not affect sound on it's firmware changes.
Then again I am not blessed with the golden ears so many people in here have
I am for instance not able to tell the same track in 24/96 apart from it's 24/192 sibbling...
When other people claim they can.
I would really like to see the results of their golden hearing in a double blind test with level matching...

Regards.

I reverted back to 1.6 it sounds better.1.7 is more analytical and less soundstage and fun

greetings to everyone, I also noticed that 1.6 is a little more interesting in terms of musical presentation. From 1.7 I switched to 1.6 .... fostex th900 headphones

H7 is very very impressive in the mids and highs but not so impressive in the lows.H7 is one of the most underrated dac out there.To my ears it is better than gryphon,cayin n7,new fiio m15 and shanling m7.Its on the same league like dx320 and very close to sp3000.My comparison is using 1.6 firmware it's the best firmware out there for sound quality.1.5 is muffled sounding and new 1.7 version is more analytical with compressed stage.i never faced any serious connection issues with h7.what I like more about h7 is I can enjoy 2 different sound signatures.Sdcard and usb/bt sounds slightly different.

yes many people hear differences. Read several pages back in the thread.
So you're saying they're all just deluding themselves? That was only 30 seconds of looking. I'd say around a dozen or so reports ITT saying the sound is different between fws.

 

[Hisma]

anyway consensus seems 1.6 fw is what most people are happy with so that's what I'll use.

 

[PenguinHeadphoner]

one example. go through the thread and find many others.
are they all crazy or their mind playing tricks on them? there's at least a dozen others here reporting similar results... that sound changed w/ fw update.

If they say so...

Let's make a test then.
Let those people ask a third person to change the firmware blincdly. It is changed : upgraded or downgraded or not changed a tall.
And let them answer : "That is FW 1.6 or FW 1.7".
If the answer are over 75% correct, I'll say that I am convinced that there is a sound alteration indeed.
If the answers are not at least 75% corrt, I would think placebo may be at work.
If the answers are about 50% correct, than the conclusion is "Pure luck in random call".

If you're happy with 1.6 and are convinced it sounds better, unless you NEED something from FW 1.7, by all means stick to 1.6...
I will not blame you for that.
As I said, I never heard any sound alteration from a FW update unless it is very OBVIOUS.
But as I also said, I do not have golden ears and I am also a little old now and my hearing is probably not what it used to b anymore...

 

[Hisma]

If they say so...

Let's make a test then.
Let those people ask a third person to change the firmware blincdly. It is changed : upgraded or downgraded or not changed a tall.
And let them answer : "That is FW 1.6 or FW 1.7".
If the answer are over 75% correct, I'll say that I am convinced that there is a sound alteration indeed.
If the answers are not at least 75% corrt, I would think placebo may be at work.
If the answers are about 50% correct, than the conclusion is "Pure luck in random call".

If you're happy with 1.6 and are convinced it sounds better, unless you NEED something from FW 1.7, by all means stick to 1.6...
I will not blame you for that.
As I said, I never heard any sound alteration from a FW update unless it is very OBVIOUS.
But as I also said, I do not have golden ears and I am also a little old now and my hearing is probably not what it used to b anymore...

noticeable enough for a dozen or so people to go through the effort to downgrade their fw bc they noticed a difference.
i watched some yt reviews & i read comments about people hearing differences in fw as well.
if the difference was imperceptible they wouldn't even come here to mention it nor go through the effort to change fw. but people are hearing differences & hence mentioning here.

 

[Hisma]

got my unit today. came pre-installed w/ v1.7 fw installed. It definitely sounds excellent. Though surprisingly I consider the soundstage not as holographic as my hifiman hm1000 which is r2r. I wanted this however as I find the hm1000 somewhat flawed (terrible battery life, not nearly as powerful amp so needs to be paired w/ an amp for best performance w/ headphones, etc).
For those of you that have performed burn-in (50-60 hours adds noticeable improvement from what I've been reading), what sort of improvements do you see? I can see this is a detail monster, and the talks about this being light on bass is simply not the case for me. I find both the treble and bass extension perfect, at least w/ the headphones I'm currently using it with (goldplanar GL850 AMT). My only real complain is the narrow soundstage, at least in comparison w/ my HM1000 where the sound is holographic the instruments sound like they're floating around your head.
I'm fine not changing the firmware as I was saying earlier, unless some claim that perhaps 1.6 makes noticeable difference to soundstage.

Thanks!

 

[Hisma]

I actually found running at low gain & higher vol doesn't lose any detail or bass, while improving the sound separation and detail. The GL850 isn't particularly hard to drive, so I guess running it at the higher gains added too much unnecessary "loudness" and caused instruments and vocoals to bleed into each other, leading to the perception of a weaker soundstage and instrument separation.
Seems you're best off only using higher gain settings if you're having trouble driving at high vols. Because I def notice a better sound quality at low gain. Better sound separation, better staging, detail more clear & vocals less shouty. Of course it sounded great even at medium gain, but my complaints about stage aren't as concerning at low gain.
Still, not quite as holographic as the hm1000, but extra detail seems to be the trade-off for the narrower stage. Can only imagine when this thing gets burned in.
Great job @Shanling on an excellent device.

 

[Polky74]

Does anyone know where I can buy it at a good price? Thank you.

 

[Shanling]

Does anyone know where I can buy it at a good price? Thank you.

If you wanna buy directly from China, our official E-Shop sells H7 and there will be some discounts run for the Chinese New Year holidays in February:
https://store.shanling.com/H7-pd781148788.html

In EU, Zococity now has them on sale and they ship across EU: https://zococity.es/products/shanling-h7?_pos=1&_sid=534e48681&_ss=r

Please note: We do not have any official store on Aliexpress run by Shanling

 

[sicnesse]

If the RCA outputs on the back are feeding my active speakers, and then I plug an headphone on the front, what happens? Will the headphone output disable the RCA output?

 

[Polky74]

If you wanna buy directly from China, our official E-Shop sells H7 and there will be some discounts run for the Chinese New Year holidays in February:
https://store.shanling.com/H7-pd781148788.html

In EU, Zococity now has them on sale and they ship across EU: https://zococity.es/products/shanling-h7?_pos=1&_sid=534e48681&_ss=r

Please note: We do not have any official store on Aliexpress run by Shanling

On the Shanling site it costs 829 dollars so I don't think there is any discount (list price) while on Zococity, in addition to not accepting payments via Paypal, it doesn't ship to Italy. Alternatives?

 

[Polky74]

In the end I think I will take it even if at full price taking into consideration the high musical qualities especially compared to the price. Buying a "DAP" that does not have the problems of a DAP (aging operating system, slowness resulting from being much more backwards than a modern smartphone, no monitor problems, compatibility problems with various apps, battery used only for "musical" as well as being replaceable much more economically). Considering all this, the few problems that have been represented here make the H7 a real must-buy for anyone who puts musical qualities first and does not take into account "very particular" uses that could present problems. For example, I would have easily exchanged microSD reading (which, however, from what I understand, cannot be used in stand-alone mode given the immense quantity of songs present in a modern microSD) with a balanced external lineout or, if anything, with management (FiiO style) of the amp/dac when used in desktop mode. All things considered the H7 costs the same as a mid tier DAP but delivers TOTL sound... so no problem. So good.

 

[Polky74]

Has anyone compared the audio quality of the H7 with that offered by the FiiO Q15? Thank you.

 

[Polky74]

@Shanling I would like to know if the Dutch seller in the link below is your official reseller and therefore I can benefit from the Shanling official guarantee. Thank you.

https://www.earsunlimited.com/product/shanling-h7/?attribute_afwerking=Black