Shanling M7 Portable Flagship Digital Audio Player with Android 10 and ES9038Pro ESS DAC

The Shanling M7 is a high-end Android music player that follows the design of Shanling’s flagship M9 in a smaller body. At its heart is the ESS ES9038PRO, the DAC Shanling had already used in its top-of-the-line CD player, with an in-house I/V stage and a fully balanced amplifier giving up to 900mW into 32Ω. Open Android 10 on a Snapdragon 665, a 5-inch 1080p Sharp screen, two-way Bluetooth and a 7,000mAh battery complete it.

Streamlined wave design

The M7 follows Shanling’s design approach inspired by its 25th-anniversary Hi-Fi line. The whole main chassis is CNC-machined from a single piece of aircraft-grade aluminium, with a complex wave pattern on the sides, in an elegant titanium grey finish. Glass panels on the front, back and top give a clean, smooth look.

Outstanding image quality

The 5-inch LCD from Sharp offers 1920 × 1080 resolution, stunning colours and wide viewing angles, fitted into a “floating screen” design on the front panel.

Flagship ESS performance

The audio circuit is built around the ES9038PRO, the flagship of ESS’s Sabre line, running in current mode. Shanling previously used it in its top-of-the-line CD3.2 (21) CD player, which gave its engineers the knowledge and experience to bring it to a portable player. It plays PCM up to 768kHz/32-bit and DSD512 natively, and decodes MQA files and streams fully (16×), so Tidal’s MQA streams play at their full potential.

OP+BUF fully balanced amplifier

The amplifier is a fully balanced four-channel circuit based on Shanling’s OP+BUF architecture, designed for superior sound with no unwanted noise, on a single board as in the M9. Each part was chosen with care:

• In-house I/V stage: a pair of ADI ADA4896-2 amplifiers in a highly optimised current-to-voltage conversion stage, carefully matched with each resistor and capacitor.
• MUSES8920: a dual-channel J-FET op amp for low noise and low distortion, a staple of hi-fi designs.
• TI OPA2211 and BUF634A: a low-distortion, powerful op amp with low crosstalk, and a high-speed buffer at the driver stage that greatly increases current output.
• ESS ES9311: a voltage regulator that is the best-matched companion for the ESS DAC.
• Thin-film resistors and Panasonic capacitors: 0.01% accurate, stable thin-film resistors, and Panasonic tantalum-polymer capacitors that are accurate, less sensitive to temperature and reliable over years of use.
• Four Japanese ELNA Silmic II capacitors: proven audio components from high-end SACD players and amplifiers.
• CPAF technology: to solve the group-delay problem of traditional low-pass filtering, Shanling designed a new circuit from advanced mathematical models, with Constant Phase in All Frequencies.
• Two KDS crystal oscillators and a third-generation FPGA: two Japanese active oscillators and Shanling’s improved algorithm give better accuracy when decoding PCM or DSD.

Running at full power

Three gain settings give up to 400mW into 32Ω (645mW into 16Ω) from the 3.5mm output and 900mW into 32Ω from the 4.4mm balanced output, enough for anything from sensitive in-ear monitors to demanding full-size headphones.

Snapdragon 665 and upgraded memory

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 has eight cores, an 11nm design and an Adreno 610 GPU, with more than enough power for modern apps. Its lower power use helps battery life, and its lower heat is welcome in a hi-fi device. Six gigabytes of LPDDR4X RAM keep multitasking smooth, and 128GB of UFS 2.1 storage plus a microSD slot hold your apps, offline downloads and music library.

Android 10, ready for everything

Open Android 10 gives you access to millions of apps. Shanling’s AGLO technology (Android Global Lossless Output) processes music from every app correctly and at full quality, without the degradation caused by Android’s built-in sample-rate conversion.

Wireless

A Qualcomm WCN3980 module gives 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi with MIMO for a fast, stable connection. The M7 streams over DLNA and AirPlay, syncs with Shanling’s Eddict Player app for remote control, and updates its firmware over the air. Two-way Bluetooth 5.0 sends LDAC, LHDC, aptX HD, aptX and SBC to headphones and speakers, and receives LDAC and SBC from a phone. The M7 holds both Hi-Res Audio and Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification from the Japan Audio Society.

Battery

With power-hungry audio circuits, Shanling chose a high-capacity 7,000mAh battery with QC3.0 18W charging. It gives up to 10 hours from the 3.5mm output and 8.5 hours balanced, and Shanling quotes up to 85 hours on Bluetooth.

Good to know

• In the box: USB-A to USB-C cable, quick start guide and spare screen protectors (one fitted at the factory).
• For a player with Shanling’s simpler MTouch system and an AKM DAC, see the Shanling M5 Ultra.