Shanling has announced a new portable hi-res music player It runs on Android 13 with support for larger music flow services It has vacuum pipe reinforcement if you like that kind of thing
If you want to enjoy Hi-Res Audio on the go, but would very much like to mix the all-digital music world, this new Shanling music player may be one to check out thanks to its recording of vacuum tubes.
M8T is the new flagship of Shanling’s Portable Hi-Res Music Player Product Line with two AKM DACs (digital-to-analog Converts) and several amplification methods for different high-quality listening to 32bit/768kHz. It can be purchased for a remarkable $ 1,499 (about £ 1,190 / AU $ 2,360).
It is technically an update to the 2020’s M8 model, designed to play nicely with the latest headphones DACs from AKM, and make the most of Shanling’s technological improvements in the last few years.
It is slightly larger and heavier than the M8 measuring 147 x 82 x 22 mm with a 6-inch HD (1080 x 2160) Touching screen and weighing 383g, with rounded edges and a slender design available in either black or red.
The Panasonic Z95B is coming this year and it looks great. (Image Credit: Shanling)
A major change is the addition of two Jan6418 vacuum tubes, with M8T with both a pipe amplifier and a transistor -based headphone amplifier.
Pipe amplifiers are often in demand for their ‘natural’ sound recovery, higher output per day. Watts and limited distortion compared to transistor amplifiers-beautiful listeners will be able to choose or out on the go, depending on their preferences and what they are currently playing. It definitely makes it stand out compared to the wider competition among the best hi-res sound players.
A warning word-to take tube amps mobile can introduce interference into the sound through a microphone effect, but if well insulated from the outside world affecting them, this can be avoided. It looks like Shanling has them well secured, but we will have to test to be safe.
In a blog post announcing the launch of M8T, Shanling adds that “and because we understand that pipes may not be ideal for all types of headphones or music, we made sure that M8T can quickly switch between its tube -enhanced output and clean transistor mode.
Storage on board has also been upgraded and doubled to 128 GB with a MicroSD card castle that can accommodate maximum 2TB, which means there is plenty of room for all these massive hi-res sound files.
And an improved 8,350 mAh battery allows for 13-15.5 hours of Hi-Res sound output and up to 96 hours over Bluetooth 5.0.
Tides, qobuz and more
While some Shanling products use its own internal operating system, MTouch, M8T runs on Android 13 to deliver “many years of software updates and trouble-free app compatibility” means you can access one of the major music flow services this support hi-res- res- Sound, such as Apple Music, Qobuz and Tidal.
With Hi-Res sound expected to come to Spotify this year, it’s a good time to start investing in hi-res audio hardware that really allows you to take advantage of the increased quality, details, heat and chutzpah that is available to audiophiles today.
If you like the look or M8T, consider the excellent Shanling HW600 that made our list of the best over-ear headphones as an exclusive pair of cable, open-back with over-ear headphones with some real areas of sonic expertise ”. Or you can check this personally tested pairing of a hi-res-player and headphones, recommended by Techradar’s audio editor Becky Scarrott.
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