Shanling HW600 review: wired over-ear headphones that pack a sonic punch, if you've got a big head...

Shanling HW600: Two-minute review

Shanling hasn’t so much dipped a toe into the ‘premium wired over-ear headphones’ market with the HW600 as dived in headfirst. Big, well-appointed, hard-wired planar magnetic headphones are not exactly a rarity, but they’re not all that mainstream either – and the best around tend to come from brands who’ve established their credentials over quite a few years. Meze Audio springs most readily to mind.

The Shanling HW600 have what it takes, though, at least where specification and finish are concerned. An elaborate driver arrangement is concealed inside aluminum-backed, lambskin-fronted earcups, each one hard-wired to a source using braided single crystal copper cable finishing in a 4.4mm balanced termination.

The quality of construction and finish just can’t be argued with, and is well up to the sort of standard the asking price demands to sit among the best wired headphones money can buy.

Shanling HW600 review: Price & release date

• Released October 15, 2024
• Priced: $1099 / £1099 / AU$1699

You almost certainly don’t need me to tell you that Shanling hasn’t made its life easy by pricing its HW600 this way. TechRadar favorites from the likes of Focal, Meze Audio and Sennheiser (to name but three) can be yours for not dissimilar money – so the Shanling HW600 have their work cut out if they’re going to make a positive impression…

Shanling HW600 review: Specs

Shanling HW600 review: Features

• 110mm x 86mm planar magnetic drivers
• 12Hz - 40kHz frequency response (claimed)
• 1.5m quad-core cable with 4.4mm termination

Passive, wired headphones don’t tend to be overburdened with features, and that’s certainly the case where the Shanling HW600 are concerned. But it is fair to say the features these headphones do have are without compromise in their specification and entirely fit for purpose.

These are planar magnetic headphones, of course, which explains their head-swamping size. Inside each earcup there’s a 110 x 86mm planar magnetic driver – it’s a mere 8µm thick, printed with a silver-plated aluminum ‘switchback’ coil and sits between 14 neodymium/iron/boron magnets arranged in a seven-a-side assembly.

Shanling is claiming a frequency response of 12Hz - 40Khz and suggests it’s a responsive, easy-to-drive arrangement – a sensitivity rating of 104dB @ 1kHz would seem to bear that out. The single-unit driver structure features a pair of acoustic chambers, which Shanling says makes for minimal distortion as well as delivering its desired sonic performance.

Each earcup is wired, using a standard 3.5mm connector - which means it should be easy enough to swap the cable if you so desire. It’s worth giving Shanling’s cable a good long listen before you rush into anything, though – it’s a 1.5m length of loosely braided single crustal copper wire, and features a balanced 4.4mm termination. There’s a 6.3mm adapter in the packaging too.

• Features score: 5/5

Shanling HW600 review: Sound quality

• Spacious, well-defined sonic layout
• Punch and drive, dynamism and detail in equal measure
• Can sound slightly monotonal at the very bottom of the frequency range

Some headphones prioritize excitement and entertainment, and sacrifice analysis and insight in the process. Some headphones prefer to conduct a sort of aural audit of a recording, examining every nook and cranny, and can be a rather dull and undemonstrative listen as a result. And some, like the Shanling HW600, try to do a bit of everything.

The good news here is that the HW600 manage to do a bit of everything with a fair amount of success. The balance they strike between ‘entertainment’, ‘musicality’ and ‘analysis’ is expertly judged, and as a result they’re good company no matter the sort of listening you’re interested in doing or the sort of stuff you want to listen to while you do it.

A 24bit/88.2kHz FLAC file of Get Lucky by Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams is a hi-fi cliché these days, but for good reason. And when served by the HW600 via an iFi iDSD Diablo 2 headphone amplifier, its ubiquity is perfectly understandable. It allows the headphones to demonstrate their ability to describe an open, well-defined and carefully controlled soundstage, and to give appropriate weighting to the spaces, as well as the instruments, on it. It’s got the sort of rapid-fire low-frequency presence that lets the HW600 show off their control of attack and decay, and as a consequence their rhythmic certainty. And its mixture of textures and tones, as well as the close-mic’d nature of its vocal line, lets the Shanling demonstrate impressively neutral tonality and winningly even frequency response.

Detail levels are high throughout, and there’s more than enough substance at the top of the frequency range to balance out the brilliance the HW600 lend to treble sounds. Mid-range insight is straightforwardly accomplished – there’s no secret of Williams’ technique that the Shanling aren’t party to, and they’re more than happy to put everything into convincing context.

There’s more than enough dynamic headroom available to make the shifts in intensity during Eartheater’s How To Fight absolutely obvious, and the sort of attention they pay to the harmonic variations during Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten is approaching the fanatical. The textures and overlaps of that last recording are given full expression by the HW600, and as a result the sound is multi-faceted where, in less capable hands, it can come across as repetitive and monochrome.

Really, about the only area where the Shanling don’t perform with complete confidence is at the very bottom of the frequency range. The HW600 dig deep, most certainly, and they hit with solid assurance – there’s nothing powder puff about the low-frequency impact these headphones can summon. And up to a point, there’s plenty of variation and fine detail available at the same time. Beyond that point, though, down at the very depths of their extension, the Shanling lose some of their insight and simply rumble.

There’s no light or shade to the deepest bass notes here, no suggestion of texture or detail. If it’s ever going to be an issue, it will affect those who listen to a lot of EDM or other content that relies on low-end eloquence. The rest of us might just note it in passing and get on with enjoying the other 99 per cent of the reproduction of the frequency range.

• Sound quality score: 4.5/5

Shanling HW600 review: Design

• Friction-pole headband adjustment
• Make liberal use of lambskin
• 480g

Planar magnetic headphones, simply as a consequence of the technology they use, tend to be on the large side. But there’s ‘large’ and then there’s the Shanling HW600. I’m 6ft tall, and I flatter myself that my head is of proportionate size, but the HW600 just about fit me when adjusted to be as small as possible. So if you’re fortunate enough to be on the petite side, you can forget it.

Let’s assume, though, that your head is large enough to be accommodated comfortably inside the Shanling. You’ll find yourself wearing a pair of comfortable, nicely finished headphones that disguise their 480g weight well thanks to a carefully considered hanger arrangement. The earpads are of angled memory foam covered in lambskin, and there’s more of this rather divisive material forming the thin contact area of the headband. Between the two-tier headband arrangement and the rather rudimentary friction-pole headband adjustment mechanism, the HW600 are more than a little reminiscent of some of Meze Audio’s pricier over-ear designs. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that.

The outside of the earcups, as well as the yokes and outer portion of the headband, are made of aircraft-grade ‘7xxx’ aluminum – it feels almost as good as it looks. The design of the outer part of the earcups is, says Shanling, inspired by the traditional method of creating bamboo joints. It’s quite elegant and understated, and it prevents the HW600 looking as assertively open-backed as they otherwise might.

• Design score: 4/5

Shanling HW600 review: Value

• Premium materials, flawlessly deployed…
• … and plenty of them
• Successful in virtually every area of audio performance

Expensive(ish) headphones are always tricky in this respect. They need to be reasonably light in order to be comfortable, and until you get up close a pricey pair can look very much like an affordable pair.

But Shanling has given it a go where perceived value is concerned, there’s no arguing with the fit and finish, and sound quality is well up to the sort of standard the asking price demands. If you can live with the liberal use of lambskin, there’s definite value here.

• Value score: 4.5/5

Should I buy the Shanling HW600?

Buy them if...

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Shanling HW600 review: Also consider

How I tested the Shanling HW600

• Connected to an iFi Diablo 2 and a FiiO M15S
• Music of many different styles and resolutions
• Tested for well over a week

Being temporarily light on full-size equipment with anything other than a 3.5mm headphone socket, I used the HW600 connected directly to a FiiO M15S hi-res digital audio player via its 4.4mm output. I also plugged them into an iFi iDSD Diablo headphone amplifier, again via the 4.4mm connection, which was in turn connected to an Apple MacBook Pro running Colibri software.

And then I listened to a lot of different styles of music, of various file types and sizes, on a fairly strict ‘10am - 5pm’ basis for the entirety of a working week while taking time to compare the sound of the Shanling to a few appropriate alternatives I have about the place…

• First reviewed: December 2024
• Read more about how we test