Christmas Day, 2003. Up until this point, I’d been living with a cassette player and the headphones that came in the box, occupying myself with audio versions of the Redwall books. The concept of a CD was familiar to me, thanks to my Dad's extensive selection, but I was yet to experience the silver discs for myself — until the fateful day that saw me receive The Billy The Kid Suite and a CD player, wrapped in sparkling red paper.
Suddenly, music was accessible not just through the radio, but whenever I wanted it — all I needed were those precious, silver-colored discs. Since then I’ve amassed… some CDs, and I’m constantly looking for new ways to play them.
This is my latest CD-playing device — and it harkens back to one of my favorites. The Fiio DM13 brings portable CD players in the year 2024, and while it has some features you wouldn’t have seen on players from my childhood, it’s still the same wonderful experience at its core.
A more manual listen
Vinyl might be the be-all and end-all of manual music playback with its tone arms, needles, and spinning platters that revolve around for all to see, but there’s still something imminently tactile about playing a CD. It feels deliberate as you click open the CD tray, click the disc into place, close the lid, and then sit back to listen to the whole album without pressing the skip button.
The DM13 brings that wonderful tactility back in some key ways. For one, the whole thing is made out of metal, giving it a reassuring weight and heft. It’s only 15 ounces or so, but it feels solid in the hand. The lid clicks open with a satisfying click, and then swings into place smoothly. Closing the lid feels solid and confidence-inspiring, without any lateral movement or looseness. It’s like that Walkman you had when you were a kid, but made of metal, and you don’t have to replace the AA batteries every 3 hours.
Playing a CD is as manual and tactile as you want it to be. The CD clicks into place, you close the lid, it spins up with a whir, and then it plays your music.
CDs in 2024
There are some improvements to the formula to bring the device into the space year 2024, of course. The OLED screen on the front is clear and old-school yes, but it's also bright and legible in different environments and lighting situations. There’s a USB-C rechargeable battery inside that provides 10 hours of battery without having to swap out any internals or click off a snappable panel. There’s a switch on the back to switch the onboard DAC on and off in case you want to use your own, and then different outputs on the back for balanced headphones and more.
But there’s one addition that really makes the whole package feel modern — a Bluetooth connection for the best wireless headphones. It’s not the most user-friendly thing to find, given that you have to press and hold several buttons before you find the right menu, and pairing the headphones is slightly annoying, but when it’s all connected, it works well. It brings a device that could have just been a simple nostalgia trip into the present and makes it more usable as a result.
Is it good at playing CDs?
So most of the sound is going to come from the headphones you plug in, but yes, the DM13 is good at playing CDs. The motor is a little loud, but you don’t notice it when you’re plugged in and listening to your music. The DAC inside has a habit of making things a little more analytical though, so you’ll want to connect a pair of warmer headphones to counteract and bring back some of the low end.
Unlike Vinyl, a CD contains digital files, so you’re not going to find any differences in the actual CDs themselves. Its the post-processing where the DM13 does its work, and it does its work well. You can even record your CDs to a computer with the USB-C port on the back, which is a useful feature.
Anything missing?
There’s not much missing, as such, but there are a couple of nice-to-haves that I haven’t seen on the device. I’d like it if the player recognized file names when playing written CDs, but its omission is no great issue in the long run. An optical port on the back as well would be good for external DACs, but given most use USB-C these days you won’t be tearing your hair out for what might be the most annoying connector ever created.
But it’s not about what’s missing — it’s about what’s here. The DM13 is a wonderful piece of nostalgia-driven tech, bringing me back to car rides on the way to family holidays, with the Billy the Kid suite blasting at top volume. If the Billy the Kid suite can blast. I suspect not.
