Inherited from a deceased friend the 'Shanling' is stunning! No other words can describe it a true piece of audio architecture. To audition I use the outputs straight into a Musical Fidelity 'A' class amp. Both units produce a warm sound that is immensely listenable.SACD as a format is a no go! Buying the disc's (at inflated price's and limited selection) makes the whole format moribund. Playing conventional CD's the 'Shanling' performed no better than the top end Azur CD player I use as a reference.
The headphone socket is a big addition, and whilst controllable from the remote the volume is set at a factory default that is far too low.
I have been told to leave the unit ON all the time to increase the longevity of the valves, but as there is no standby function and also it consumes 70watts my green image disalows this.

Very nice looking unit. This unit can be hooked directly to an amplifier w/o a preamp. But the dealer told me it would sound best if it is played wide open and through a preamp. So I run it into my Bel Canto pre3. It has a solid state output and a tube output.This allowed me to hook up 2 tube moneblocks and a ss amp and various speaker combinations. I could then run the tube output or the ss output with a tube power amp or ss. Very nice for getting the right combination. The sound is very nice. There is a difference between the ss and tube sound from this unit. The tube sound is softer and the ss mor precise. I upgraded the tubes. It plays SACD, cd and cdr. Loading a disc is easy . It is a manual load with a magnetic weight to stablize the disc. Very nice and I prefer it to the mechanical loading tray on most untis. But there is a little noise do to being on top of the chassis instead of inside it. Although I am the only one that has noticed it. Unit has a headphone jack and remote. The remote is weak. It works but most buttons are not used. The remote could be much smaller. I play a wide variety of music. This unit plays it all very nice. I have compared it to an NAD, a technics and mitsubishi cd players. The sound was not even close. The Shanling was much higher priced and the sound quality was far superior. I very much like this unit.