This a quick review and measurements of the Shanling UA2. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member and costs US $95.
I previously tested one which due to owner preconfiguration, would not output much voltage. This is remedied in this new unit.
Both balanced and unbalanced headphone outputs are provided. Communication is using USB-C.
Shanling UA2 Measurements
I focused on only testing the balanced output. Here is our dashboard:
I am pleased to see 4 volt output which helps a lot with driving high impedance headphones. Not so good is the amount of distortion.
Baseline noise is high as well:
Which is reflected in IMD test:
The J-test signal used for this test has a 250 Hz component which should be invisible. But it it is not:
This indicates bleeding of digital signal into analog.
Most important is power output and we have plenty of it at 300 ohms:
Sadly inverse is true at 32 ohm:
Conclusions:
It is nice to see high output power for high impedance headphones. With low impedance though, due to low current delivery, you hardly have any power. Combined with rather high baseline noise floor, it is hard for me to recommend the Shanling UA2.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
I previously tested one which due to owner preconfiguration, would not output much voltage. This is remedied in this new unit.
Both balanced and unbalanced headphone outputs are provided. Communication is using USB-C.
Shanling UA2 Measurements
I focused on only testing the balanced output. Here is our dashboard:
I am pleased to see 4 volt output which helps a lot with driving high impedance headphones. Not so good is the amount of distortion.
Baseline noise is high as well:
Which is reflected in IMD test:
The J-test signal used for this test has a 250 Hz component which should be invisible. But it it is not:
This indicates bleeding of digital signal into analog.
Most important is power output and we have plenty of it at 300 ohms:
Sadly inverse is true at 32 ohm:
Conclusions:
It is nice to see high output power for high impedance headphones. With low impedance though, due to low current delivery, you hardly have any power. Combined with rather high baseline noise floor, it is hard for me to recommend the Shanling UA2.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/