Massdrop x Noble X

Having spent the last six months or so with the Noble X, I haven't found a modern* portable source in a similarly/ sanely priced range that stand outs among the rest until now, which is the Shanling UP. During my time with the X, I've had extended loaners/ owned the HiFiMan Super and Megamini, Cayin n3, DragonFly Red, and Shanling M1. In addition, I played with the X on a few portable devices at CanJam. As long the OI of the device wasn't weird, a la HP-P1, the X probably sounded good out of it. However, I never felt entirely compelled by any of these devices to give up an iPhone for use with the X.

During my time with the Shanling UP over the past week, I've really enjoyed it with the X. With the UP, the X acquires a little more bass extension, more extension in the treble that gives it a hint of air (right term?), and improved separation. (Does that mean the UP has a U-shaped response? Not too familiar with that description either.) The Up doesn't transform the X into a new headphone by any means, but certainly gives it a fair improvement in these categories.

On the bass extension front, I've been using silicone tips for the past few months. With these tips, the IEM has significantly bass less prescence than my JH13 had, but still mroe than my ER4. I'll say it's roughly about 1/3 of the way to the JH13 from the ER4 on the presence. (Again, on the JH13 from memory.) On most sources, even with the bass levels where I like them, I feel as if the IEM rolled off a little on the lowest registers. This is slightly improved with the UP.

During this time, I've been using the UP on four devices: three iPhones, and a Dell Latitude E7470 with Win10. I mention the number of iPhones, as they're running different versions of iOS. I'm lazy and haven't updated my two phones to the latest version of iOS, but a friend of mine is using iOS 10.3.1. The UP works well with my iOS 10.2 devices in any situation. In my experience, with 10.3.1, the UP will work for about two minutes using the supplied lightning- USB-C cable and then stop working. I can get around this by using CCK -> USB-A/C cable. @Torq mentions that this issue with 10.3.1 is an Apple bug. Hopefully this bug will be resolved in another update soon.

EDIT: Forgot my Win 10 mention. The drivers are a PITA to install from the perspective of a regular user. I had to download a zip file from Shanling's site, go into Device Manager, and manually point the device driver to the folder I downloaded from Shanling. After that, it was smooth sailing.

I'm not going to turn this into a Shanling UP review, but a little more context may help. The only other IEM I've plugged into so far was my JH13. I only got an hour or so of listening in on the JH13 before it died, so I don't have great impressions on that. (The JH died while being driven from an iPhone, not the UP.) The UP imparted these same characteristics on the JH13 as it did upon the X. These did not work out too well for the JH13. My JH13 had plenty of extension, with perhaps a little too much emphasis on it. Adding to presence that did not fare well for my ears. I believe the same held true for some of the other aspects, but the JH13 is not around for me to provide a better comparison. I've always felt the JH13 is an odd beast to drive, and try not to use it when evaluating gear, so take this with a grain of salt.

*The iPod 5G/ Video is a great pairing.

...maybe some of this should go into a thread more focused on the UP. Especially since I may have more to say about it in the future.

 

Well, bought a second pair to replace my lost pair.

 

Those are def spiral dots.