FiiO's new CD deck is a portable player with a powerful desktop mode and seven hours of battery-powered playback.
It features an R2R DAC, Bluetooth, and is reasonably priced at $269.
With streaming prices heading ever upwards and some musicians pulling their music off services completely, CDs don't seem quite so dead any more. Their prices haven't rocketed like vinyl has, for starters, and there are a growing number of players designed to do them justice.
The latest comes from FiiO in the form of the DM15 R2R, the successor to the brand's popular DM13 deck. And it's quite a looker.
The DM15 comes in a compact aluminium chassis and sports a transparent top that enables you to see the disc as it spins. The insides have been improved over its predecessor too, in response to customer feedback.
FiiO DM15 R2R: key features and pricing
The DM15 R2R is powered by a high voltage rechargeable battery with a promised seven hours of playback time, and it features FiiO's proprietary R2R DAC (hence the name).
That uses a resistor ladder to deliver audio that's clean and reportedly more natural sounding than rival, non-R2R DACs. The amplifier chips for the headphone output are dual SGM8262s and put out up to 315mW per channel at 32 ohms in desktop mode. Portable mode delivers a still respectable 220mW.
The player works in multiple ways – as a normal CD player, as a USB DAC, as a Bluetooth transmitter, and as a Hi-Fi component via its optical and co-ax ports. There are both 3.5mm and balanced 4.4mm headphone outputs, with the former doubling as a multi-functional line output.
Bluetooth streaming supports the standard SBC as well as aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive and aptX Low Latency – just not aptX Lossless.
The player supports CD-Rs as well as normal CDs, playing FLAC, WAV, WMA, AAC and MP3 formats. As a DAC it plays music at up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM and native DSD256. The coaxial output delivers up to 24-bit/192kHz and the optical 24-bit/96kHz.
The DM15 R2R offers impressive specs and is priced keenly, albeit quite a bit more expensively than the DM13. It's $269 (about £202 / €230 / AU$408), and there's a choice of four colours. You can order it now for delivery in early January.
We're still awaiting UK and European launch details.
