First Look Sunday – Shanling M6 Pro

In this first look episode, we take a look at the Shanling M6 Pro, the newest DAP from the brand. The player is a boosted version of the M6, available for $759.

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This is part of our Picture Sunday series, where we take a quick look at some products in the review cycle. You can find all previous First Look Sunday posts here.

As usual, let’s start with a brief presentation of the brand.

Shanling logo

Founded in 1988, Shanling has been developing Hi-Fi products for more than 30 years now. From high-end CD player to classy tube-amp, the brand made a name thanks to great craftsmanship and top of the line performances.

We’ve reviewed a few of their product in the past years, from IEM like the ME500 Platinum Edition, or players like the M2X or, more recently, the M6 which remains one of my top choices for a middle-range player.

And recently, as FiiO did with their M11 and M11 Pro, Shanling introduced an updated version of their M6, the Shanling M6 Pro. I received it a few days ago, and here are my first impressions. 

Shanling M6 Pro – The design

As usual, Shanling totally nailed it in term of build quality and design. 

The Shanling M6 Pro look is identical to its predecessor with a massive glass front panel, rounded edges, aluminum frame, and balanced/unbalanced port lined up at the bottom of the player. Dimensions are roughly the same – 71 x 17.5 x 133.5 mm – but the player put on some weight – 244g without the case.

Build quality is on-par with Astell&Kern or the latest FiiO’s Players, if not better. The rounded glass panels, neatly following the wedges of the case, makes the player a joy to hold, and look at. Honestly, all of that was already true for the M6, but it’d be unfair not to praise Shanling’s team for their hard work.

On the left of the player, we find the same play/pause, next, previous buttons, with the micro-SD slot. Sadly, there is still one port only, and the inboard memory top-up at 32Gb. That said, the players is fully-compatible with Google’s Playstore, so Hi-Res streaming remains a good alternative.

I/O is pretty complete :

• 1x USB-C port for charging, data transfer and USB-DAC
• 2x balanced output, one 4.4mm Pentaconn and one 2.5mm TRRS
• 1x unbalanced output, a classic 3.5mm headphone jack

The Pentacon port is the sole gold-plated one, but if you look closely, you’ll see that the whole player exhibit gold accents. Even more, now that the backplate was marked with Hi-Res and Hi-Res Audio logos…

Still, it’s a superb player and one that won’t be overshadowed by the like of the FiiO M11 Pro of the Astell&Kern SA700.

Shanling M6 Pro – A quick view

For $200 more, what do you get in the Shanling M6 Pro, that you don’t in the M6?

First and foremost, the M6 Pro gets a dual AK4497EQ DAC where the M6 only got a dual AK4495. A subtle difference on paper, but the brand also updated the whole circuit behind, with better op-amp and buffers.

The player supports high-resolution files – up to 768kHz – 32bit PCM and DSD256 – and now offers six different filters, for optimal decoding. The M6 Pro is also one of the few DAP to get an intermediate level of gain, for those mildly hard to drive headphones. 

Shanling M6 Pro

Wi-Fi is said to be even faster, with dual-band support (2.4/5GHz). Bluetooth works both-way, and even if the player works with Android OS, Shanling is proud to introduce their new AGLO technology. AGLO standing for Android Global Lossless Output, meaning that every app will be processed at full quality, with no downsampling occurring at any time.

Output power is rated at 600mW @ 32ohms, which is a big improvement compared to the previous M6, all thanks to the new BUF634 chips. Power is lower when you go unbalanced of course, the M6 Pro headphone output maxing out at 200mW @ 32ohms.

Last but not least, the M6 Pro was given a bigger battery to cope with the player’s updated circuitry. At 4000mAh, this battery is supposed to provide up to 8h of continuous listening in balanced mode, 9h in single-ended mode, and 13h in the new single-ended + single-DAC mode.

Time to do a quick listening session.

Shanling M6 Pro – First impressions

So, is the M6 Pro really better than the M6?

Unsurprisingly, the Shanling M6 Pro sounds a lot like the M6, which is a good thing. Excellent layering, vast soundstage, clean and crisp highs, out of the box it’s just great when hooked with the AudioSense DT200.

The good power reserve is clearly the forte of this player. I hooked it up with my Audeze LCD-X and the player has no problem driving it. If you’re more of a headphone person than an IEM one, that alone should make you consider the M6 Pro above the M6.

As usual, favor the balanced output, it’s definitely better than the single-ended one. Of course, it’s still very good, but the balanced one is an obvious choice when possible.

All in all, I’m pretty pleased with the M6 Pro. But, I’ll keep my final judgment for a complete review, so see you later people!