Shanling M5 Impressions & Discussion Thread

[sledgeharvy]

LMUER has a discount on m2/m3 daps. M2 is $159 and m3 is $239. What do you think guys? Are they a good upgrade over my Xduoo x3 99 sq wise?

Short answer: Yes.

The Xduoo X3 is good due to the Cirrus Logic CS4398, a more powerful amp section (250mw @32ohms) and not having a touch screen (minimize processor resources, and dual sdcards.

It honestly is a very good budget player. Only negative to it (in my opinion) no EQ adjustments. Once again, that's my opinion, I like to make some minor alterations to the sound depending on the recording. Usually that isn't a problem if all you have is DSD quality albums.. but honestly, I only have about 4 albums that are DSD.. so the majority of the music is FLAC.. and I need that for my personal tastes.

For me personally, the M2 is better due to the internals, UI, sound signature, and looks. Especially for the price. In a lot of aspects, I would be fine if my Shanling M5 died on me today, and all I had was the M2.. very similar sound signatures, just of course,a little more veiled, sustain is better than most other DAPs, but not as good as the M5. There is a lot more to it.. but in short, the M2 is a very capable player that still continues to wow me for the price compared to its bigger brother (M5).

 

[waynes world]

Short answer: Yes.

The Xduoo X3 is good due to the Cirrus Logic CS4398, a more powerful amp section (250mw @32ohms) and not having a touch screen (minimize processor resources, and dual sdcards.

It honestly is a very good budget player. Only negative to it (in my opinion) no EQ adjustments. 

 
You get the EQ adjustments if you rockbox the X3. Fortunately that also resolves a few other issues that I have with it.

 

[twibmassa]

Hello all. I am proud to say I'm finally a member of the Shanling family! I tell you what, this little guy is great. I spent most of the night last night just losing time "rediscovering" my music...the sound on this portable device is that good that its almost revelatory. The difference between my CA Nova's coming out of my old dragonfly 1.2 with iTunes and then the M5 is so vastly different and improved I have to remind myself I'm wearing the same IEM. I could not be happier with the sound, and honestly I fell right back in to old ipod style controls like my gen 1 nano never left my hand. I also could not believe it could actually handle my HE 400i's, albeit, not the strongest sound I've heard out of them, but from a device the size of a deck of cards I was very impressed. My phone can't even come close to powering them.
 
SO I really really am impressed by this device but I did have a couple of frustrations...
I too have issues with installing both the firmware and the DAC program.
 
With the firmware, my first trouble came with downloading it in general...it took me several attempts. Earlier tries kept getting disconnected and was dl'ing at a snails pace. When I finally did get version 1.2 downloaded, I could never get my player to recognize it. I tried loading a micro sd card in with JUST the 1.2 file on it and formatted in 3 different ways(ex-fat, fat 32 and NTFS)...and the player was never able to see the firmware file. Not sure what else I can do? Then I read a earlier post saying there was no 1.2 firmware its actually fireware? I have no idea what that means..
 
Secondly, I was unsuccessful in getting my Windows 10 pc to recognize my player as a DAC. I downloaded the file. Installed it and nothing. Then I remembered the post on page 20 about windows 10 pc's. So I followed those instructions perfectly, twice, and still nothing. The program appears to load fine but my computer is never able to see the device in DAC mode. It does detect it in USB mode which allows me access to the micro sd card. Going to dig out a windows 7 pc from the closet and see if I have any luck....even though that is somewhat pointless...im just the type that has to keep going til I make things work, regardless. 
 
SO, all in all. I LOVE this thing. My problems with it aren't really a concern, I wasn't planning on using it as a DAC really and version 1.1 firmware seems to be very solid for me...just frustrated by the lack of proper support on this device. Im a tech savy guy and if I can't figure something out then there is certainly a problem. If you advertise a device for certain functionality, it needs to be accessed out of the box or Shanling could at least make their instructions way more concise. We shouldn't have to resort to 3rd party forums to find out how to get something to work.  THIS IS A GREAT DEVICE! SUPPORT IT!
 
Also, I gotta rep team black here.
 

 

[nmatheis]

Welcome to the M5 family, twibmassa!

I updated the M5 successfully. I just downloaded the file, decompressed, Ave put the fw file in the root drive of my FAT32 mSD card and updated. Worked the first time. I'll try to help you through it. Feel free to PM me as needed.

 

[twibmassa]

Yeah so I figured out my problem. I didnt have a program to unzip a .rar file. Windows 10 extracts .zip files on its own with no extra software but not .rar files. I was just putting the unzipped file on a card and trying to get my M5 to read it. My fault...didnt know it needed extracted since it didnt have the "zipper" look im used to. Thanks again @nmatheis for the help. Feel dumb now...lol.
 
And another thing. I lied about not using this as a DAC. Gosh it sounds so much better than my more travel friendly dragonfly that I'm not sure I can go back to it. 

 

[nmatheis]

Glad I could help you out twibmassa!

And yes, I can only imagine M5 bests Dragonfly. I recently tried the Dragonfly Red courtesy of a fellow friendly headfi member. It was good, but I preferred my Cayin N5 and Shanling M5. In fact, I loaned my Cayin N5 to that headfi member, and he sold his DR to buy an N5. I already prefer M5 to N5, so...

 

[Antibob]

Hi Head-Fi ers
 
Researching for my first DAP to be used with my Beyer Dt1350's 80 ohm.
 
The M5 is probably top of my list but I am unsure about the controls, specifically not being able to adjust he volume whilst in the user menus.
 
Does anyone find this to be a bit of a PITA or is it something I will probably quickly adapt to ?
 
Also on my short list is the Aune M2 / M2 pro which would suffer from the same problem, but I also had my eye on the Shanling M3 on which I think I'm correct in saying that turning the jog wheel only adjusts the volume, menus are navigated by pressing the jog wheel.
 
Any thoughts on how easy these are to control and general sound of the 3 mentioned above.
 
P.S. thanks nmatheis for your helpful videos, they sure make it easier to decide.

 

[Jmop]

@nmatheis Idk if you answered this already but how do you like the sound of M5 compared to the Aune and Esther DAPs?

 

[nmatheis]

Ooh... Good question Jmop. I really like Shanling M5 and Esther Analog. Personally, I prefer them to Aune M2, but that's just me. Esther Analog has rather high output impedance, though and can have incompatability issues with multi-BA IEM. Neither the Shanling M5 nor the Aune M2 have that issue.

 

[Jmop]

Thanks, good to know. I read somewhere about the Aune having bass roll-off, any comment on that?

 

[nmatheis]

No bass roll-off to my ears. Perhaps I'm using the wrong IEM, or maybe the person who commented on that was used to bass emphasis?

 

[Jmop]

Ah yeah that's a possibility. Thanks again.

 

[Jmop]

The price for the M5 is looking nice from Bright Audio on Aliexpress, I'm almost there.. The only thing I've ever bought from that website was a cheap pair of earbuds. Should I feel confident in making a big purchase from there?

 

[kiler]

Aliexpress you should be fine, just check the sellers rating

 

[Jmop]

They have a solid 99% positive feedback.