Shanling H5 Hi-Res Decoder Portable DAC/Amplifier

The Shanling H5 is a portable DAC and headphone amplifier with a built-in music player. Two AKM AK4493SEQ DACs, the same as in Shanling’s M6 Ultra player, give the classic warm, smooth Shanling sound, and a TPA6120A2 amplifier delivers up to 840mW into 32Ω from the 4.4mm balanced output. Connect it by USB, coaxial, optical or LDAC Bluetooth, play music straight from a microSD card, or feed a hi-fi system from its RCA output.

Compact quality on the go

Comfortable, rounded shapes machined from aircraft-grade aluminium make for a sleek device, and at 102 × 85 × 25mm and about 270g the H5 is the smaller of Shanling’s portable DAC/amps. A 0.87-inch monochrome OLED display and a pair of ALPS wheels control it all. Choose titanium grey or pure black.

A built-in player

Put your music on a microSD card of up to 2TB and the H5 plays it directly, at up to 32-bit/384kHz and DSD256, with the Eddict Player app on your phone for browsing the library and remote control.

Dual AKM AK4493SEQ: classic Shanling sound

Using the same DACs as Shanling’s favourite M6 Ultra player, the H5 closely follows Shanling’s house tuning, focused on smoothness and a pleasingly warm, comfortable presentation, with a 121dB signal-to-noise ratio and 0.0004% distortion.

XMOS XU316 USB input

The third-generation, 16-core XMOS XU316 gives a stable asynchronous connection with full hi-res support: PCM up to 768kHz/32-bit, native DSD512 and full MQA decoding (8× unfolding over USB).

A carefully built amplifier

Two Texas Instruments TPA6120A2 headphone amplifiers, with carefully matched ELNA Silmic II and Panasonic tantalum capacitors, are tuned for the H5’s warmer overall sound. An LTA8092 op-amp reduces interference for a cleaner fully balanced output, an OPA1612 low-pass filter was chosen for low noise and high bandwidth, and Shanling’s own FPGA with two low-phase-noise KDS oscillators (22.5792MHz and 24.576MHz) keeps processing precise.

3.5mm and 4.4mm, three gain levels

Standard 3.5mm single-ended (227mW into 32Ω) and 4.4mm balanced (840mW) outputs, with three gain levels, cover a wide range of headphones.

Battery, Bluetooth and every set-up

A 3,500mAh battery with a dedicated power-management chip gives up to 12.5 hours from the 3.5mm output and 8 hours balanced (local playback may be shorter). Bluetooth 5.0 receives LDAC, AAC and SBC from your phone. Inputs and charging are separate, so the H5 fits many set-ups: a smartphone (Lightning cable sold separately), a computer, a tablet, a PS5 or Nintendo Switch (with Switch mode on), the coaxial or optical output of a CD player, or active speakers and power amps from its RCA output, where it can act as a preamplifier.

Controls and indicators

The left wheel switches input (press), skips tracks (rotate) and opens the settings (hold for 2 seconds); the right wheel sets the volume, plays and pauses, locks the controls (double press) and powers the H5 on and off (hold for 2 seconds). LEDs show charging (red), the sample rate (blue 44.1/48kHz, yellow 88.2–192kHz, purple 352–768kHz, green DSD) and MQA (blue MQA Studio, green MQA, purple MQA rendering). The H5 has six digital filters and is certified Hi-Res Audio and Hi-Res Audio Wireless.

Good to know

• In the box: H5, USB-A to USB-C and USB-C to USB-C cables, 3.5mm to RCA coaxial cable, storage pouch, user manual, warranty card and product catalogue.
• Black or titanium. For AKM’s flagship DAC and a 6.35mm output, see the Shanling H7.