When the portable music player arrived at the end of the second decade of the 2000s, it was difficult to make particularly obvious differences in the differences between flagship products, whether in terms of sound performance, appearance design or functional configuration. In the serious competitive environment of homogeneity, how to give a dazzling design while ensuring sufficiently moving voice performance has become a breakthrough point that brands are desperately looking for, so electronic tube , pluggable accessories, Windows system..... has been here in the past two years. But, do we really need these designs?
Recalling ten or even twenty years ago, our need for music appreciation was very pure. Faced with the cold various iron lump , as long as the sound is excellent enough, no matter how ugly she is, we can accept it. And the only difference is that the little bit of elegance when picking and playing the record must be ignored! Therefore, the push and pull chamber cover of Berlin Voice , the whirlpool tray of Naim, and the ultra-thin and silent telescopic tray have become classics in the memory of a generation. Do you still remember my evaluation of Shanling M8? Yes, in addition to being nice, we only need a little sense of ritual for our music appreciation!
is a bit regrettable. The M8, which is very in line with my aesthetic, is slightly gentle in terms of sound style, and is still not in line with the positioning of the real flagship. In this regard, Shanling must be more clear than the user, so a year later they launched the family's real flagship portable music player: M9. Can the M9, which is late this time, deserve the title of "real flagship"? At least in appearance, she is taller than Astell & Kern Kann Cube. I released the unboxing content of M9 on the platform earlier, and it can be seen that the machine has a very high attention. I received a lot of questions and private messages, and today's content has been unfolded. I will select the most representative questions in the message to answer one by one, in order to give you a more accurate understanding of Shanling M9, the "last" flagship music player equipped with dual AK4499 DAC chips.
M9 deserves the word "flagship"?
First of all, judging from the manufacturer's publicity, M9 is undoubtedly the absolute family flagship positioning at present. The extremely "expensive" and "rare" flagship DAC chip of AKM AK4499 was selected to prove this. It should be noted that the M9 is equipped with two AK4499s at one time and is accurately paired. It can be foreseen that the actual stock of this chip Shanling is very considerable. Secondly, in order to match the performance of the current output DAC, the M9 adopts a more complex and high-spec I/V conversion circuit design. Unlike most other flagship players, the ADA4896-2, the op amp, chip, replaces the most common ADA4896 and OPA1612, which will greatly improve in terms of conversion efficiency, output current load, etc., and of course the cost will also increase significantly. A high-load op amp can better match the current output capability of 4499. It should be clear that the current output of 4499 is much larger than that of the ESS ES9038Pro. Of course, in addition to the above points, the M9 still uses the "third generation FPGA+KDS low-phase noise active crystal oscillator " that is only equipped in the family flagship models and higher specification circuit patches and components. In terms of hardware configuration, it has been very far from the M8. Looking at the flagship models with higher prices horizontally, the configuration of the M9 is basically the same as that of some aspects. What is the sound performance of
M9? How is it different from M8?
M9 has obvious adjustments to M8 in terms of sound style. The relatively soft style has been abandoned. When you open the sound, you can feel that it has a relatively excellent supportive skeleton, and the sense of scale is enough. In terms of hard quality, although the overall dynamics of M9 have greatly improved compared to M8, it still does not belong to the type that is particularly open and close. Slightly different from the many flagship models on the market that emphasize large dynamic energy sense, the M9 has better and outstanding micro signal pickup capabilities, and the three-band delicateness is obviously more outstanding. At the same time, the extension and overtones of the medium and high frequency and high frequency parts have reached an extremely high level, not based on brightness, but rather a relatively soft but rich in detail.In the medium and low frequency part, the details and energy sense of M9 are much better than that of M8 in extremely low frequencies such as 60~80Hz. The volume sense in the low frequency part is comparable to that of M8 and even has very small convergence, but in the entire medium and low frequencies, low frequencies and extremely low frequencies, the bottom thickness and transient performance of all music players of the same price are better than that of all music players of the same price. Finally, I want to say that the tuning of the M9 is more natural and atmospheric than that of the M8. Against the backdrop of a better sound base thickness, the musical applicability of this machine is absolutely at the flagship level, and it is also more prominent among flagship models in terms of musicality.
Functionality, ritual sense and user experience
M9 does not emphasize special functions like the same model, without the support of electronic tubes, and no plug-in and unplugged headphone amplifier card. It is still a typical customized Android system music player. However, the replaceable headphone plug function inherited from the M8 has continued. One thing to admit is that this design is not as convenient as opening a few more headphone holes on the body. But as mentioned at the beginning of the article, before listening to music, the golden knob of the ice hand is taken out from the warm leather case, and the tightly slit side slides into the headphone plug module of the body. You can remove the plug on the body with just a "click" sound, and then gently insert the new module. Although the whole process is a bit cumbersome, it is full of ritual and exquisiteness. If you have experience using physical records, I think most people can accept and like this operation. Then there is the actual usage experience of M9, because it uses the hardware configuration of Snapdragon 665 and 8+256, as well as the Sharp 2K LCD screen, it is very sufficient for the Shanling operating system customized by the latest Android 10. Therefore, the smoothness and stability of the M9 should be the smoothest among domestic music players at present, and there is no lag or instability in the past month I have used it. Then the operating logic of the entire system is similar to that of previous Shanling models. Almost all common functions related to music can be operated directly in the drop-down menu. All mainstream music APPs can also be downloaded through built-in software, including the latest version of Apple Music. What is the driving capability of
? The combination of earbuds and earphones is shared. The official claim of
M9 is that the signal-to-noise ratio has reached 125dB, and the total harmonic distortion + noise has also reached 0.0007%. Therefore, in theory, no matter how sensitive the earbuds are, this machine cannot produce noise floor, although its driving force is very high. Secondly, this machine has built-in low, medium and high three-stage gain selection and independent large-ear mode. This relatively accurate output matching function is a very good thing for enthusiasts who have more headphones in their hands. You can flexibly adjust it according to the actual headphone sensitivity in order to gain the best sound performance of the M9.
In terms of earbud driving, the earliest I tested Shanling’s own flagship earbud ME800, which was launched at the same time as M9. This is a very distinctive double circle and four iron work. The two 6mm diameter polymer double-plating crystal biodiaphragm dynamic coil units are driven by Rili N52 high-performance rubidium iron boron magnets, while the medium and high frequency, high frequency and extremely high frequency are each handled by two customized iron units. Different from the same type of headphones on the market, ME800 has a custom guide tube for D printing and has a tuning lever that realizes four independent sound modes. It can be flexibly selected from four different sound styles: standard, atmosphere, vocals and beautiful. The earbuds are randomly equipped with a full set of mainstream headphone connectors, and both balanced and non-balanced are all equipped. The wiring of earplugs also requires special attention. Unlike the commercially available earplugs, the Shanling ME800 uses 8-strand 18-core single crystal copper material from Japan Fukugawa, and then is woven through coaxial double-layer, with an independent insulating shielding layer. Unlike most similar products of atypical domestic small workshop supporting line factories, Fukukawa is far higher than other similar products, whether in terms of product accuracy, quality, sound and procurement costs. Of course, the most important thing is that Shanling official claims that the tuning of the ME800 is based on M9, and it fully matches its own flagship player in terms of sound style, three-frequency energy distribution, and driving characteristics.
From the actual driving situation, the ME800 and M9 under 4.4mm are my personal favorites, and the standard style also has better musical applicability compared to other sound modes.In terms of gain selection, the medium and low frequencies of ME800 under low gain are obviously soft. I don’t think the dive and transients are particularly qualified, but the medium and high frequencies and high frequencies are pretty good, but the overall sound is slightly thinner. Under medium gain, the thickness of the ME800 sound is relatively solid compared to the bottom, and the three-band frequency is obviously more open, and the sound is flesh and blood, and the infectiousness is also improved. It is the most reasonable gain level I think. In high gain mode, the ME800 is slightly "hot", especially the details of the high-frequency part are obviously richer but slightly stimulating, and the overall sound is slightly hard. It feels cool to listen for a short time but not listenable enough for a long time. The earbuds are too loud in large ear mode and cannot be used normally. The details after lowering the volume are a little unclear. The sound of M9+ME800 is a musical tune with a certain resolution, and it is obviously not a quality route but a listening route. So you may not pay special attention to the details in this set of combinations. Fluency, nature and looseness are the definitions I give this set of combinations. It is a very versatile combination. Listening to pop vocals is undoubtedly outstanding. Listening to jazz on the spot has a good sense of introductory feeling. I think it is not particularly large-scale classical music and rock music . However, for some music with particularly large scenes and particularly complex instruments, the detail restoration ability of this set of combination is lost to higher-level earplug works, and this gap also has good feedback on the price. The combination of
M9 and qdc Anole V14 is my personal favorite. I have listened to it over and over again but haven't found any obvious problems, so I think this combination is also worth the attention of friends who have enough budgets. The V14 can "squeeze" almost all the performance of the machine under the mid-gain of the M9, which I think is almost the complete body of the M9. The overall sound can be created on a large scale, and it can be controlled by the freshness. The rich details and the full high-frequency performance of overtones and are particularly eye-catching, but this is based on the very good sound base thickness and the mid- and low-frequency performance of large openings and closes. The sound restoration ability of flagship earplugs is fully demonstrated. At the same time, the M9-powered Indigo Indigo, Feiduo Artemis, Softears RS10, and NFAudio NE4+ are also my favorite combinations. The characteristics of each headset can be better demonstrated under the M9 driver, but I think their comprehensiveness is still a certain gap with the V14. Of course, there are also negative examples. The performance of the M9 when driving the Shure SE846, Dayinke Zen+ and Kinera Odin is not worth it. I personally think the driving characteristics are not particularly matched. The choices of several gears are not satisfactory, and the style is slightly contrary.
In terms of driving headset , after turning on the big ear mode, M9 can drive almost all dynamic headset on the market. Whether it is impedance up to 300 ohms or 600 ohms, the sound loudness is fine, and it can basically be driven to a level that can be heard. Of course, there is still a big gap between pushing it out. As for the driving of some flat diaphragm headphones with low sensitivity, it is a bit difficult to drive the M9, and it is almost difficult to drive it to the listening range. Among common dynamic headphones, headphones given direct push attributes are the best choice. Whether it is the Sennheiser HD25 or the Beyerdynamic T5III, you can get a very good listening experience, while the driving effects of Ultrasone Signature Pro and Grado GS3000e are a little worse. My current favorite dynamically closed earphone, ZMF Audio VC, also has a very amazing performance under the M9. This combination can be regarded as an excellent portable large-ear fever reduction suit for friends with sufficient budget.
Purchase suggestions and advantages and disadvantages
First of all, the sound style of Shanling M9 is obviously different from the common flagship portable music players on the market. I think this is the deliberate work of Shanling designers. Relatively speaking, after supporting a relatively large framework, Shanling M9 did not give a particularly large dynamic and dense listening feedback. Instead, it pays more attention to the restoration of tone and tiny signals, and pays more attention to the portrayal of details and emotions. This kind of tuning is undoubtedly an excellent choice for friends who have more experience in music appreciation and have a wide range of music appreciation types. It can be accompanied by you for a long time and will not get tired of it.However, for those who like to pursue excitement and are willing to compare PK, it may not be the first choice. Although the performance in all aspects is far better than the M8, the M9 has not increased excessively in terms of price. Judging from the current price of 14980, it is still significantly lower than most flagship models of the same level that were launched earlier, and the cost-effectiveness retains Shanling's consistent advantages.
