"The M2 Pro is a new flagship DAP designed mainly for IEM use. Its voicing is reminiscent of our M1pro but the overall quality is really on a level with the flagship MR1. Pricing will be ~$1'000. We will launch it at a press conference in Shanghai this Sunday."

That had been my Soundaware contact Lesley Liu. Her update hit me on July 31st. Having just reviewed their MR1/P1, A300 and D300Ref in three consecutive reviews, I'd not seen an additional new product coming down the pike. I needed to clean my rear-view mirror. I needed to aim it at Shanghai. Then I'd seen more than the nude prototype board at the Beijing Headphone Expo at right. Instead I would have also cased out the early black and blue units showgoers played with. On the new model, there was more from Lesley. "Our new M2 Pro inherits the tonal style of the M1 Pro, then optimizes the platform which we already used so successfully on the MR1 and A300: twin DACs and an FPGA outputting isolated dual-mono I²S and DSD, the latter triggering the mono DACs into DSD processing."

The show display below demonstrates the size progression of Esther M1 Pro [far left] to M2 Pro [black and blue] and MR1. The MR1 aims at a crowd who regularly combine portable with stationary setups. They want one petite DLNA + WiFi + Bluetooth source to front their serious big headphones, car and speaker systems. They multi-task their DAP into duties as streamer, fully balanced standalone USB DAC and/or SD/USB media renderer. Here the M2 Pro aims predominantly at regular mobile users. And that means IEM, not big heavy over-ear headphones or any docking duties. Of the in-ear types, I had genre representatives by Campfire Audio, Final and HifiMan to conduct a meaningful review. But 'meaningful' also had to mean sussing out whether a standard smart phone wouldn't be sufficient to do all of the usual mobile tasks and do so in only one device. Why carry around two if one does the same job just as well? My pedestrian not audiophile-approved 2017 Samsung Galaxy A5 would stand in for the type smart phone most the Irish we see out and about actually carry.  Living on the rural west coast, the €1'000 iPhone types in Dublin aren't really our neighbours. But if that's you; and if you especially bought your handy based on its sterling sound specifications... then today's review—and any others about digital audio players aka 2018's version of the original 160GB iPod—isn't really for you. You've already phoned that in; hopefully loud and clear.

Reading Lesley's spec sheet, I learnt that the M2 Pro's casing is a CNC'd aluminium-alloy shell of 67 x 124.5 x 14.5mm dimensions and 175g mass. The display is a 400x360px 2.4" affair. Dual SD card slots supporting FAT32, Exfat and NTFS formatting can theoretically store up to 2 x 2TB once such cards are available. At present, 2 x 512GB should do most users. That's vastly more than the biggest old iPod. As a USB DAC, the M2 Pro has DSD128 support once a driver is installed. Apple's .alac and .aiff files are only supported up to 48kHz. Window's .wav and .flac equivalents get the full 32/192 corporate backing. Bluetooth is via APTX and CSR. Two selectable digital filters are sharp and slow roll-off. Claimed amplitude linearity is 20Hz-20kHz ±0.2dB. THD+N is 0.0006%. S/NR is 116dB A-weighted. Color choices go black or red. And that's all she—Lesley—said just then. The rest would be for my ears to figure out. All hands on deck.

The obvious in-house comparators had to be Soundaware's earlier Esther M1 Pro. Questyle's QP1R with its infernal wheel of death aka the natty scroll wheel which long since has gone wonky would be benched. That fact alone has me much prefer Esther's hard buttons. If you can't reliably access your files because the selector misfires, it doesn't matter how good the deck might make them sound or how cool it looks doing it. And what's up with the fingerprint-mad touch-screen craze in general? It has people install plastic protectors which dumb down screen resolution and still must be cleaned. I prefer traditional hard buttons. The M2 Pro splits my bill between the hard wheel and soft 'home' and 'back' touch controls.

The M2 Pro's top edge has a 2.5mm 8-600Ω balanced headphone socket, a 8-300Ω 3.5mm combo jack with 32/192PCM/DoP coax digital and a 3.5mm balanced line out. The latter is compadre with the SAW-Link analog interface already seen with the MR1. With their breakout cable, it can connect to the shown 2 x XLR expansion box from which to drive a balanced power amp or active speakers. So whilst Lesley's explanations didn't position the M2 Pro as being aimed at the stationary crowd, it still can be used that way. And as the upper photo also shows, the GUI theme has been updated with calligraphy.

The C-type USB input on the bottom edge bracketed by the two SD card slots promises +90% charging in just 2 hours when the M2 Pro is powered off. IEM play time is published as 11-14 hours (longer in balanced than single-ended mode); and as more than 20 hours in digital transport mode. If you have that much spare time on your hands, you're probably in jail.

The signal path is direct coupled to avoid all coupling capacitors. The power supply itself gets "more than 30 high-performance AVX Tantalum capacitors plus reference composite capacitors. We also use Molex, Alps and Würth parts."

This photo shows how the M2 Pro has grown to Questyle QP1R proportions; and how its matte finish avoids the reflections and fussy finger prints of its competitor's all glass front. In play mode, tapping the top of the wheel shuttles between both views. Tapping its bottom runs through repeat 1/all/shuffle modes. With the display blacked out via quick press on the power button, the wheel disables but the ± volume buttons on the side remain active. Blackout obviously prolongs play time. Activating 'pure line out' mode, I ran a 3.5mm stereo to 2 x RCA Zu leash into my active Eversound Essence computer speakers whilst Soundaware's USB cable kept the player charged at 100%. Running so for quite a few work-desk hours encountered zero misbehaviour. Like its stablemates, the M2 Pro plays indefinitely in charge mode without any distortion. Plus, line-out mode into a pair of active boxes sounded great and demonstrated excellent current drive, not always a given for portables in such employ. Though not openly advertised for a stationary position, this DAP makes an excellent foreman for the immobile job.

With tunes on the run as the main course of today's menu, HifiMan's RE2000 with their standard 3.5mm leash became the referee for my M1/M2 match of siblings. Here the newcomer acted as though its noise floor had been pushed even lower. Esther played it a bit softer all around, hence not quite as articulated and keen of outline. Esther also was a bit warmer. This manifested as that intangible 'something' across the backdrop and in-between/around sounds to contrast over against the M2 Pro's black emptiness. That produced higher contrast or image pop. Relatedly, Esther's gait felt more leisurely, M2's more taut and tensioned. In standard hifi terms, one would consider the M2 Pro's resolution and drive both taken up in lockstep as a showcase for the firm's ongoing R&D in this digital source sector.

Transitioning to Campfire's boisterous dynamic-driver Lyra in balanced drive meant lower volumes to compensate for their higher sensitivity. Following Patrick Chartol's rip-roaring electric bass guitar on Istanbul's "Oriental Bass" surprised with its low-end snarl, growl, warbling menace and blotting pops. Because of the M2's high contrast and profound silence, this Mercan Dede-esque music had a slightly backlit effect quite like its cover in the next photo.

Here is the same motif with a flac file's partial cover. The HifiMans partook in the photo op. If you're fond of minimalist Asian pen 'n' ink drawings, you'll concur that Soundaware really aced the graphics of their revised interface. As a highly resolving modern deck, this player had obviously zero issues to track the slightly golden, warm and elastic signature of the RE2000 versus the robust, dynamic very energetic grip/shove of the Lyra. Nor had it any hesitation pushing the 101dB-rated mega heavies of Final's Sonorous X, a €4'600 take-no-prisoner dynamic full-size over-ear headphone more than 500g weighty due to solid metal construction. In my book, those Japanese extremists in their flash gold/chrome skins act as a kind of über Sennheiser HD800 without the German's shortcomings; and with rather more powerful bass. True, nobody would wear them outdoors except perhaps on a covered balcony or back porch. The point is, the Soundaware drove them as beautifully as a low-power SET would show absolute mastery over a high-efficiency widebander to have one question the sanity of big burly amps. Obviously those remain needed for more reluctant loads. On that count, Final's big D8000 planars remained well within the purview of this circuit's high gain setting as another big can you'd never take on the road but could swap to once back home without needing a separate amp when the in-ears pull out.

The case against smart. Don't phone it in. If you're critical—not a point of honour but burden—even a made-to-go IEM like HifiMan's RE2000 still sounded clearly better off this DAP than on my smartphone. Granted, the offset wasn't enormous. A hifi-centric LG or equivalent might well close it. But where the M2's backgrounds were still like a pond without ripples, the Galaxy A5's had a sense of subliminal static. The Soundaware sounded more robust, open and assured. By contrast, the handy felt more constricted, narrower and energetically padded down. I'd liken this difference to how a premium widebander gushes. It scales completely out of the box and feels as direct as I imagine an illegal substance via needle might. Meanwhile even a very good conventional multi-way acts relatively contained and laboured by contrast and feels more distanced; a tad like a bystander reporting on the musical goings-on. That's not just about sound per se. It's how sounds (plural) behave. 

Rez the high. Taking another shot at Lesley's high-resolution card, I now had smooth sailing except that each time the player switched between DSD/PCM or flac/wav, the first track in the new format would be preceded by a noise or two. This could sound similar to a record needle hitting a groove. I heard no other demerits except to say that I wish I gave a toss. The vast majority of this music repertoire leaves me cold. But Soundaware's marketing banks on you being made of this higher stuff. Flip the player on its back where it reads "full balanced & FPGA based portable hifi music player, 192kHz PCM & DSD128, made in China". And it really is all that and does all that. Because I'd had such premium results with the M2 Pro's pure line-out on the desktop, I did the unthinkable and used the same 3.5mm-to-2xRCA Zu leash in the big system. This followed the lead of Simon Kwangli Lee, formerly of April Music now Simon Audio Lab, who runs an Astell&Kern via such Y-cable into his main system. I'd have tried the M2's coaxial output but couldn't find my one and only cable fitted with the necessary mini jack. Trying a Toslink with 3.5mm tip in the off chance of a language barrier slip netted nothing. That port really is a coax. So analog out into Wyred4Sound's preamp it was, from there fully balanced into LinnenberG Liszt monos and Audio Physic Codex 4-way speakers. 

Unlike on the desktop where on gain the M2Pro's analog output competed with a digital USB signal then hit an active linestage, the big rig's usual DACs dispatch 4V or more balanced. Consequently, the M2 Pro without the optional 2xXLR extension box and custom balanced umbilical upped the numbers on the preamp's volume display by a factor of 4. Below 64, the Wyred preamp in fact behaves purely passive, hence without voltage gain. Sonically, this got surprisingly close to an original AURALiC Vega which I drafted for service as a very recognizable quantity. At its time it had demanded €3'300. Five years later, a premium portable at ⅓ the ask could approach it with only a small gap in colour intensity where the Vega had always dominated. Because the 6m interconnects to the amps were driven by the preamp, the M2 Pro had no issue handling its short leash into it. In the context of a likely system whose owner would double-task this DAP for portable/stationary use, I'm confident you'd not want more. Premium dual-mono AKM 'Velvet Sound' chips driven mono I²S off a custom-coded FPGA followed by a balanced output stage powered by battery are a very winning recipe.

Pro. My only disappointment with the M2 was its scratch-prone acrylic screen. But a transparent protector easily covers that and should be included in production packaging. On all other counts, this black or red pocket rocket reconfirmed my impression that across their portfolio, this company recently kicked things up to ready distribution outside China. 

If you're shopping for a well-made versatile DAP with native DSD and the full range of expected functionality in the €1'000 league, put the M2 Pro on your shortlist. Soundaware aren't as recognizable a name yet as Sony, Astell&Kern or even Questyle but they clearly aim to mix it up in the same league. Based on the sonic and usage evidence, they belong, too. Like all of their 'second-gen' gear I've tested and compared to their predecessors—M1 Pro, A300, D300Ref—the M2 Pro is all about modern sound: linear, low noise, high resolution, without any detectable voicing that might require special scenarios to embed as intended. 'Modern' thus also means universal not specialized appeal. I'd say the time has come for the global market to take note of this brand.