Shanling - UA2

This review is after 1 month usage., Because am not able to give positive nor negative , intially my mindset was like that
I bought these because of hyped reviews, and it's using the same chip of AQ Cobalt which is 30k & this is 7k only
Also using Ak XB10, Fiio K1 Dac

Am not able find the difference between these 3 dacs ..mild ..I felt
But after started using NEUTRON MUSIC PLAYER , switching on its 64 bit processing & Resampling - Audiophile mode
My Audio Technica M40x sounds like never before in just 60% volume , (Ak Xb 10 dac 100% volume is low compared to UA2 60%)
And because of this much power it's provides, the mobile battery drain very fast, that's why taking 1 star out

What's Bad - The only downside is that this drains a lot of battery from my phone. The only downside which made me give 4 stars.

What's Awesome - Excellent sound separation and stage. A slight warm sound signature which makes the listening experience very enjoyable.
I have been using this with ATH-M50x and Moondrop Starfield. Blown away by the improvement in clarity.
If you are a rock music lover - in my opinion - Moondrop Starfield + Shanling UA2 = Most value for money eargasm.

Performance is not as you explained so please try to stop giving hyper explanation !

This is a very enjoyable sounding dac with very powerful amplifier. It can drive hifiman he400i 2020 with adequate power which in my opinion a very power hungry headphone(as it is a planner magnetic headphone). It has above average sound stage in terms of width and depth. It is not a neutral sounding dac , it adds some colours which makes it very enjoyable and relaxing sound producing dac(little bit W shaped). It is little bit warm dac. guitar, piano, cymbals, voice are excellent. The addition of balance connection is the cherry on the top. It not only provide more headroom and power but also it provide more clear sound and more details. In terms of detail retrieval, it is not super detail producing dac. But it does its job very well. With very annalytical iem or headphone it really makes music out of the world. At this price this is a really value for money. there is other option too for neutral sounding dac with more detail retrieval (may be, as I have not heard any of these dac so I m not sure) like earman eagle, hiby fc3, ibasso dc03, e1da etc. But this is worth considering as the balance output outperform them all(in my opinion).

I was very skeptical about making this purchase at first so I went for the 'Talk to a Headphone Guru' option. On the same day I got a call from Mr. Raghav Somani himself. It was kind of a fanboy moment for me since I've seen his videos on YouTube and I really enjoyed them. We had a very insightful chat about the different products available and I was given some suggestions based on my budget, personal requirements & usage. I purchased the Shanling UA2 to go with my KZ ZSN Pro X which I was already enjoying to the fullest. I found it a bit tricky to get the most out of the DAC at first but after a few rounds of trial and error I was about to figure out how to play audio with higher bit-rate without it being down-sampled by the Operating System. The status LED was super-helpful to identify if I'm doing it right. This was on my Linux machine. On windows it was pretty much just plug and play :)

The start of my audiophile journey has been exciting and I look forward to a long standing relationship with Headphone Zone.

The product itself has made tremendous improvements in the music I listen to. The only source of lossless and high resolution music in India is Apple Music. So I was able to listen to music in all its glory. However, I was just about lucky with it. There is no option on itunes for windows to turn on lossless (at least I haven't found it). If anyone at HPZ knows about it please help me out. Secondly my android phone (Reno 6) is only capable of playing Apple lossless and not Hi res. Thankfully my Galaxy Tab s6 Lite has a bite rate upscaler that seems to be capable of high res via type c. So in my phone I only see a green light even though the music file is hi res. Whereas in my tab it is a yellow light. (There is a chart in the manual about the led light indicator on the UA2 which tells you if you are streaming in high bit rate or low.)

Since this is my first dac, I have nothing to compare with but I can say with surety that I can never go back to the way I listened to music. I am completely spoiled now, using the UA2 with my ath m50x on my tablet is the only way I listen to music. UA2 definitely did the job meeting my expectations if not more. There is considerable improvement in the sound quality. I feel they could be more competitively priced. If you want a good deal go for the bundle with any In-ears. HPZ has really gotten me to really enjoy the music I listen to. This is my 5th purchase from the store and I have never been disappointed.

I don't know if any user saw the led indicator turn yellow or green or white. I played DSD files of 24bit 176 kHz and even higher. The light stayed blue all the time. This was one of the reasons of this purchase. Can anyone else confirm this?