FiiO DM13 Portable CD Player Review

If you’re the kind of person who would use the FiiO DM13 at home or on the road, chances are you’ve got shelves full of music CDs to feed it. But why should you give this device some consideration?

In a nutshell, it sounds really good whether listening with headphones, plugged into a stereo system, or listening via Bluetooth. So since most of our readers have plenty of shiny discs around, you’ll be ready to go.

I found the DM13 to be a fine audio player, and it’s likely better than the CD player gathering dust in your closet. I would characterize it as a good-sounding portable disc player that you thought you’d never need but will love when you have it.

If you’ve been paying attention to physical media sales for the last few years you’ve seen some curious changes. The sale of vinyl is way up. It’s a medium pronounced dead in the 80s, but here we are. It’s part nostalgia, part a desire for better quality, and a degree of emotional involvement with the music.

CDs, which took some really hard knocks as streaming took over, have also been declared, if not dead, to be breathing very hard. It’s been the same with movies on physical media, as movie sales plunged when people found out they could get a movie without a physical rental or a purchase. Best Buy and other retailers dropped movies on disc, and CDs are almost impossible to find in stores, other than places like Amazon.

So, it seems, at first glance, that everything that was popular in audio and video playback has fallen on hard times while streaming of music and movies rules the day. Hollywood and the entertainment complex love this. They hate the idea of you owning music and movies and playing them as many times as you like. When streaming came in, it was like an answer to their prayers. If you like a movie or a CD, stream it. Of course, you’ll really be renting it. Either on a subscription basis or as in the case of movies, you’ll pay for a movie, watch it and it’s gone. You can also stream movies to own, but they are a box of digits, not permanent, and in some cases, the studios can decide you don’t own it anymore.

So, with all this glum news, what is FiiO, a respected electronics and audio company, doing bringing out a new CD player with the DM13? Even more mystifying at first glance, it’s a portable player, bringing back memories of the old Sony Discman, a player that let you take your CDs with you if you had a pair of headphones.

FiiO believes the DM13 fills a need, and there’s some agreement from recent industry figures. So, look more closely and you’ll see some interesting changes that are the opposite of the common wisdom. In January, CD sales showed their first increase in 20 years. The recording industry body, the RIAA, in a mid-year report for 2024, said that CDs are now outselling digital albums (downloads) 3 to 1. There were 16.8 million CDs sold in the first half of 2024, which is a 3.3% increase from the previous year. This growth, while modest, is very different from the 15.7% decrease in digital album units, which fell to 8.9 million.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably got hundreds of CDs strewn around, maybe moved into closets, the basement, or the garage. So here comes FiiO with a new product to let you use your old disc-based music. And rather than your old CD player with 1990s specs, here comes a new take on the CD player, which FiiO is betting is going to please many music consumers.

This is a nicely designed little CD player. It has every input and output you would desire, analog and digital. It can find a home in your office for headphone listening or it can be hooked up to your computer through a DAC, using the DM13 as a transport. Its analog outs can work in a car or drive some powered speakers. The DM13 supports gapless playback and will play varied CD formats (like MP3 CDs) but doesn’t support SACD, which is no surprise at this price. Still, it does play WAV, WMA, AAC, and FLAC files from a compact disc you have bought or burned.

You can rip CDs from this player to a computer or a flash drive in Windows Media format. The box contains a USB-A to USB-C charging and data cable. It does not include a power adaptor, something that seems to be on the endangered list. I guess companies assume you’ll have a lot of these around. There’s also a 3.5mm to coaxial adapter and a quick start guide.

The DM13 has 7 buttons for control and the player sports a high contrast display that is easy to read. There are also 2 headphone ports, a 3.5mm port on the left, and a 4.4mm port to the right of the display.

On the back panel, there are switches for Skip Protection (which keeps the player from skipping in a car or when moving around) and a desktop mode for when you are not using the battery. Looking at the illustration, left to right, you’ll see a balanced line out, composite 3.5 mm line out/coaxial/optical, USB recording, electronic shock protection, a power port for charging from a 5V power supply, and the desktop mode switch.

On the side of the DM13 is a switch to release the lid.

One thing you didn’t get on the old Sony players, or any other portables is Bluetooth. For headphones or Bluetooth-capable speakers, the DM13 supports newer formats like aptX, aptX Low Latency, and aptX HD. That means excellent wireless quality with properly equipped headphones or speakers.

In the box:
The FiiO DM13
A 3.5mm to coaxial adapter
1 USB-C to USB-A adapter
4 additional rubber feet
A Quickstart manual and warranty information

The setup is trivial. Charge it up, or just plug it in. (You’ll need a wall brick with a USB-C port to charge it. One is not included). Then decide what device will play the music. I tried it on my computer for playback, which worked fine. I also tried wired headphones (Focal and Sennheiser) and Focal Wireless headphones.

I also tested the CD-ripping abilities. It’s not something a person could figure out without instructions, and it involved having a computer with a FAT32-formatted USB drive.

To RIP a CD, you plug a USB drive into the POWER IN Port, which doesn’t seem logical. Another USB cable to provide power goes into the port marked USB REC. Seems the opposite, but that’s what works. Anyway, switch the player to USB OUT and hit the play button. The FiiO screen will show ‘recording’ and soon you’ll have a ripped CD. While the WMA files sounded good, I would have preferred a FLAC option which is more popular. Still, it’s a nifty feature, and rare to find on any CD player, much less a portable one.

I have to say this little disc player sounded quite good. The Cirrus chips it’s using are noted for their neutrality and that’s what I heard through multiple headphones. I wouldn’t class the audio quality as top-of-the-line audiophile, and after all, I was playing CDs, not high-resolution files, but the sound was good. There was silence between tracks, which meant there weren’t any noisy electronics distracting me from the music. I played the same CDs on some other players I had around, a Sony, and an Oppo. Frankly, the discs all sounded the same, or very, very similar.

Here are some tracks I found to be a good listen:

For $179.99 the FiiO DM13 offers high value and good quality for someone who wants to exploit their CD collection. It can run on battery or power, and work with a hi-fi system in say a bedroom or office. I got a little more than 8 hours on each charge, so it’s very practical for travel. It can output music wired over analog or digital connections or use the latest Bluetooth codecs. So, for a person with a CD collection, I’d say the DM13 is low-cost, and high-value.

I had a great time listening to a bunch of my CDs directly from the discs, rather than my usual ripped FLACS playing back over my Roon system.

I thought this was a viable way to get good-quality music in a portable form in your office, your car, or when traveling. Of course, you’ll also be taking some discs along, which is a negative compared to a digital player that can also play high-resolution files.

Still, the DM13 was fun, and something I instantly wanted to use over and over. I enjoyed a lot of discs I never ripped and had on shelves in the garage.

All in all, a good experience with a touch of nostalgia.