Shanling CD players

Hi - anyone got one of these players or had a chance to listen? What was your opinion?

Some ads on ebay for them, direct from China at massively cheaper prices than UK.... is it worth the risk?

 

Have heard the Valve cd player the SACD one and well worth an audition very analogue sounding, good build quality, as for the imported I wouldn't bother, they have some different components and are set up to run at 220v, don't know wether this is true but there have been reports of some imported models breaking down, due to mains inconsistencies, don't know how true the above is, but Official dealers will not touch imports with a bargepole if anything goes wrong, so buy import with caution, can't comment on cheaper player as haven't heard it, but have heard both valve amps, integrated and mono blocks and they have nicr sweet vavle like sound, from what I have heard they deffinately should be on your shortlist in their price band, they may make sound you like.

Paul

 

I have an opposite point of view...
I demoed the Shanling CDT100, which despite being a handsome if a touch bling-y beast, sounded spitty and harsh, not particularly good in any department, even soundstage. To tell the truth it didn't even sound as good as my Marantz cd63ki, at significantly more money.
I'd advise a demo before thinking of buying one as they're obviously not to everyone's taste.

 

i heard one at the recent heathrow show and have to agree with leonard s. very good looking if you like that kind of thing but not the soft sound you'd associate with valves, sounded very similar to the tube tech cd64 to me without the soggyness.
the rest of the system was a norh? passive pre and the shanling mono's iirc with some odd boxless speakers.
wouldn't slap the cash given the performance i heard.
cheers


julian

 

TBH I have only heard them with Zingali Overture speakers, these have wooden omniray horn on tweeter, and give a very airy sound to treble maybe taking away some of the harshness the other 2 describe, best bet seems to be demo and see if you like it.

 

AnalogueKid - did you hear it at the Glasgow Audio Salon?

I might give them a call for a demo if I can get time away from the family. Hifi Corner in Edinburgh are supposed to have Shanling on Demo but I don't rate them much as hifi dealers (sorry if that offends anyone here!).

 

Yep Audio Salon.

Have become quite friendly with Jack, give him or Dale a call 0141 333 9700, FWIW I thought it sonded good with the Mono's but have only heard it with Zingalis, and these speakers have a sound of their own so be careful as to what you partner it with.

Paul

 

That was the first time I heard them too.

I put the performance of the day mainly down to the open baffle horn loaded speakers, which were very shouty in the near field position of the small room.

It may not be good, but I just dont think the show let us see either way..

 

Was that the one that was with open baffle speakers which sort of matched and Chinese chess pieces?

If so, that was the room run by hi-fi internet guru Thorsten and the Shanling CD player was not in standard format but modified by Thorsten.

 

that;s the one steve. if it was modded then it wasn't noted anywhere that i could see.
cheers


julian

 

Tone (w-m) and I got talking to Thorsten at the end of the show and I'm pretty sure that he said it was a modded Shanling. I may be wrong.

 

The system was running from a “Real Tube†modified Shanling CD T-100. The extent of these modifications goes far beyond any that we've seen elsewhere on the market for these machines and includes a new Gomez valve output stage using passive I/V conversion. The headphone stage and transistor output are disabled and Audio Note copper paper in oil capacitors are fitted together with Audio Note Tantalum resistors in critical areas. The modifications cost £800 on top of the basic players £1,650 price.

This is according to this.

 

Julian,

As I mentioned in another thread, how can you single out a particular component for praise or damnation when you heard that component as part of an unfamiliar system at a hifi show? I apologise if I am being pedantic here but I see such comments all the time on this board and I don't find it helpful to anyone who might be interested in that particular product. Leonard may have found the Shangling "spitty & harsh" in a private audition (not a hifi show) but I don't believe it ties in with what you heard at the show as the cables, amps, speakers and room were different to those that Leonard used during his audition and any one of those may have been the cause of what you heard - not necessarily the Shangling player. Moreover, as we have now discovered, the Heathrow Shangling player had been extensively modified so that alone means that the two players were different.

The Shangling CDT-100 like many of these Chinese made tube CDPs is a fine concept in theory and in the looks dept but certain sections such as the tube output stage have been poorly designed and implemented. In my view, the tube output stage is only there for marketing purposes and is not as good as the solid-state ouput stage. To get the tube part of the system to really sing as it should, requires major surgery. The tube output stage in the CDT-100 can sound "spitty and harsh" as Leonard described but I believe that the quality of the tubes employed in the player also don't help the cause. The SACD version of the player has seen some improvements to the parts and implementation leading to a more refined sound on red-book CDs than with the CDT-100 but the solid-state section of the SACD player still sounds far better than the tube section which leads me to believe that either the tubes are only there for decoration or marketing purposes or the guys just don't know how to design a good tube output stage just like many other so-called tube CDP manufacturers around the world. If I were to buy one of those players, I would not use it stock but will get it modified and with better sounding tubes added to it. Still the Shangling player must look nice in the corner of any room especially with the lights turned down low and the tubes on full glow.




Enjoy the music,

Lawrie.

 

lawrie,
i take what you say on board and agree with some of it. however if someone is hawking their wares either at a show or a dealer then surely they'd wish to show it in the best possible light.
that said i wasn't impressed with the shanling even when i would suppose it would be as flattered as possible - especially if it was being purveyed as a tweaked version.
cheers


julian