Shanling Q1: Portable Music Player 

Shanling Audio is attempting to channel the 50s look with a new and rather dinky music player, the Q1

The Shanling Q1 was first announced through the company’s Kickstarter campaign but it will be released internationally, as a regular product too.

Based on the ESS Sabre ES9218P chip, the multi-coloured dinky unit only weighs 137g and runs on the MTouch OS, developed by Shanling.

It’s engine is a dual-core Ingenic X1000E CPU running at 1Ghz and the device supports up to 24bit/384kHz and up to DSD128.

The Q1 arrives with a 68mm IPS LCD touch screen (360 x 400 pixels), two-way Bluetooth (it can output SBC, AAC, AptX and LDAC) and an expandable SD slot up to 2TB plus a USB port. 

Made from a Zinc Alloy construction the curvy-edged design appears in sharp contrast to some music players out there, the rather pointy Astel&Kerns, for example. 

The physical interface is a mixture of buttons and volume wheel 

The 1100 mAh battery is rated up to 21 hours of play and a 3.5mm headphone jack (80 mW of power into 32 Ohms) that can work as a 2V line-output 

The package will arrive with a USB-C cable and silicone case in matching colour. 

The standard Q1 price is $119. There were Kickstarter price specials but I’m pretty sure those offers have now ended.

Kickstarter rewards will be shipped February 2020 while the general market release will be March 2020.

To see more, click en.shanling.com 

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