Shanling M6 Portable Music Player

Thanks for being so active in this thread @Bina ! Very cool.

 

If you find a DAP that you like and stick with it, there is no difference between Android and not. If you want the latest and greatest, the life expectancy of today's DAPs, Android or not, is very close to laboratory mice anyway. Some DAPs come with dual boot, one side is Android, the other likely some version of Linux optimized for audio. iBasso DX220 is like that. The Linux side is touch better in terms of SQ, mostly the background is quieter. But the Android boot is so much more usable. And with Neutron or USB Audio Player SQ is pretty close.
And on any respectable Android DAP all apps can work directly with DAC without Android stack.

 

How do you think the M6 would perform with the Andro OG and 2020? Still rocking my greens on my zx300 (balanced 4mm).

 

Nailed it from my perspective. When ZX2 was released in 2015, it was running on Jelly Bean. At that time I believe we were heading towards Android Nougat 7.0. That's a big difference on the age of the OS back then. Didn't help Sony SOC was weaker due to balancing power/battery life.

When I had the ZX2, the oldest Tidal APK file that would work on it was in 2019 (good considering in 2019 some APKs were still supporting Jelly Bean). However, due to the outdated SOC it ran slow. Qobuz, forget it since the latest APK that runs on ZX2 keep crashing.

I could be wrong but stuff like UAPP, Roon, Qobuz, Tidal I believe supports as low as Lollipop 5.0. However, I noticed when Roon does a major update on their main Core program, they will also update their Roon Android App and increase which version of Android they would support. It's like one version they will support Jelly Bean and next major update it goes up to Lollipop, which slowly makes people to update their devices.

At least the M6 is running on Nougat 7.1, which in theory should make the current APKs be running on it for awhile/long time since I'm not expecting these apps to have a big bump on minimum Android requirements. However, we will always be at the mercy on when the app developer decides it is time to up the Android version requirements.

Shit, just even updating the Android OS on the M6 to something like Oreo 8.0 and P 9.0 is reassurance that your apps will work on the M6 for a very long time (and thus provide more value in spending to this DAP).

Of course, another issue is how powerful is the SOC, which since this is a DAP you don't need to go stupid crazy on the power specs.

 

I have been around since Changstar, it's nice to see here discussed something that I'm part of.

 

They sound great, but the user interface sucks, as @purr1n said.

 

The M6 Pro is on sale right now at Audio 46 for $600 which in looking around seems to be a great price.

https://audio46.com/products/shanling-m6-pro-android-bluetooth-portable-hi-res-music-player

 

M6 Pro came in today. Been listening for about 45 minutes SE, low gain, Roon > Focal Stellia. Nothing is offending me so far which is a good sign. Not as smooth (is it this particular AKM dac not being 'velvet'?) as Qp2r, but first impression that it is not far off as far as resolve/detail. Need more burn in and ear time to say more.

Anyone know why Roon is (or reads as) upsampling everything to 192? I do not have DSP configured to do this, nor is there anything in Device Setup that would indicate this. Is it the result of this "Open SL ES" streaming transport?

 

Did you go into device settings in Roon and tell it no upsampling everything?

 

Yep. I am quite familiar with Roon DSP as I utilize it a lot. This upsampling (assuming Roon is reporting it correctly) was occurring as soon as I added the M6 to Roon as a device, so before I even had the oppurtunity to go into DSP, and upsampling as a user configurable is disabled by default anyways.

Since RAAT is not being used, it makes sense that this "Open SL ES" that is being utilized is dictating this. @Bina, you mentioned upstream your using custom sound libraries (not native Android) - you think they are forcing the issue?

Thanks @purr1n for the tip, I am going to install and play with native Qubuz app later tonight...

edit: based on network utilization, I do believe Roon is correctly reporting 192 upsampling/streaming...

 

@crenca if you can't find out the issue, let us know.

 

Sending you PM.

 

More on the M6 Pro (Roon mostly, SE, high gain (but not "turbo"), DAC usually in dual mode > Stellia mostly, Utopia some):

Sound quality:

• Frequency response is overall neutral, though if I had to chose I would say it's just on the bright side. If there is a weakness it's the bass, which is lighter in weight (particularly sub-bass) and not as detailed/incisive as the rest of the FR. EQing the bass just emphasizes the contrast between it and the rest of the FR so I leave it alone. I don't want to overstate this however, the bass for a DAP is not bad in my experience. The rest of FR (though at my age I don't have anything to say about 10-20khz) is a nice detailed, fast "squared" sound that at the same time does not suffer from SS steel/glare or any other offensive characteristics. Also missing is that opamp "plasticity" or reluctance often heard out of these sorts of devices. Overall it is a sound I enjoy just for contrast coming off the DNA Starlett for example.
• Head stage, image precision, and "dimensionality" is not up to the level of the Questyle QPR2 I have, but then that is not a surprise. M6 Pro is better at these things than the OG iFi Nano (by far), the iFi hip DAC (by far), and the OG iFi Micro IDAC2 (used as AOI HP out) that I have.
• The inner body/detail, organic flow of voices and the mids, and timbre again is not quite up to the QPR2, but is better than every other DAP solution I have heard. I don't want to overstate this because these things are quite good on their own.
• I have a 4.4mm to 3.5mm (for the Stellia) "balanced" cable on the way and will report back what I hear when I receive it. UPDATE: bal. output does not seem significantly different the SE with Focal's

Software and functionality:

• I have installed Roon & the native Qobuz app and they work well, though the Roon core is upsampling to 192 on its own before streaming to the M6 Pro, but this is not an issue on my network. Like purr1n says the screen is a touch small for these apps but you get the hang of it pretty quick. The native Shanling player for local files is intuitive and works well, though my use case is mostly streaming.
• It came with "CoolAPK" & "APKPure" for loading native Android apps. CoolAPK is set to an Asian language, so useless for me. The second works, but repeatedly throws up this pop-up ad (have not noticed of what) with a short skirted school girl dancing provocatively which is inappropriate as I have young daughters in the house. The bane of "free" software I suppose.
• I could not get used to gesture control, which was too sensitive with Roon in particular. I don't like the "floating ball" either - I wish there was an option to turn both off (leaving just the navigation bar) but you have to choose one or the other. Perhaps it's an Android 7.1 thing. These are my only real criticism of the software, and they are minor in the end.
• Screen is nice, plenty bright or dim. The unit is thicker than a modern smart phone, and is heavier, but feels solid. buttons/dials are solid and work well and make soft enough "clicking" sounds that my wife does not complain in bed

I am I happy camper and can easily recommend the M6 PRO.

 

@crenca, @purr1n got the Play Store on his M6, so you can avoid those ads. You might want to ask him more about it or Google it.

 

- For app store, if you have firmware V1.51 installed, you can simply install full Google Play store, just look it up in the APKPure.

Ads with short skirted girls, that's just the Asian/China thing. I get these often when I try to open my map app.

- In future firmware it should be possible to completely turn off the swipe navigation and do with just the navigation bar. It was originally push by our software team, to keep up with modern Android system. Even the navigation bar was added months after release.