Truthear SHIO Portable DAC/Amp

Packaging for the Truthear SHIO is quite similar to that on the HALO albeit the company still decided to get an illustrator to churn out yet another version of its "Shiroi" mascot for artwork. Otherwise we see the company logo and product name on the front and salient features at the bottom now with a poorly spaced out SHIO that clashes with the art instead—someone tell Truthear an editor is more important than an illustrator at this point! On the back are useful product specifications to go with contact info for the company and we again see the same style of two-piece packaging employed here. The inner box opens up to show paperwork in the form of a useful multi-language user manual, a warranty card, and another postcard. Underneath is a foam sheet with machined cutouts that hosts the SHIO in one compartment and a short, branded USB Type-C to Type-C cable in the other which Truthear says uses high-quality oxygen-free copper cores with a nylon mesh sleeve on top. Those wanting to use this with, say, iOS devices or a laptop/PC with USB Type-A ports will need to supply their own compatible cables.


Now we get to the SHIO itself which is one of the more pocketable of these portable DAC/amps that have been popping out frequently in the last couple of years after phone makers saw the profits of ditching the 3.5 mm jack in favor of selling their own TWS earphones. At 54 x 21.5 x 14 mm and also adopting a straightforward rectangular cuboid design, there is nothing to snag here as with the likes of the MOONDROP MoonRiver 2 we recently looked at, and it's also smaller than many other sources such as the excellent Questyle M15, FiiO BTR7, and Qudelix-5K. It uses a CNC-machined alloy alloy chassis that gets a layer of leather (pleather?) glued around that looks and feels more like soft touch plastic in the hands. I am not sure this was the best move for longevity though given the inevitable dust, finger oils, sweat, and even food/drink residue that will fall on it. This does allow for subtle Truthear branding on the designated top surface whereas one of the longer sides has volume controls along with an indicator LED. The shorter sides host the I/O in the form of a USB Type-C input and both a 3.5 mm single-ended TRS and 4.4 mm balanced TRRS connection. These default to headphone outputs on the firmware the SHIO ships with but Truthear mentioned there will be a user-replaceable firmware available on its website that should allow for the outputs to be used for external volume control instead.


If you were wondering why having that optional firmware is necessary, the standard firmware means the volume controls on the SHIO will only change the volume on the client device. The optional firmware—which should be up by the time this review is published—will allow independent volume controls thus making the SHIO work more like a preamp to be used to, say, connect your phone/PC to other devices such as active speakers or even another amplifier too. This feature automatically makes the SHIO stand out in the crowd of other such devices. As it stands, I can tell you the standard firmware works fine and will also probably be what most people will ever use the SHIO on anyway. The SHIO defaults to low gain mode upon powering up and this is visualized by the indicator LED turning red through the less-than-perfect cutout in the leather cover. Pressing down both volume + and volume - together toggles between the two gain levels and high gain is seen via the LED turning yellow. Note that this is with PCM playback (or none) and the colors are different in DSD playback. There is no memory on the device so it does not remember the gain level set before and always goes to low gain when powered on. This is a safe default stage as I'd rather not accidentally blow out my ear drums!


The SHIO is a wired-only device and there is no app support. It is automatically recognized by Windows 10/11 and supports up to 32-bit, 384 kHz PCM playback as seen above. There are 1st-party ASIO drivers available on the Truthear website allowing ASIO mode which is recognized by most media players as seen above—we do not get a separate USB audio control panel here nor any extra PCM playback rate options.


Those who have paid attention to this and the MoonRiver 2 coverage would have no doubt noticed the similarities down to the use of the same dual Cirrus Logic CS43198 DACs, the same I/O configuration, side-mounted volume controls that also change gain settings, as well as the same style indicator LED although thankfully not as prominently placed here. The SHIO does look quite similar and yet it is missing out on some of the stages in the overall circuitry as seen above (SHIO on the top, MoonRiver 2 on the bottom). This can explain the lower rated output power here compared to the MoonRiver 2 as seen in the specs table in page one, but it is still plenty to drive basically all IEMs as well as the vast majority of headphones! Truthear also rates the SHIO highly when it comes to ultra low distortion and high dynamic range to where it also measures beautifully flat across the entire 20 Hz to 20 kHz range and provides a clean and precise sound. I have very little complaints about the SHIO and only praise once we get to how much it costs!