Shanling M7T

Reference with a Sparkle.

PROs: Reference DAP with an energetic and revealing signature (especially in Solid-State mode) that sets it apart from the crowd, plenty of power, excellent battery life, Gapless playback (finally!), two different tunings with Solid-State and dual JAN6418 Tubes, and a nice case included.

CONs: The signature might not be to everyone’s taste, very few cons for what it sets out to achieve.

Disclaimer

I would like to thank Shanling for providing Twister6 with the M7T DAP in exchange for our honest opinion. No incentive was given for a favorable review. The firmware version used for this review was: V1.39

The manufacturer’s website: Shanling, Shanling FB.

M7T Highlights

CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 665
Storage: LPDDR4X 6GB RAM + UFS2.1 128GB R0M + MicroSD card slot
System: Open Android 13
DAC: AKM AK4191 + 2 x AK4498EX
Two tuning modes, Solid State and dual JAN6418 Tubes
Bluetooth 5.0
Screen: 5-inch 1080p Sharp display
Output: 3.5mm SE + 4.4mm Balanced
Output power: Balanced: 245 mW (low), 980 mW (high) @ 32Ω, Single Ended: 25 mW (low), 245mW (high) @ 32Ω
Wireless interface: 2.4/5GHz
Battery life: 14.5h (single-ended); 12.5h (balanced), 66h (BT transmission)
Battery: 7000 mAh
Dimensions: 129 x 77.5 x 21 mm
Weight: 319.8 g
Price: US$1,199

Preamble.

It’s been a minute since I last wrote a review, and when I looked back, I was surprised to see that my last review of a DAP was all the way back in 2021. I reviewed two DAPs that year, the Lotoo PAW Gold Touch (LPGT) and the Shanling M8. Both of these stayed on as my primary review tools. The LPGT offering, in my opinion, the best sound quality, while the M8 offered unrivalled versatility. Both of these have seen successors since. The LPGT was replaced quite recently by the LPGT 2 and the M8 has seen the (limited edition) M9 and M9 Plus slide into Shanling’s line up above it, while ultimately being succeeded by the M8T.

The original M7 passed me by when it was released and from what I understand the M7T is not quite a direct successor. Instead, the M7T sets the bar higher and positions itself closer to the M8T as a “not quite, but still close” flagship Shanling DAP. The main difference between them being the tuning, with the M7T aiming for a more neutral and energetic sound, instead of the warmer sound that Shanling is so well known for. I therefore temporarily confiscated Twister6’s M8T so I could do a proper comparison (thanks Alex!).

This review has been in the works for a long time, far too long (I sincerely apologize for that). As sometimes happens, a perfect storm of various issues kept me from getting the review done despite my best intentions. On top of that, I was very unhappy every time I started writing, and I could not understand why. I have my standard review format and usually simply work through that step by step. This makes it easy to do a thorough job in a reasonably efficient way. Eventually, I realized it also made me feel completely disingenuous. Not because what I was writing wasn’t true, but rather because the standardization of the format drained my writing of emotion. That is not me, and it is not why I ended up in this hobby in the first place. So, at the risk of creating complete reviewing chaos, I will let go of my standard format, denounce the “professional reviewer” persona (not that I ever saw myself like that anyway) and share with you my impressions of the Shanling M7T as a music lover. As this review has taken so much time, I also think it is fair to say that these are long-term impressions.

Intro.

Let’s talk a little bit about Shanling, because I think it will help to understand why I approached my review differently. Shanling, which has its roots in stereo amplifiers, entered the portable audio scene back in 2014 with their M3 DAP and they released their first IEMs in 2019, which were the ME100. The latter were my introduction to Shanling as a reviewer. The same year I also reviewed Shanling’s diminutive M0, a DAP that I felt was quite innovative due to its small size while still being a fully featured DAP. I therefore got to know Shanling as a brand at a time when they were trying to push for innovation while exploring new paths. This inevitably was a bit ‘hit-and-miss’. I am sure I still have those ME100 around, but they have been stuck in storage ever since I finished my review. They just never really resonated with me. That M0 on the other hand is quite possibly my most used bit of gear. I retired it only a few months ago, after I finally got tired of running IEM cables under my shirt and switched to wireless earphones for training. It is amazing the abuse that the M0 survived along the way.

I feel this sums up quite nicely how I feel about the various Shanling products I reviewed over the years. Shanling doesn’t always do it “right” (entirely subjective of course) and their DAPs have a history of being somewhat unrefined on the software-side of things, yet my top 10 of most used gear is dominated by Shanling. I remember last year rifling through a drawer and coming across the M2X (also a 2019 review). I instantly fell back in love with the form factor and design, and the broken glass on the back testified that the M2X had seen its fair share of abuse before an honorable retirement (it actually did still work!). Only my old Astell & Kern AK70 lying next to it elicited a stronger adoration, as I felt it hit the ultimate sweet spot in terms of size and performance for a portable player. Or perhaps I was just getting all gooey and nostalgic by then.

My point is that Shanling has a knack for developing products that I keep using even when I have newer and more expensive gear lying around. While cursing the M8 for crashing regularly and it being impossible to update through its own dedicated update system, I still kept using it and I still kept loving it. The million-dollar question then of course is: Will the M7T earn itself a place in my top 10, or fall into the abyss of the “review storage box”?

Design.

Thankfully, Shanling have simplified everything that is in the box to the point that there is no need to do an “unboxing” section. The box simply contains the M7T and a leather case. The case has a slightly different design from the usual, in that the DAP does not slide in from the top, but rather from the side. This resolves one of my biggest frustrations with the usual cases in that removing de DAP from the case would cause the on/off button to be pushed because it protrudes a little. By sliding in and out the side, the on/off button is no longer accidentally pushed in the process of removing or inserting the M7T. A magnetic lock still closes the case around the DAP and it feels as secure as it always does.

The design of the M7T is nice and sleek, and actually reminds me of Astell & Kern’s designs. That is not a bad thing as such, I love Astell & Kern, but it does feel like it is not as uniquely Shanling as some of the previous designs have been. I actually really liked the minimalist designs of the M0 and M2X I mentioned earlier, which felt more like Shanling’s own style. Still, the M7T looks great. At around 320 grams and 129 x 77.5 x 21 mm, the M7T is a substantial DAP. Although because DAPs have been growing in size overall, it might no longer come across as such. Relative to the M8T it is indeed more compact, however the size is fairly similar to the original M8 (which annoyingly turned itself on as I removed it from its case for this comparison).

Build quality is pretty decent. It has a nice aluminum frame, and the design offers good grip for use, even without the included case. I was a little disappointed by the plastic back, which I am sure was done to save weight. Still, it feels a bit cheap. At the same time, I have to recall that the sturdy feeling glass back of the M2X suffered cracks during its use (even with a case around it), and so how something feels does not always translate into how it will perform during use.

Under the Hood.

I see I am reverting to my standard review format because, for me at least, these are the boring bits. No worries though! The genuine music lover impression will come once we get to the sound part of this review (which I wrote long before I started this part).

The M7T is built up around dual AKM AK4498EX DACs with an AK4191 modulator in order to achieve its reference signature. This is further complimented with a choice between a transistor or tube amp with dual JAN6418 tubes. I have seen various DAPs implement tubes and always brushed it off as somewhat gimmicky. A nice marketing tool to draw on the hobby’s obsession with tube amps. The implementation here doesn’t really fit with my cynicism, as there is no illusion that the tubes do anything more than a subtle change to smoothen the sound (as I will explain in my sound impressions). Does that make them obsolete? I actually think not because the sound tuning sets out to do something different from Shanling’s usual tuning and both the transistor and tube settings make sense depending on the IEMs used, which (again) I will get to in my sound impressions. Switching between transistor and tubes is very quick and easy. A minor annoyance here is that while music is not interrupted when switching from tubes to transistor, it is interrupted while going from transistor to tubes to allow the tubes to warm up. This only takes a few seconds, but you do need to press ‘play’ again to get the music going. When first starting up the player with tube mode engaged, the tubes (of course) still need to warm up once you press ‘play’ and that means that three seconds later you have to press ‘play’ again because the music does not start automatically after the tubes have warmed up.

Power output for balanced is good at 980 mW in high gain and an improvement over what the original M8 was capable of (840 mW). The M8T gets to 1125 mW and so is still the better option as far as raw power goes. Although powerful, don’t expect the M7T to be a viable replacement for a desktop setup. Earbuds like the 300 Ohm TGX Ear Serratus are already a bit too much for the M7T and so hard to drive headphones will not make for a good match either. IEMs that benefit from more power will, however, match well with the M7T because it can deliver that power with a very clean background. I have not had issues with any of the IEMs I tested, including the Campfire Audio Andromeda Emerald Sea.

Another improvement I noticed was that despite having the same battery capacity of 7,000 mAh as the original M8, the M7T is able to stretch performance significantly further to 12.5 hours in balanced compared to 9 hours for the M8. If you use Bluetooth transmission, it can stretch to 66 hours. I can’t exactly verify these figures because I lost count, but I was amazed how long I was able to use the M7T without charging while using both the balanced out for regular listening and BT while training (and I train a lot). While using the M7T as a USB DAC, I noticed that it is possible to switch between ‘charging’ or ‘non-charging’, which is a feature I really like. It is better for the battery of both the M7T and my MacBook. Surprisingly, I was unable to use the M8T as a USB DAC. My MacBook never recognized it, no matter what cable I used. I place the blame for that squarely on Apple for being a bunch of [censored]. The number of times I had to MacGyver a solution by stacking multiple adapters to get my MacBook to work for my lectures is frustratingly high.

On the software side of things, the M7T runs on optimized Android 13 and this makes it feel a little more up to date than what I experienced with the M8. The M8 was running Android 7.1 and I remember that at the time it felt like it was falling behind a bit. Android 13 is not the latest version (four years old now), but I have experienced no issues at all. Everything runs smoothy, the Play Store has no issues and even the start-up time is not bad at all for an Android-based player.

For the past few years, I have been a complete streaming convert and almost exclusively use my DAPs with Tidal. Even with the LPGT, which is a pure music player, I usually end up pairing it with a transport that allows me to stream. Therefore, most of the time I used the M7T it was while streaming Tidal. This ran smoothly without too many issues. There was the occasional cut in the music and Tidal crashed once or twice. I am not sure what caused those. Switching the M7T from Tidal to Shanling’s own music app offered a familiar environment from previous Shanling Android DAPs I have used. The app is very intuitive to use and thanks to a recent update to the firmware, now also offers the long-awaited gapless playback. Gapless playback was never that important to me, although I missed it greatly when listening to classical music. Interruptions in classical music can genuinely ruin the listening experience, and it was one of the reasons why I never used Shanling’s DAPs when I wanted to settle myself on the sofa in order to drift off with one of Beethoven’s symphonies or other favorite pieces of mine. That brings me to the most important part, the sound of the M7T.