[headwhacker]

   
Agreed. I also find the GUI very easy to use. Should be a getting a MOJO in soon to see how I like the combo 

 
Already love M1 only with my Flat 4-Sakura + or NT-6. I think I got my ultra portable rig set. As for Mojo, I find M1 to be an awkward match due to the usb cable. Still, AK100 for me with the sysconcept optical cable, is the best mate for Mojo.
 
My white M1 looks good to pair with my Hugo though 

 

 

[RedJohn456]

With regards to AE pricing, try not to pay sticker price, almost every seller is willing to negotiate. So some great deals can be had Just an FYI for anyone thinking of buying on aliexpress. 

 

[pinoyman]

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

 
PINOYMAN / MBC's impression on
SHANLING M1

Credit to: Christopher Gatchalian for lending me his unit for the purpose of this review

 

 

BUILD and NAVIGATION
All parts are made of plastic. Back is reflective. This isnt a touchscreen dap but it looks like one. 

Two hand operation. Even its small as this one. Your fingers cannot press a button without the other hand supporting the dap.

Navigation is done by buttons on side: 
(left)back, forward and back 
(right) scroll wheel and power

Neat buttons ala AK daps.

The multipurpose scroll wheel acts as:
-play
-pause
-ok
-volume adjustment
-browsing menu

The unit is very lightweight. Twice the weight of ipod shuffle 4th gen.
Adjusting volume will give you a bit of delay maybe due to the processing. It is still recognizing where is it at that moment you are in.

I just wish its made of aluminum material like that from apple, ill then consider this excellent on this department.

Touchscreen also will be a plus. But thats not necessary anyway. 

 

 



UI and FEATURES
The provided UI Is intelligent. It knows exactly what function to work. Its well thought. 

On playback sceen. Imagine you holding the COVER ART of the ALBUM in your hands. Its like that. There is no extra space unused. The screen is full and filled by the photo of the album. Very nice SHANLING. You did an excellent job on this dap.

The fonts are small but it is well spaced and easy to read. 

On playback, using scrollwheel will add or less the volume.
On menu, regular navigation of ups and downs for choices.

There is no delay in UI. Fast. Accurate and smooth. It reminds me a bit of FIIO's UI. 
I love how they designed the screen, the cover art filled and fits nicely on the screen. Its like you are browsing by coverart ala walkman here.

Pushing back button twice will bring you to NOW PLAYING screen. 

Overall. Shanling M1 is miles ahead. Better than that of AIGO and XDUOO combined. It will put both to shame. 

Theres so much to tell on this part:
4 provided themes.
Volume gains.
EQ with presets.
Folder browsing.
Music organizer.
Chanel balance.
Gapless playback.
Clock.
Bluetooth.
The list goes on... theres so much in it in which it already provided you all you need where most daps are lacking.

Let me tell you. 
This is the most excellent dap in terms of features and UI. Its a breeze to use and not confusing in any way. Pretty straightforward and no useless nonsense.

 



 

SOUND

Gears:
INEAR Stagediver Sd2
FITEAR TG334
FLIPEARS Genesis

 



EVERYBODY HURTS.

WHAT CAN I DO.

TOSS THE FEATHER
By The Corrs 
MTV Unplugged Album

Seperation / Panning of left and right part is excellent. One part of the phone is blank, while the other part plays the guitar. When Andrea's cue came she sang at the middle of my head... this plays till 1:20 before the left part of my phone entered a sound of drums mildly and faintly. I tried pushing the volume by going to HIGH GAIN. Aside from volume increase, the sound remains clean, no distortion and same but better push.

On my Genesis by FLIPEARS. I can clearly hear my own iem's signature without not much additional coloration to the signature. From my review, the Genesis is somewhat lacking in sparkle and energy in treble. Dry. Good midbass. Its still present here. I really like how it shows my iems character. It makes me enjoy my iems signature more.

On TOSS THE FEATHER track on this album, using my CIEM, real sounds of instruments shined with organic timbre and someone whistles twice in the audience, a distance can be heard and how each breath of the artists inhaled here is clearly heard.

 

 

I LOVE YOU GOODBYE.
I CANT TELL YOU WHY.
PIANO IN THE DARK.
ANYTHING FOR YOU.
By Nina
NINA Live! Album

Background claps are faintly presented. Its there but the details focused more on whats upfront only- instruments and vocals. 

There is no coloration in the signature. Its not as sweet and thick as the Xduoo which I personally prefer as my signature, which could have made Nina's voice to be more expressive and inviting. The treble part and upper mids has no harshness. Stringed instruments and Nina's voice is presented with the exact sparkle it needs. 

Spaces is good. Though not as excellent as that of the XDUOO's, which is wider. Depth and layers is somewhat limited compared to AUNE M2s.

Volume push is not be as poweful and fuller like the AIGO 105. Micro details is good. It lacks some small details which is present on the excellent sounding dac amp - MOJO and and my ADR. 

Even though the micro details is faintly presented, i find the overall sound to be enjoyable and though it lacks a bit on this part, i find it as not a hindrance to the overall performance of the player.

Guitars sounds excellent and rightly tuned in the treble are, unlike in AIGO, theres so much energy provided which will make you choose something not treble happy to counter that HIGHs.

 

 

HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART.
HOME.
By Michael Bublé

I really like this dap. My Inear stagediver is warm sounding and detailed. SHANLING M1 as source provide me time to enjoy most of the signature of my very own iem. 

This is a Neutral dap. Its not leaning on warm or bright signature. Its not bias on slow or fast phased music. It wont care what you play it with.

Midbass of my FLIPEARS CIEM is truly a joy to listen at this dap. The full character of my CIEM is shown and presented clearly and not the dap's sig. With Michael's melodic vocals along with defined presence of pianos in the background, all i can say is WOW. I can listen to this all day, all night without the borebom of too much smoothness and warmth of XDUOO, or fatiguness from AIGO's harsh energetic attack.



 

ENDING
Well. This dap is a wake up call.
Hello to companies and dap makers out there.
Buy this dap and learn from it!
SHANLING is the most excellent dap i have yet.
Excellent UI and Features. 

Battery permance is excellent. It lasts 10 hours.

Theres nothing more i could wish for the sound but one thing. Micro details. It would be excellent too if only if they only managed to make it present. 
But its too small to stop me from recommending this easily.

Petite. Cute. Small. Very beautiful dap. I think everyone will agree with me. Its like you are browsing and holding the picture album of the artists in your hand. Who did that? No one but SHANLING.

But for its asking price. 
Its one thing that will be really worthy picking if youre in a hurry and needs a dose of music enjoyment without additional nonsense bells and whistles. It doesnt add much flavor to the signature of your iem. It does well at what it is. 

A Dap. Neutral. Excellent.

Its an honor for a reviewer like me to experience such a compelling product. 

Thank you SHANLING. 
This dap proves that there are still companies that listens to the needs people who love music.
 
 
 
 
 

 

[headwhacker]

 

I agree most with your impression except for the 2-handed operation (unless I misread that 

) I have been using M1 one-handed only. With the leather case on usability drops a little but one-handed operation is still good for me.
 
Except for the extra features which are not yet ready for the initial-released firmware. Everything is great on the playback side. Also for iems and easy to drive headphones and amp is unnecessary. I say this is the first DAP outside of AK and Apple that works out of the box for me without any annoying playback issues.
 
So kudos to Shanling. I heard the beta firmware is working fine to support the extra features (e.g. USB audio). I'm not in a hurry coz I'm currently enjoying M1 with my iems.

 

[technobear]

1. It seems that tagging isn't fully working; the album and artist names come out ok, but the titles are not shown with their tagged titles, instead the full file name is shown, for example I have a file:
Artist_01_Title.mp3 and it is tagged with artist, album, track number and title in the metadata. When I browse the menu under album it will show the correct metadata, and the same for artist, but entering the album/artist folder it just lists out the files in their full file name instead of just the title, so I see Artist_01_Title instead of just Title sorted by track number.. it's the same thing when I go to "Open all files" where I would see a whole mess of full file names (I don't organize my file names, instead I tag them) listed by alphabetical order.

That's not a bug. That's what folder browsing is. Folder names and file names only.

Suggest you load your device using a program that let's you reorganise and rename on the fly (e.g. MediaMonkey).

 

[Punslayer]

One minor question for anybody who's able to answer.  Can the M1 shuffle by album?  That is, play one album in order and when it's finished start playing another album chosen randomly. 

 

[ptjw99]

That's not a bug. That's what folder browsing is. Folder names and file names only.

Suggest you load your device using a program that let's you reorganise and rename on the fly (e.g. MediaMonkey).

 
I just took another look and it just says 'Open All' under the menu 'My Music' and then it shows file names only, but under Artist and Albums it does show just the Artist name and Album name which shows that the OS is actually extracting the Album and Artist name from the metadata, just that for some reason they did not extract the Song Title to display in that menu.. that's all I'm trying to say.. at least this was the way it was done on the DX50.. if you select the song from the list and you go to the now playing display, you would see that it shows the Song Title and Artist Name there.. it doesn't show the file name of the song that is playing at all..
 
On the other hand there is a separate menu called 'File Browser' where you can browse the content of the SD Card, and that is fine if they just show the full folder name and file name because that's what it implies.. 'file browsing'..
 
While I could rename all the files I have (quite a number of them), I think the M1 shouldn't display the full file name instead of just the Song Title in the menu 'My Music' because it isn't logical for users..

 

[audio123]

in terms of sq, i would take hidizs ap60 as it is more smooth

 

[gravicap]

  in terms of sq, i would take hidizs ap60 as it is more smooth

Have you compared ap60 to m1? They seem identical in DAC and opamps.

 

[Saoshyant]

  in terms of sq, i would take hidizs ap60 as it is more smooth

Have you heard both?

 

[bzfrank]

I heared the AP60, but not the M1 yet. The AP60 is not bad but lacks a bit driving power, especially for multi-BA IEMs. If you only listen at low volumes and your music style does not require it, its a good, portable DAP.
 
I still prefer my DX80/90 and iHifi812v2 SQ-wise, even my old Cowon D2+ - the difference is quite noticeable.

 

[yellowbirdfly]

Purchased it on the first day Jaben had stock, just wanna share my brief impressions.
 
I've been using the M1 with my TG334 over the past week and was really impressed by its size, UI and features. For such a tiny player, it has so many features (USB DAC, USB transport, Bluetooth DAC and transport) which normally would be unthinkable for the price. The UI is smooth and bug-free right out the box, amazing job for a Chinese company. The controls did need some getting used to, and the lack of touchscreen felt unnatural, but it works fine and is intuitive. The player is designed really well, everything from the buttons to the scroll wheel feels sturdy and well-built. It fits snugly inside my hand!
 
In terms of sound, you can hear the Shanling house sound in it. A very smooth, refined, and mature tuning. Tonality is a little on the warm side (relative to a Sansa Clip Zip), sounding full bodied and musical. Soundstage isn't particularly wide but it's just the right size (perhaps you can call it "cozy"), with great separation. However, resolution and dynamics are the M1's achilles heel; they are slightly lacking even compared to the Clip Zip. But those flaws are forgivable because of its oh-so-pleasant tuning which makes me just want to sit back and enjoy the music.
 
My only qualm is that it has a 8000-song limit. I have about 10000 songs on my card so it would be great if Shanling could increase the limit just a bit more.
 
Kudos to Shanling for creating this awesome little player!
 

 

[audio123]

 
Have you compared ap60 to m1? They seem identical in DAC and opamps.

 

  Have you heard both?

yes guys. let me do a short comparison.
 
tonality: ap60 has a good warm tonality as compared to m1 transparent and clear. for vocals, ap60. for others, m1.
lows: m1 bass hits harder than ap60. subbass of ap60 is more addictive. m1 has a much tighter bass presentation tho. i would pick ap60 for edm while m1 for rock.
mids: ap60 has a more lush mid range than m1. m1 is clean though. for female vocals, ap60. for male vocals, m1.
highs: m1 has better extension than ap60. m1 wins
soundstage: similar wide and deep
 
Out of 50,
AP60 :
Tonality:8/10 Lows:8/10 Mids:9/10  Highs:7/10 Soundstage:8/10 
40/50
M1:
Tonality:8/10 Lows:7/10 Mids:8/10 Highs:8/10 Soundstage: 8/10
39/50

 

[leobigfield]

   
yes guys. let me do a short comparison.
 
tonality: ap60 has a good warm tonality as compared to m1 transparent and clear. for vocals, ap60. for others, m1.
lows: m1 bass hits harder than ap60. subbass of ap60 is more addictive. m1 has a much tighter bass presentation tho. i would pick ap60 for edm while m1 for rock.
mids: ap60 has a more lush mid range than m1. m1 is clean though. for female vocals, ap60. for male vocals, m1.
highs: m1 has better extension than ap60. m1 wins
soundstage: similar wide and deep
 
Out of 50,
AP60 :
Tonality:8/10 Lows:8/10 Mids:9/10  Highs:7/10 Soundstage:8/10 
40/50
M1:
Tonality:8/10 Lows:7/10 Mids:8/10 Highs:8/10 Soundstage: 8/10
39/50

 
Didn't understand... M1 is on par with everything except the highs where it has a clear win yet AP60 is better evaluated? 

 

[audio123]

   
Didn't understand... M1 is on par with everything except the highs where it has a clear win yet AP60 is better evaluated? 

AP60 is better in mids. Cheers!