SHANLING M1s HiFi MP3 Player, ES903802M FPGA Full MQA Hi-Res Wireless Player with 32Bit/768kHz DSD512, Bluetooth 5.0/WiFi/USB Digital Audio Player, 3.5mm 4.4mm Headphone Output Mp3s Daps (Silver)

Product Information

So the M0 Pro can replace at least three types of devices up to now which raises its versatility rating. The only particular feature it does not have is internal storage. But you could use a micro SD card of up to 2TB which is an upgrade from the 512MB max capacity on the original MO. Decoding That includes headphones like the Hifiman Edition XS, the Sennheiser HD660 S2, and the Meze 109PRO. That said, it did its best with IEMs and Dynamic headphones, and some of my favorite pairings were the HD660 S2 headphone and the LETSHOUER S12 IEM. Range and latency were both within acceptable levels. The capable transmission distance was respectable, almost stellar. However, the latency might not be optimized for video since I noticed a slight delay in transmitting video sound to the R2 II. The M1s immediately scores in two respects. First, it has a ton of driving power, especially through the 4.4mm output–it can drive the 300 ohm Senn HD600 effortlessly and really gets a grip on the wobbly bass of my 60 ohm Koss KSC74. It can, however, be a bit much for very sensitive IEMs, even in low gain setting—something like the KZ ZS10P or TRN-VX show more high-end glare and metallic timbre than with lower-powered sources. The M1s have the same rotary knob which doubles up as the power on-and-off switch. What’s not conventional from the other Shanling DAP designs comparatively is the three buttons upfront with the screen.

The OS is a MTouch 2.0 Pure Music Player, and M1S does not allow for apps to be installed on it, the wifi being just for Airplay and DLNA. We have good technical numbers too, with a dynamic range of 123dB at 32 OHMs, and a THD+N of just 0.0007%. Shanling boasts the Low-Noise Analog power supply and the American AVX tantalum capacitors. The two-way Bluetooth allows for M1S to work as a Bluetooth transmitter but also as a receiver for a smartphone, and act as a portable Bluetooth Amplifier / DAC. The Bluetooth protocol allows for LDAC, aptX HD, aptX, AAC and SBc if it is the transmitter, but only LDAC, AAC and SBC if it is the receiver. As far as MQA goes, M1S is a Full MQA Decoder. The USB DAC function works perfectly on Windows 10 and Windows 11, tested on both a laptop and a custom build gaming PC with most Windows services disabled. You need to install the Shanling Driver, and you need to do a reset of M1S after upgrading the firmware. As the crowning glory of the Shanling MTouch Player Series, Shanling Audio calls the Shanling M5s the best-sounding and most feature-rich member of this product line. In terms of sound signature, overall, the M1S trends a little bit warm, and there does seem to be a little bit of emphasis on the midbass, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard such clarity and resolution at such a low price point before.

Using a similar single SoC DAC chip configuration, the M1s uses a single ES9038Q2M but then compliments it with a pair of Ricore RT6863 amplifiers. These extra goodies also increase the price tag Using demanding full-sized headphones gave different results and the listed times went under what Shanling posted of course. So Shanling is being modest with their listed time since you could probably pass their listed specs mark by moderating the volume and using very efficient IEMs. That said, you can do OTA Firmware updates via WiFi, which is good. If you’ve ever tried to load firmware via an SD card, you know how great this is.

The internal OS has a complete set of options like a 10-band equalizer plus a total of 7 digital filters so there’s plenty of sound-shaping flexibility within the built-in OS. The OS can be updated within the settings menu or through the use of Shanling’s Android software.I am really interested to see what kind of battery life it will get. The ESS DAC's that Shanling chose are pretty power hungry. The one thing that turns me off about the Hidizs AP80 Pro-X is the meager batter life at 11 hours single ended. How big a battery is Shanling going to be able to put into such a small DAP, especially with everything else they are cramming into it. The big pluses for the Q1 are the 20+ hours of battery life and the decent amount of power it offers and of course the very good sound quality. There’s also a plethora of other digital formats that run on the M0 Pro but I’ll just let you look up the specs. They’re a total of around 20 so it’s probable that if you have music in a digital format, the M0 Pro will play them. The specified 14.5 hours of use seems accurate and it also goes up when you use the M0 Pro via Bluetooth since it takes less energy to transmit a BT signal compared to amplification output. It also seems to have a long standby time far as battery life. Some of Shanling’s gear tends to have a safe tuning which is good for those who prefer a relaxing experience and it also tames bright-sounding gear but at times I want more detail and dynamism and the M1s gives you that.