However, if you go single-ended, then you will obtain an almost indistinguishable sound signature from both models but you lose some screen real estate space on the M0 Pro plus the R2 II is the only model that has a dual microphone with a voice recording feature that might come in handy one day. The bass comes through nicely and so does the midrange in a warm manner but the high frequencies seem to be quelled around 2 or 3 decibels from the rest of the spectrum and that seems to be done purposefully. You could always use the EQ or the MSEB feature to obtain a brighter signature. I’m retiring the old way of testing battery life by allowing battery-powered devices to run until they die off. One of the reasons is that each device will vary in that aspect depending on the headphone you’re using.

The Shanling M1s is another model that was recently put through some scrutiny here at the office. I consider it to be an in-between model and not so much a starter model and one with similar features. One aspect I like about the R2 II is the reduced girth of the case and rounded corners. The extra girth of the M1s is due to the solid aluminum alloy body and although this adds a level of solidity but also adds some weight. Shanling’s solution was to tool up the output as a line drive and slipped in a couple of Ricore RT6863 amplifier chips to beef up the output stage. This verifiably gives the M1s the ability to work well with more demanding gear.

NEWS

I would leave it alone since not only does that soften the overall signature but hiss is also contained even further since it’s at those high frequencies that hiss occurs mostly. Again, most of these devices have an inactivity mute feature so it would be difficult to provoke any hiss production. Staging & Dynamics

Well, our complaint (along with many others) has been heard, as Shanling recently introduced Tidal streaming functionality to the M1s, elevating the user experience to a new level. I’m glad it has been added because I’m one of those who believe it should have been present at launch. Overall the player looks sharp and cool, but the button placement to me is simply underwhelming. I guess there was no space to put the buttons on the sides, but again, a full-screen appearance would’ve been much cooler. Yet, you can get the M3 Ultra model for that. This is in between the M0 Pro and M3 Ultra in terms of size and market positioning.I keep reading that via SE the M1S is not a huge step up in sound quality over the M0 Pro so if the R2 II is in the same ballpark sound quality wise then that is also a plus. With MSEB how much could I tweak the sound to get even closer to the M1S? 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.

When all put together, M1s comes as our most featured and best sounding MTouch player, while staying true to its heritage of compact design This new Tidal integration comes via the Shanling M1s Firmware V2.3 update, which can be initiated via an OTA (over the air) process using the player’s network connection or introduced via an SD card with the update file.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 micro SD card slot can accept a card of up to 2TB of capacity. In my case, a 1TB can carry most of my FLAC file collection. The smallest DAP from Shanling has now received a small but significant update, as the Shanling M1s Portable HiFi Player is now also equipped for TIDAL. There’s an ample amount of digital format capability within the Shanling M1s DAC section. Data housekeeping is performed by Japanese-made KDS dual-band oscillators. There’s also an SS1712 FPGA chip. Shanling uses their Mtouch 2.0 OS on the M1s and it seems to thoroughly separate folder lookup options this time. The music lookup options are more specifically divided. There are 3 screens full of options to choose from upon inspection.