John Darko
During this morning’s second coffee, I found myself listening to some ambient funk from 1995: Fila Brazillia’s Maim That Tune; not via a stream but the original CD; and not via loudspeakers but a pair of headphones. BUT! No headphone extension cable trailed across the floor in front of me to reach the main hifi. Instead, on the arm of the couch, next to the coffee cup, sat a battery-powered portable CD player from FiiO called the DM13 (US$155). A pair of Sennheiser HD650 did the talking.
Yes, the FiiO reads CD-R discs. No, it will not play SACDs. Click buttons for play/pause, volume up/down and track previous/next line the front edge of the ‘skylight’ lid, through which I can see the CD and the CD can see me. FiiO offers the DM13 with a non-transparent lid in red, blue, black or white finishes but with all variants, the lid locks into place with a click. Once the Fila Brazillia CD had finished, I pulled on the side panel’s spring slider to release the lid and swapped out the disc for Low’s Trust.
The Sennheiser headphones ship with a 6.4mm-terminated single-ended cable. I could’ve adapted that to fit the FiiO’s 3.5mm socket (which sits to the left of the LCD display) but I find those worm-like 6.4mm-3.5mm adapters annoying to look at. Elegant they are not. Instead, I purchased a third-party balanced cable and hooked the HD650 into the FiiO via its 4.4mm socket (which sits to the right of the LCD display). Balanced connections double the single-ended socket’s potential power output for up to 660mW into 32 Ohms.
This isn’t the best I’ve heard the 300-Ohm HD650 sound but it’s a long way from the worst. Just Comfortable listening levels sat somewhere close to 50 out of 99 on the DM13’s volume dial. Bass was reassuringly solid but the mid-range – especially male vocals – came across as just a little hazy. Who’s complaining at the DM13’s US$155/€177 asking price? Not me.
Engaging full hipster mode yesterday, I took the DM13 and Campfire Audio Clara IEM for a walk to a local cafe. This told me that this portable CD player’s ‘electronic skip protection’ (ESP) works as advertised. The data buffer is reportedly good for up to 60 seconds of glitch-free playback but – weirdly – even with ESP switched off and the DM13 placed in a coat pocket, I still enjoyed a skip-free listening experience. And before anyone asks, yes, playback is gapless.
Coming in less than ‘as advertised’ is the battery’s runtime. FiiO quotes ten hours. My usage tests says it’s closer to seven. Battery recharging is handled via a rear panel USB-C socket where a nearby D-Mode (Desktop Mode) switch allows the unit to run directly from that same hard-wired 5V 2A feed but without pulling any power from the unit’s internal battery. That’s a win for battery longevity. And it’s a win for those wanting to connect the FiiO to a home hi-fi system.
Along the rear edge sit balanced 4.4mm ‘LO’ and 3.5mm ‘LO’ sockets. LO = line out; both pull on an analogue signal generated by FiiO’s internal twin-CS43198 Cirrus-Logic DAC circuit. That’s the DM13 running in ‘PRE OUT’ — one of four operational modes. We use the power button to cycle through them. This is where (functionally speaking) the DM13 pulls ahead of the portable CD players of yesteryear and modern-day rivals like the Moondrop DiscDream 2 Ultra. We’ll go MUCH deeper into that side-by-side comparison in our review video. More on that in a moment.
‘S/PDIF OUT’ mode turns the 3.5mm LO socket into a digital output from which we can extract mini-TOSLINK and coaxial (via the supplied adapter) to feed a third-party DAC. Now the DM13 is a CD transport.
‘BLUE OUT’ turns on the DM13’s Bluetooth transmitter for a wireless connection between it and a pair of Bluetooth headphones. Be advised: AAC and LDAC aren’t part of the deal here so, for higher-quality playback, headphones supporting aptX and/or aptX HD are recommended. I went with the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 4 and quickly saw how the FiiO tries to pair with the first Bluetooth receiver it sees (my TV!). So, it’s best to do the initial Bluetooth headphone pairing when no other receivers are in range. Note: a non-Bluetooth version of the DM13 is available for €15 less.
Then there’s ‘USB OUT’ mode which gives us the DM13’s most unexpected and (so far) unreliable feature: not a USB audio output or USB DAC functionality but CD ripping. Connect a USB storage device to the ‘Power In’ socket and a USB recharge cable to the ‘USB REC’ (counterintuitive, I know) and with a long press of the play/pause button, the FiiO will rip the CD to the USB storage device.
CD ripping comes with some compromises: 1) the storage device must be formatted as FAT32; 2) all rips are done at 1x speed — so, in real-time; 3) there is (understandably) no internal FLAC encoder inside the DM13 so all files are ripped as .wav — .flac encoding and metadata injection fall to the end user and third-party software.
“Unreliable”? For reasons unknown, one in roughly four rips fails to complete. Yes, I have tried different USB drives and USB-A-to-USB-C fly lead adaptors but no dice. I’ve asked FiiO about this issue and expect to hear back from them after the Chinese New Year. Their response will feature in our upcoming video which won’t appear until I’ve recovered from a shoulder/arm injury. I’m on the mend. I can type short posts again but video editing remains off the table. I don’t yet know if we will shoot the video in Lisbon or Berlin. With the FiiO being a compact and portable device, it can go anywhere.
Further information: FiiO
