Report from Shenzhen International Audio Show 2025 w/ Smsl, FiiO, Dunu, Hiby, Moondrop, Softears, Eversolo, Matrix Audio, Sendy Audio, Gustard, Shanling, Luxsin, Fosi...

All the new announcements from SIAS 2025

*For more pictures, clips and additional information watch video report above.

What is SIAS 2025

If you don’t know how Shenzhen is influencing the future of Hi-Fi, maybe I can explain it a bit here before going on. Shenzhen is a rather young city in China, it is the technological capital of the country. Many famous Chinese brands like Huawei, Xiaomi, etc. started there. They are investing, researching, and creating new technologies there.

And one of the sectors that country and that city is investing in is audio, video, and Hi-Fi. Brands like Fosi, SMSL, Fiio, iFi, Aiyima, Moondrop, Shanling, etc. all have headquarters there. It is the center of the universe for all the new and modern Hi-Fi technologies in the world.

So even though China and Asia have a lot of Hi-Fi festivals, this is maybe even the biggest and most important. And previous year and this year they have finally started a little bit to open to the West. As this is the 19th edition of the festival. But just recently at their presentation, they started to do slides in English and Chinese, and there are a couple of people now at booths that you can speak English with to demonstrate the products. They are certainly opening themselves more towards an international audience, like the title of the convention says.

And that honestly helped me a lot, as otherwise, I would be lost in the sea of brands, products, and presentations.

It is no small feat to do this, and yet they did so graciously. If by next year you want to visit a Hi-Fi convention, this might be the one for you. Especially if you are big into portable Hi-Fi.

I will try to separate this video into two categories: all the new things that are coming, and what I listened to at the festival that I really liked. Now I listened to a lot of products at the conference, and just speaking about everything I heard would be impossible. So I will just focus on what I think was most interesting to me.

Fiio

First presenters were Fiio. And they had a really lengthy and great presentation. Mostly by saying that they will have three brands under the Fiio moniker. A Fiio targeting audiophiles focusing on sound quality above all. A Snowsky targeting younger hip audiences with great design, looks, and emphasis on individuality. And Jade Audio targeting general consumers who like audio.

But to me, something I am most looking forward to is the Fiio R2R Tube DAC. This is a continuation of their success with K15 and K17 which are retro-styled devices. I personally have no opinion there, I think they are interesting but far from being my favorites. They said that R2R is getting more and more recognition on the market and that it is a sign of a quality DAC.

Also, they said that they will use specifically vacuum tubes, a JJ Electronic E88CC to complement their 24-bit R2R architecture. They even emphasized that DAC will be on a warmer spectrum, but I guess that is standard with tubes. You will have a bunch of inputs/outputs: Optical, Coaxial, USB.

And you will have nice analog VU meters, not digital ones. It will have a 46W linear power supply. To summarize, this will be an awesome device, and not many like this exist on the market. A tube R2R DAC is not a common sight, and with a price of 350 dollars, it should create shockwaves around the market.

Next thing is Fiio DM13, CD players. This will be diminutive portable CD players. It seems that the craze for CDs is back, and I love that, as I am a huge fan of CD players. When I was a kid, I had my own personal transportable CD player that I used to go to sleep with. So this warms my heart.

It will have CD servo, USB DAC, R2R module, Bluetooth, and Independent MCU. So yeah, another R2R DAC from Fiio inside their CD player. You will be able to do UAC decoding, even CD ripping to USB. It will have optical and coaxial inputs.

But surprise at the end is that it will have aptX lossless transmission, which I think is the future, as it brings Bluetooth closer to audiophiles. You will also have EQ on the device, to change bass and treble. And it will cost 280 dollars, amazing!

Next, they had this kind of dramatic intro for their new product, a flagship Fiio M27. It is the best of all their DAPs combined into a single device.

It honestly looks amazing. It can be used as a portable and desktop variation. You can have all the balanced inputs and also coaxial and optical.

Internal storage and expandable. With internal storage read speeds about 920 MB/s and microSD about 90 MB/s, super nice.

It will use the new Snapdragon 778G, and will feature Android 13 with 8 GB of RAM. And yet again lossless aptX will be present, we even had a special guest appearance from Qualcomm telling us all about how great that transmit module is.

As far as DAC goes, it is of course top-of-the-line ESS DACs with 2x 9039S Pro, so highest and newest. It will have 10,000 mW of output power, 9200 mAh replaceable battery. Really big battery.

So all the amazingness combined will release in October. Price has not yet been decided.

So, new DAC, CD player, and DAP. Great.

SMSL

And the first thing they showed was a clock generator. I don’t know how excited I should be for that, as a clock generator is an essential part of every DAC. Now having that as a standalone device called G1 is such a niche futuristic concept for me.

They explained a lot of stuff about a special chip they use called OCXO, which is the best clock chip in the world. About phenomenal thermal insulation design they created. How it can easily fit every system etc.

To me, this is something personally I have no experience with, so is this an exciting device? I guess, but if I don’t have a chance to test it, I don’t know what more to say.

But the price was unexpectedly a bit high, it is around 530 dollars, which means that this device is truly aimed only at a very niche audience.

But the next thing is actually a super cool thing. It is a new flagship DAC in their more premium lineup of devices, a VMV D3 Pro DAC. And that same masterful and best clock is also inside this DAC.

It is supposed to be their top-of-the-line DAC. It is a continuation of VMV D2R DAC, using a very interesting chip set called BD34302. Personally, I never heard about it, and never listened to any device with it. They praised it as having a phenomenal linear response and measurements.

Can this DAC rival the AKMs and ESS of the world? Who knows. But SMSL seems like they will. It has top-of-the-line everything: 32-bit, 768 kHz, and DSD 512. It will support LDAC, aptX HD, etc. It will have balanced, AES/EBU, coaxial, and optical.

Now this is an interesting one — VMV already has a D3 DAC, but this new device seems more in the vein of D2R rather than D3, even though it is a D3 Pro DAC. The regular D3 was some ultimate R2R DAC that cost 3500 dollars, way beyond my budget to buy.

But the great thing is that this one will be far more reasonable at 1300 dollars.

But they did not stop with DACs. We now have a D200 DAC, which is something I honestly expected sooner or later. They had a super success with PL200 CD players, so they now needed something modern in that form factor DAC to complement that purchase both sonically and aesthetically. Now there is a killer trio of PL200 CD player, D200 DAC, and SMSL PA200 amp.

It is also using those ROHM DACs, and is fully packed. With MQA CD decoding, optical, coaxial, balanced. They also have clock-in, for external clock. They explained all the benefits, but as this was a Chinese show I did not understand it fully. And also LDAC, aptX HD, etc.

This is a very compact and small DAC, that I really like aesthetically. And it comes with a price tag of 320 dollars.

They also touched briefly that they are really expanding their CD player catalog. From cheap like PL100 to new PL200 2025 edition to flagship T2. There are 6 new CD players in the pipeline for SMSL.

And also 4 new products, one that we already discussed: new VMV products. From D1 Pro DAC, D3 Pro DAC, and D2R DAC to P2 amplifier.

Dunu, Hiby, Moondrop, Softears

s I am not such a huge headphones guy, but I am slowly going in that direction, we had presentations from Dunu, Hiby, Moondrop, and Softears. It is obvious that this is predominantly a headphones show as all these companies brought their A-game.

Their presentations were awesome, full of energy, new gear, and great explanations all around.

Project CA JP by Hiby was interesting in-ear headphones. They said how they searched deep and wide for inspiration from Super Nintendo, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music and art, Miyazaki. They used Faudio experience in dynamic drivers to bring five key things: sound quality, balance, soundstage, dynamics, and musicality.

Its main purpose was that it will fit excellently for listening to a wide variety of music, but mostly specialized in J-Pop, K-Pop, and C-Pop. It sounds like really something built with a lot of passion to it. And with a great purpose — that it should accommodate the only master that matters, and that is music.

It will cost 280 dollars.

And I love how Hiby just pushes that it uses people from the industry to harvest knowledge to build their products, like Kon Lee.

Oh and if you love colors and youthful energy, something like W4 might just be for you. A small pretty headphone amplifier, looks like something that might talk to youth of Hi-Fi. And hopefully so, as it is also a really powerful device. I will talk a little bit more in a later part of this video.

But it has a lot of power, it is portable, and it costs just 100 dollars. Yes, you heard me right. It should complement its flagship brother, the R6 Pro II, which is a top-of-the-line DAP from them.

Now my biggest surprise was a Dunu presentation. With their two products Concept R and Concept T, and there was a small surprise with Concept V.

Concept R is a really old-school-looking CD player. It even comes with curated CDs with selected cuts to test your devices. It really looks nice, but as I said most of the presentation was in Chinese, so I could not understand the specs so well.

But it looks like something out of a production studio, and is portable, and seems to have nice build and internals.

But something I managed to listen to, and it was great, was Concept T. New magnesium headphones by Dunu. They look incredible, and they sound as great as well. Wish only I knew more to say about it. But they spent a lot of time talking about the research that went into designing and creating these headphones.

Moondrop presented two new headphones: Para 2 and Laputa. Interesting thing about Para 2 is that it uses PCB diaphragm fixing plate that is 4 times more durable and has 4 times more heat dispersion.

But also remaining very lightweight and durable. It comes with an amazing 100 mm planar driver and 500 nanometers thin diaphragm. Gold etched TBT, FEA, and all of that for only 290 dollars.

Now Laputa is their concept headphones that represent a flagship for Moondrop. It represents the best the company can do for 700 dollars. I will show on screen all the specs so you can admire its craftsmanship.

They also spoke very interestingly about adding AI into their very simple and intuitive software to drive progress and for better experience, especially for EQ tuning.

Oh, one more thing, and I also listened to this at the show. Moondrop did a collaboration with SMSL on DHA15. It is an interesting device that brings an ultra-powerful DAC with headphone amplification. And only at 420 dollars.

And the last one is Softears. Softears had, throughout the entire show, hidden under a veil, a new product. And what I really loved about their presentation was how much they explained about the entire process of building shells and designs for their earphones. I loved it — it shows care and craftsmanship that goes with every earphone.

I know they presented a lot of new earphones but to me the most interesting is Softears X. It is beautifully packaged, designed, and engineered earphones. Really recommend that.

------------------------------------------------------------

The best Products I listened at SIAS 2025

*For more pictures, clips and additional information watch video report above.

Now this show has been amazing so far, from the organization to the people attending it. I met a few YouTubers which is a new thing for me. I met Passion for Sound and his friend Andrew, I met Andy Audio Vault, Marcus from Headphonics etc. Very lovely people and cool for the first time ever to meet YouTubers that dabble in Hi-Fi.

I loved my time here, I spoke to so many great people, so many pleasant and generous hosts that spent time explaining their gear. It is unfortunate that I cannot go through all the gear I listened to, as time and space constraints held me back to really have opinions on all gear. But I will only speak about gear that I listened to that blew me away in one way or another.

And even though it is not a list, rather than random organized thoughts about products I listened to, I have to start with my favorite. There is one clear favorite for me.

Sendy Audio Peacock

And that is Sendy Audio Peacock. Firstly, thanks to Colin for being a wonderful host and allowing me time to sit and enjoy different headphones like Aiva, etc. I took them, unfortunately, not knowing that much about Sendy Audio, but I have experience with their sister company Sivga that creates budget headphones.

The moment I heard them, there was such a depth to it. Such a spatial progression of notes on the soundstage. I was a bit confused at first. But the depth of information was extraordinary.

And besides that, it is warmish headphones, with emphasis to be very fun to listen to, with a lot of details and midsection presentation. That midsection is a star — whatever music I played, there were clear and present vocals aiming at you. Really clean, decluttered, and passionately forward.

The more I listened, the more I loved them. I was moved to tears by how much I enjoyed them. And not just that, but how much after listening to thousands of earphones and headphones, I managed to find the ones I know: these are the one!

Matrix Audio TS 1

Firstly off it is really beautiful, that screen is reminiscent of HIFI Rose. And the UI was extraordinary. It has independent layer circuitry for headphone amplification, fully balanced DACs, dual clocks, internal storage, and a wide variety of inputs and outputs.

And the sound was very detailed and presentable. It sounded awesome, only thing I wished I heard this in a stereo HIFI environment. But very dynamic and detailed presentation, that had a lot of character. It was a mature sound. I wished that it had an internal linear power supply, but maybe some other do have.

It feels like a great contender to an Eversolo and other similar devices, but the price might be the biggest issue with around 2200, it rivals the Eversolo DMP A8. And it could be an interesting comparison.

Fiio M27

It is a DAP like no other honestly. I already went in big detail in the beginning of this video with the Fiio section. But I managed to listen to it, and just as a portable digital player goes, it provides some majestic tunes with the section of selected earphones they presented to us.

Sound was full and immersive. The DAC inside did an amazing job to declutter and present information, there was enough power to drive earphones and HIFI Man headphones. And the way it feels in hand, and all those features and internals, create an amazing DAP, that is the best DAP experience I heard at the festival.

The second being an Astell and Kern SP400.

Also big shoutout to the great repertoire of Fiio devices — I liked K17, S15 and Fiio Turntable. I need superlatives to explain my excitement when I read the spec sheets of S15 — it is such an amazing device. Also K17 is a really solid device, with a unique look. And that Turntable is so beautiful.

Luxsin X9 / Eversolo T8

I don’t know which one of these two sounded amazing, people at Luxsin told me it was because of Luxsin, but I managed to hear a brand new great device as well. I am speaking about X9 and Eversolo T8.

Eversolo T8 is their new streaming transport. Unlike the DMP series where it is a DAC Transport, this is a pure transport.

Luxsin X9 is a headphone amplifier with DAC. It is now being reviewed everywhere and gets praise all around.

It was an amazing combination, that sounded very sparse and luxurious. I liked how many details there were, and I know I am repeating myself here, but unless I had more time in hand, the only thing I can speak here are first impressions. And your brain first notices either detailed presentations or overly warm — it is what it is.

The soundstage depth is amazing, it was precise and focused. It just opens compositions while remaining firmly dynamic and detailed.

But there are a few aces under its sleeve for X9. Firstly, it is super feature-packed — much more than any other headphone amp/DAC in this price range. And one of the great things is auto impedance selection for your headphones. When headphones are connected it will automatically select the right load for your headphones, from 32 to 300 ohms.

Besides crossover, additional DAC filters, and bypass, there is one more cool thing: when your device is connected to Wi-Fi you will be able to choose, specifically for your headphones (if they are in their library), an EQ curve to be applied.

How well does this work? I don’t know, but I would love to test it one day at home.

What they built here is really interesting. The synergy between Luxsin and Eversolo is great. With their streamers and external DACs, you can build an amazing system.

Shanling EC Zero T and XS T20

I want the EC Zero T portable CD player. I want it now! Haha I just love it, especially in those leather cases — it feels like my childhood in that singular moment. Many brands had similar products across booths (SMSL, Hiby, Shanling), they obviously think it’s great. I think so too. If there were some easier way to buy Shanling gear in Serbia, I would buy it.

I actually wanted to buy the demo unit, but they did not want to budge. Haha.

It’s not that I think it’s amazing quality, it’s just such a compact CD player, which is portable, amazingly built, and uses an R2R DAC inside. Just crazy. I heard it briefly — seemed nice, but with unfamiliar songs. So I will leave that as a review for another time.

But also, I am an avid consumer of HIFI reviews on YouTube, and one device I really wanted to hear was the XS T20 CD transport. I think it is a great device, with everything a modern full-featured CD transport should have. I listened to it with the XDA20 DAC and headphone amplifier.

The combination sounded mature and great. I wished again to be at home, and to test it in stereo HIFI mode to truly experience the product.

I also listened to SACD MCD 13 and SCD 1.3 — they seem like great all-around CD players, and not that expensive.

Lotoo Mjolnir and Lotoo PAW Gold 10

Lotoo Mjolnir is awesome. They call it a portable DAC and headphone amplifier. Portable is questionable, as it is not small nor light. I guess you can carry it around your home.

It is such an amazing sounding device that I was shocked. Maybe even the best sounding at the show, though I can’t say with confidence unless I spend more time with it. It is a tank with all the greatest technologies.

Until I heard the price — 7000 dollars. That is one of the most expensive items I listened to there.

But it has 2.5 W power output, the newest AKM DAC chip, balanced architecture, line in/out, and a screen. It is a breathtakingly dynamic sound.

They should have added a streamer, and it would be an amazing all-around device. But is it worth the asking price? Questionable. Still, it is an amazing sounding device that looks awesome, is portable, and can drive all headphones in the world.

Gustard R30

This could easily be my second favourite device on show. Only that I had more time with it.

But if you are aware of devices like Gustard X26 and X36 you know we are speaking about one of the best DACs on market. Now image this streamer which look superbly, and have this lovely screen, that dac and great streaming all in one.

But not just that it is roon ready, it have room corrections, it have amazing amount of inputs and outputs. Just amazingly good product that I wished I had more time to spend with it.

But I did listen to it shortly and it was spacious and detailed sound. And you can guess very clear and uncluttered. It seems like a perfect streamer on market. But that of course will need to be tested.

Would love to test it one day in my hifi 2.0 environment. Or even their dacs, who knows might happen soon, but not soon enough .

Honorable mentions

Dunu, Hiby, SMSL, Moondrop and others. Fosi....

I have to give one thing away — I can’t fit everything in this video. But Dunu, Hiby, Moondrop, and SMSL had booths with so many things.

Dunu had their CD player and headphones ready to be released.

Hiby had many great small, colorful devices — including a CD player with linear power supply.

Moondrop & SMSL had a joint booth with a huge variety of gear.

All these booths were fun, and the people were awesome.

Also present were Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic, Fosi, and many more. Just too much for one video.

Final words on SIAS 2025

This was an outstanding conference. Filled with youthful energy and enthusiasm, it completely differs from Western conferences. So much presentation, charm, and hope for the future.

It offered both the cheapest HIFI to expensive HIFI, all done with grace and acceptance that HIFI needs fresh new blood in order to grow.

So many future devices that will influence all other brands, including Western ones. So much great energy. I listened to so many amazing devices, and everything was at hand.

It was just a pleasant 3-day conference.

I loved my time here, and hopefully, I will be back again next year.