Shanling Unveils New M6 Player

Shanling has steadily increased its product portfolio with numerous players, Bluetooth DAC/AMPs, and more recently even a couple of in-ear-monitors. However, their portable players have been the main focus, and with the increase in competitiveness coming from the likes of FiiO, Shanling have had to step up their game to offer a new flagship device. Well, it seems they’ve been hard at work because they do indeed have a new flagship – the M6

Now, Shanling’s M6 is of course not to be confused with FiiO’s own M6. Both devices are built around Android, but Shanling’s M6 is just waaaay more capable, and also waaaay bigger.
At first glance we can see that the M6 ​​seems have a very similar design as the M2x, but more elongated as to accommodate the large 4.7-inch HD IPS display which is apparently manufactured by Sharp. No details have been given regarding the exact resolution of this display, so it’ll be interesting to see how it compares to FiiO’s M11.
On the processing side the M6 ​​is built around a Snapdragon 430 which is already a slight improvement over the Snapdragon 425 which is used in Hiby’s upcoming R5 player. The M6 ​​is also getting a whopping 4GB of RAM, which means that this is a player which is very nearly approaching the processing power of a modern smartphone.
This is, at least in part, because the M6 ​​will be running an open version of OS, meaning that you’d be able to install pretty much any app you want. Although, at this point it is unclear if the device will receive GMS certification and thus have access to the Google Play Store, but our best guess will be that this will indeed be available.

On the audio side the M6 ​​is equipped with a pair of AK4495SEQ DAC chips which allows for the decoding of up to 32bit / 768 kHz PCM formats as well as up to DSD256.
Shanling have clearly also taken some ceus from FiiO in the outputs department seeing as the M6 ​​is equipped with a regular 3.5mm single-ended output, as well as both 2.5m and 4.4mm balanced outputs. In terms of available power the M6 ​​is capable of driving a 32-ohm single-ended load with up to 160mW, whereas the balanced outputs can benefit from a power output of up to 350mW.

The exact date of when Shanling plans to have the M6 ​​hit the market is not clear yet, but they have stated that it should be in the fall of 2019 and with a price-tag of $ 499.