Hidizs AP80 Pro-X vs Shanling M1 Plus

Both are portable players, $189 against $209. This page puts them side by side on the only three things a maker can be held to — power, output impedance and noise — and then asks the question that actually matters: which headphones do they treat differently?

The Shanling M1 Plus reaches 100 dB on 564 of the 567 models here, the Hidizs AP80 Pro-X on 556.

Every published figure, next to each other

SpecificationHidizs AP80 Pro-XShanling M1 Plus
Power into 32Ω70 mW195 mW
Power into 150Ω15 mW42 mW
Power into 300Ω7.5 mW21 mW
Power into 600Ω3.7 mW10 mW
Output impedancenot published0.6 Ω
Output noisenot publishednot published
Price$189$209
Headphones it reaches 100 dB on
out of 567
556564

A figure marked not published is missing from the maker’s own material, which is not the same as being good or bad. Where one of these two publishes a number and the other does not, the comparison on that axis cannot be made at all — and saying so is more useful than guessing.

Where each power figure comes from

LoadHidizs AP80 Pro-XShanling M1 Plus
32 ΩPublishedPublished
150 ΩDerivedDerived
300 ΩDerivedDerived
600 ΩDerivedDerived

Both makers publish a power rating, which is less common than the table above makes it look: of the 280 sources here, 209 publish a figure at at least one load and only 2 publish one at all four. Hidizs AP80 Pro-X publishes at 32 Ω; Shanling M1 Plus at 32 Ω. Every other row is worked out from those — between two published loads, or beyond them holding voltage constant, which understates rather than flatters.

The two publish at the same loads, which is the one case where the rows of this table can be read straight across.

What each of these labels means, and why a derived figure is still worth printing, is set out in how this data was built.

The headphones that tell them apart

8 headphones reach 100 dB on the Shanling M1 Plus but not on the Hidizs AP80 Pro-X — HiFiMAN Susvara, Moondrop COSMO, Moondrop PARA 2, 5 more.

556 of the 567 models here reach 100 dB on both. That is a power count and nothing more; whether either source suits a given headphone also depends on the two lines above.

Headroom and hiss on 8 models, both sources

The counts above say how many models the two treat differently. This says by how much. The same 8 headphones appear on every page of this kind, ordered from the easiest to drive to the hardest, so a row can be read across pages as well as across columns. Headroom is at a 100 dB SPL peak.

The widest gap on the list is the Audio-Technica ATH-R70X: Shanling M1 Plus has +9 dB of headroom there against +5 dB. 4 dB is about 2.8 times the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.

The hiss columns are empty for Hidizs AP80 Pro-X and Shanling M1 Plus because neither maker publishes no output noise figure. That is a gap in the specification, not a quiet amplifier, and it is left blank here rather than filled with a plausible number.

HeadphoneImpedanceNeedsHidizs AP80 Pro-X headroomShanling M1 Plus headroomHidizs AP80 Pro-X hissShanling M1 Plus hiss
Shure SE8469 Ω0.04 mW+27 dB+31 dBnot publishednot published
Campfire Audio Andromeda 20209 Ω4.0 mW+7 dB+11 dBnot publishednot published
Audeze LCD-2 Classic70 Ω0.79 mW+16 dB+21 dBnot publishednot published
Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro (250Ω)250 Ω0.63 mW+12 dB+16 dBnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN HE400se25 Ω7.9 mW+8 dB+13 dBnot publishednot published
Audio-Technica ATH-R70X470 Ω1.6 mW+5 dB+9 dBnot publishednot published
Sennheiser HD 600300 Ω6.6 mW+1 dB+5 dBnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN Susvara60 Ω50 mW-1 dB+3 dBnot publishednot published

The gap in dollars, against the gap in numbers

The Shanling M1 Plus costs $20 more than the Hidizs AP80 Pro-X. Out of the 567 models here, that difference buys 8 more models driven to 100 dB.

Nothing runs the other way: there is no axis here on which the cheaper of the two does better.

Everything in this paragraph counts only figures the two makers published. An advantage on an axis one of them leaves blank cannot be counted, and is not counted — how often that happens is its own page.

Both pages in full

Each has a page of its own with every power figure traced to what the maker published and a full headphone list: Hidizs AP80 Pro-X and Shanling M1 Plus. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.

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