SHANLING UA1 Plus Portable USB DAC/AMP Unboxing，With Lanyard

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[RanjeetRain]

I own this device. Here is my experience with it.

(1) Build and aesthetics - Top notch. No complaints here. The device is well built and looks great, feels nifty. Ports are neither too loose nor too tight fitting. Connections are firm as they should be. It's small and light enough that it can be permanently stuck to a phone's back with double-sided tape.

(2) Operation - It is bare bones, and that's great. It's for people who don't believe in unnecessary bells and whistles.

Volume control for instance. The device doesn't have one, and it's not needed either. I mean, what difference does it make to use the volume rocker on the connected device versus on this tiny creature where it will be more inconvenient and fiddly to use? It does have a Play/Pause button that can double as a volume control, but its not a hassle-free experience.

It does indicate the type of stream it's playing, with a tiny multi-color indicator, for those that look for reassurance. The user manual details what color indicates what type of stream.

(3) Sound quality - It's good for what it is. But saying that doesn't say a lot, does it? So let me break that down in tangible terms.

3a) Details - It's sufficiently detailed. Most people can live with it. But audiophiles that nit-pick will have a lot to complain about.

Voice inflections for instance. Its not detailed enough to bring out the subtle inflections in the voice. You can easily distinguish between Arijit Singh and Abhijeet, but will be difficult to pick Lata Mangeshkar from Alka Yagnik (unless you already know what artist recorded the song you are listening to that is).

Decays of voices, leading and trailing edges of strings, reverberation of percussions could all be better. It's there but was clearly beaten by Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Lite's onboard chip. And in the fag end of 2023, this phone will mere classify as a mid-ranger. Flagship phones of today have about 10-20% better technical performance.

3b) Sound stage - The sound is not in-the-head. It has a decent sound-stage. At least horizontally. Vertically not so much. Layer and depth also not prominent. But it did well with binaural test tracks. I was able to pinpoint the source of the sound as intended.

3c) Tuning and Tonality - It depends heavily on partnering equipment and also is a matter of personal preference. I find the tonality decent. It's intended to be a pleasant listening over long duration. There is steep roll-off of higher octaves. Sub base is missing from the party. Mid base is firm and prominent. Lower mid-range is forward but enter the mid-range and we are already on a slope that extends well in to the highs. I also feel by the time we hit 8-10k output is already very low. It's a camel hump tuning for me. The hump being at upper-bass-lower-mid.

I must expand on the interpretation of tonality though. It's a grey area. What is "bass heavy" for me, could be interpreted as "natural" by another person and what is "natural" for me, may be "lean bass" for others. My reference point for bass is how the real percussion instruments sound in real life. My reference for attack and decay is how a string instrument sounds in real life. I use the weight and nimbleness of the sound from these instrument as my scale.

The combination of lack of sufficient details and populist tuning prevents this device from sounding organic. The output from phone sounds weak (less muscular) but more organic in comparison.

(4) Power - The dongle produces tons of power for average gear. Manufacturer states 1.6 volts at 32 ohms. That is a lot of power for most dynamic driver IEMS. For planar IEMS and headphones (mid-range and higher) more power is always welcome. The device comes only with a 3.5mm output port. That's sensible. 4.4mm balanced ports are useful only in case of demand of higher power. Logically, those devices also need "higher quality" in addition to the higher power, which this dongle cannot.

The quantity and quality of power generated by this dongle is best suited for entry level to lower-mid level gear (both IEMs and headphones).

Talking about sheet quantity, it drove my test IEM (ThieAudio Legacy 2) to ear splitting levels. All my high-end cans have 6.5mm jacks, and I didn't want to test them using 6.5mm to 3.5mm adapters. Because it made no sense to test this device with a higher quality headphone when it was clearly being limited by a respected entry/mid level IEM.

(5) Use case -

5a) If you have a phone that doesn't have a music output port. And you don't have the budget or inclination for a higher quality sound.

5b) If the output on your phone is too low for your headphone/IEM. Though in this case I would suggest opting for an IEM that is easy to drive. If you have a high-end ear-piece (IEM, headphone), feeding output from this dongle will not do justice to it. I would put a limit at 6-7k INR (USD 100) for IEMs, and 12-15k INR (USD 200) for headphones. If your ear-piece is more expensive than that than you would do a disservice by putting this dongle in front of it. This dongle will severely limit what your ear-piece can do.

Conversely, if your ear-piece is an entry level gear, it may not need the power it can generate. If your ear-piece needs power, probably it needs quality too, higher quality than this dongle can provide.

5c) Users with old computers (with motherboard older than 5-6 years) can also benefit from this device. Particularly on the power front. Due to higher power, less details, and bassy presentation it produces an overall sound that seems cleaner than the onboard output from lap/desktops. Same with ordinary tablets. Unless used with a flagship tablet, it will most likely improve on the sound from the tablet. But don't expect it to clearly beat the output quality from high-end tablets from reputed manufacturers.


Overall, prominent features of this dongle for me turned out to be Build-quality, Aesthetics and Power delivery. Sound quality though decent (or good) was not exciting enough. Despite using it with a decent mid-tier phone, decent mid-tier IEM and high quality recordings (self-ripped lossless flas, Linn Records/highresaudio.com obtained flacs/DSDs) stored and played locally (not streamed), I was left wanting for goosebump inducing moments. I tried playing with USB settings, even downloaded the recommended "Eddict Player" hoping for a better sound, but to no avail. Power-wise, this dongle can drive mid-tier IEMs and cans, but I will advise against putting it in front of any thing other than sub 80-100 USD IEMs and sub 150-200 USD cans. Output quality wise it is even behind flagship phones of today. Lack of refinement made this dongle shine with good recordings, but with average and poor recordings (tracks recorded decades ago) this weakness became more apparent.

[DecadeKR-zb]

hello, I just bought Shanling UA1 Plus after a few days since I watched your video, my English is not very good, can you explain to me the DSD (white led) and UAC 1.0 (red led) is what? And how do I activate them? And I'm just a simple music lover on YouTube, SoundCloud and Spotify. Do I need to adjust the above two modes? I'm quite curious about UAC 1.0 mode.

I use UA1 Plus for Windows 11 computer, I only see the highest quality I can adjust is 384kHz (Purple led), not 768kHz, is this a problem? Thank you for your answer, I really like your detailed introduction video.

[andresvr]

Its organic and warm how ua2? Its diferent?

[arijitgayen]

I have a ua1 and it doesn't improve the sound quality of android, makes outout more powerful and treble more piercing.

[Mustafa-fkii]

Hello Shanling could you tell me wich model has the most bass tuning? i heard the ua1 s

[hmst]

What's the difference between ua1s and ua1 plus?