The AK SP2000T’s bass is musically engaging with a tight and punchy delivery. Bass has good impact, but its presence is always civilized and controlled. If you want more bass, you will have to go for a bass focused IEM or earphone. Bass detail is good as well as the depth and layering. There is a nice sub rumble, but your IEM or headphone of course must be able to portray it.

The mid section has a very nice timbre, especially in hybrid and tube mode. Mids are spacious, airy and natural sounding. Vocals are perfectly situated, though they’re probably a tiny bit more to the front. Vocals carry a nice energy, especially in OPAMP amplification mode. Mid depth and layering are always good. Feed your SP2000T’s bad quality recording and the mids will suffer a lot. There in the mids still is room for improvement for wat concerns precision and decay, but that goes for the top and bottom end as well.

The M7 aims to keep those qualities in a smaller chassis. And I honestly think Shanling managed just that. The new M7 is a wonderful compact player that ticks lots of boxes for an audiophile in terms of balance, separation, power, background and imaging.

The M7 is a balanced and brighter sounding DAP that takes a different route than the M8 and 9. The M8 is a very warm sounding device, whilst the M9 took it to a more balanced path with more space and air with fantastic refinement. The M7 is the least warm of the three, and that makes it sound a bit more analytical than the M9 in terms of presentation. It’s like the difference between the SP2000 and the SE180 (SEM3).

However, in terms of technical performance, it’s not too far away from the M9 with its resolution and transparency. It doesn’t have as much spaciousness and micro-detail as the M9, but the overall difference between the two is not night and day.

iFi does not disappoint at the sound department as you probably know, and this version of course looked very promising for sound when it was announced. iFi takes the component and circuit design side of things seriously, to give the audiophiles the best sound quality they could offer.

The xDSD was a very clean sounding device overall. It was quite neutral without colouration. The xDSD Gryphon is just a bit different in that regard. It sounds warm and musical with a full-bodied approach. It’s well balanced, resolving and crystal clear with great background blackness. The technicalities are very good and it’s very coherent, consistent and natural, especially in the mids.

The sound is articulated, with a slightly warm and musical presentation. The layering and resolution, together with separation are the highlights of the Gryphon. To me, it’s a very high performing mobile device overall.

One issue the SP2000T seemed to solve, which was a worry, is microphonic distortion. I mentioned this earlier in my review. If you are familiar with tube gear, just touching a tube will generate a vibration that you will hear as an unpleasant audio signal. I wondered if that would be a problem in a tightly packed device. Turns out, it isn’t. Astell&Kern have come up with a floating magnetic structure for the tube mount, and in my tests, sound emerges from a silent background, even when I tap the case.

Listening in a pure solid-state mode, I found the results hyper-realistic. Again, with rock or some new age, this was not a disadvantage. For example, in the track ‘Disc Wars’ from the Tron: Legacy album, I preferred the solid-state amp sound.