This is the place to discuss all things to do with the Shanling HW600 planar magnetic headphone.
I first heard this headphone at Munich High End 2024, and the first thing that caught my eye is that it has a headband that kind of resembles that of Meze’s flagships like the Empyrean and Elite, but the headphone itself is very different. Shanling were kind enough to send a unit in for measurements and evaluation.
Specs:
Diaphragm diameter - 110 x 86mm
Impedance - 30 ohm
Sensitivity - 104 ±3dB
Weight - 480g
Price - $1099 USD
Measurements
HpTF Variation
What is this? This indicates the headphone’s behavior variation across at least two different heads and ears (though anthropometric for both), providing a better indication of how they are likely to vary across human heads as well - absent other factors like leakage effects from glasses for example. Keep in mind, to the extent that these differ, that is not intentional, given both systems use industry standard ears.
Why is this? We have a video on the channel explaining why this type of visualization is likely necessary for headphone measurements. This should ideally evolve the more heads and ears we can test these products on, but the older paradigm of showing a single line on a graph to indicate headphone performance is insufficient.
5128 Raw
GRAS Raw
LESS IMPORTANT DATA BELOW 
THD
94
104
110
No meaningful issues with harmonic distortion. This is one of the better results at high SPL.
Driver Damping & Resonance Frequency
Not as low a driver Fs as some competitors. Users with glasses that have thick arms may encounter some bass roll off.
Notes:
- While headband build looks kind of like the Meze design, in practice it is a bit different and not quite as refined. However, build quality still feels very robust and sturdy, more so than most headphones. Comfort is also good, though it is a bit heavier than would be ideal.
- The sound quality here is reasonable, with a few colorations, particularly in the midrange.
- Subjectively I find the treble to be mostly good sounding but also with a healthy amount of upper treble presence and air to it. This may be too much for some but I find it to be still on the right side of treble emphasis, and nicely extended. Bass is a bit on the tapered side of things, leading to a subtle lack of contrast. Overall, for me subjectively I feel this headphone leans neutral bright, despite there being a forward character to the mids in several spots. I’d say… sneakily lean, with that forward character around 1khz, but still quite capable across the spectrum.
- This one wasn’t too difficult to EQ, I will post the results once I have things ironed out a bit more. But I really just needed to fill in that upper mid dip and adjust down the 1khz region a bit. I also gave the bass a boost where it tapers off because I like a bit more bass.
Generally this is a decent sounding planar headphone and a good start for Shanling in the market. I think there’s room for some refinement to be more competitive, but for people who like a more treble focused kind of sound that’s still balanced and well extended up there, this may be the right kind of thing.
I would love to see companies indexing less for the ‘soundstage effect’, since this tends to have a somewhat… hollowing effect, and has an impact on vocal timbre. My preference at this price point would go more towards the Moondrop Cosmo, and it’s partially because it does that aspect better, leading to a more detailed and textured sound profile. That would be my main complaint with this one, but it’s not so massive that it would disqualify the product for me, and I can see people liking it.