Shanling M3X Portable Lossless Digital Audio Player & USB DAC

Product Information

We listened to more songs than those named in this playlist, but those are excellent for identifying a sonic signature. PRaT, Texturization, Detail, Resolution, Dynamics, Impact, and overall tonality are all revealed by those songs. We recommend trying most of the songs from this playlist, especially if you’re searching for new music! Listen before echoing comments, listen with an open mind with no bias towards hype, name, or price. Balanced out gives you better instrument separation, better layering, better soundstage depth, and more power. M3 Ultra overall sounds a bit warmer and more relaxed than the original M3X, while managing to improve on the technical aspects of the sound. DAP/portable: Fiio M15S, X7 MK II (3A/3E), BTR3, KA5 | Hidisz AP80 Pro | LG G7 ThinQ | Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 | TRI TK-2 | Tanchjim Space | HifiMuse M1

The tuning has Shanling’s usual mid-lows coloration, also gentle roll-off in the treble to color the vocal sweet and rounded, without compromising transparency by adding a bit of brightness to the treble. The place you’ll wanna go is the Audio settings, as that’s the only really interesting place in M3X’s settings menu. The Headphone output can be configured to work as a Line Out, there are multiple filter modes, and M3X can work in Dual or Single DAC mode. It is possible to select the Boot and Max Volume, and what codec Bluetooth will be trying to use. M3X also has Airplay and a Vehicle mode.Also, I am interested on the Hiby r5 saber. Is the MQA function equal to the shanling, but with 8x unfold? Part 3 - Sound Configuration Settings​Here is where I describe the sound differences between different outputs, lowpass filters, gain modes, and DAC modes. Part 1 - Non-Audio Opinions​As mentioned above, if you’re not interested in the following, you can skip straight to Part 2 for my sound impressions. However, I'll keep this part very short as I'll only cover things that matter. In this section, I will pair the M3X with a couple of IEMs and the Sennheiser 58X, which is relatively easy to drive. I will talk about the pairings in the upcoming sections so that you will have a better understanding of how the M3X sounds. Sound Signature

On the inside, that’s where all the important things changed. Android platform was upgraded to the octa-core Snapdragon 665 and Android 10, refreshing M3 for swift system response and app compatibility going forward. Of course, still combined with our Android Global Lossless Output (AGLO) system for an ideal Android sound performance. We even adjusted Bluetooth, switching to a newer 5.0 version. The Shanling M3X has a Line-Out mode as well, in this mode, the device forces the volume at max and doesn’t let you control it. It can be accessed from the scroll-down menu and on that menu, you can see a couple of audio-related options such as gain, DAC mode, and Android mode. You can also access the audio settings menu from here. In that menu, you can change lowpass filter mode, output type between LO and PO, gain, DAC mode, and channel balance. You can also set a max volume to protect your ears and set a certain value as the boot volume. OTA Firmware UpdatesM3X is our newest Android Hi-Res portable player, built on the same platform as our previous three Android models. But this time we are aiming at the more affordable part of the market, with a little bit less focus on the most demanding DAC chipsets and the most powerful amplifiers.

Audio section is still based around a pair of ESS ES9219C DACs, but M3 Ultra builds a more robust circuit around them. Two Ricore RT6863 were added to serve as dedicated headphone amplifiers, allowing the player to deal easier with the headphone load and resulting in reduced distortion, increased dynamic range and overall improved clarity. Lot of attention was also put on the used ELNA Silmic II capacitors, as they proved to be crucial in the sound tuning of the M3 Ultra, as we attempted to tune it more in the line with our house sound.

Sound(overall)​

The heat in question does not invade and does not invalidate either the clarity of the sound or its three-dimensionality which is not very large but far more than sufficient. M3X combined with very easy to drive IEMs (like the Faerless S8P) amplify this factor even more. But this obviously happens a little with all the IEMs I've tried, and logically with different results. Whether they like it or not becomes a subjective factor.