Music streaming is the default choice for millions of song lovers the world over but many of us still have bulging CD collections on shelves or in storage boxes. You can even still buy new music on CD from most popular artists, and there are still shops that stock classic albums if you prefer physical music media to enjoy artwork and liner notes and financially support your favourite singers and bands.
If you have a big CD collection and want to listen on the go, you might still be rocking your old Sony Discman or Walkman, or a similar device from another manufacturer. These portable players used to be readily available ten to twenty years ago and sold for very cheap prices when the compact disc was king.
But in 2025, it’s incredibly difficult to find a new portable CD player. The simple reason is that companies don’t make them any more. That is, unless you are FiiO.
FiiO is a Chinese electronics company founded in 2007. It’s best known amongst audio gearheads as the maker of digital audio players, or DAPs, which play downloaded music files such as MP3, WAV and FLAC. They are the modern equivalent of the iPod but have a niche place in modern music buying as the majority of listeners simply pay Spotify or Apple Music each month to stream tunes via their smartphones.
FiiO recently launched the DM13, a portable CD player that is a modern take on the Walkman. It’s larger than your old device, with a boxy look quite unlike the razor-thin players Sony and Panasonic were producing by the height of the CD’s sales popularity in the late 2000s.
As FiiO told The Verge in a recent video, finding the laser head for the DM13 was a huge challenge, and the size of the player is simply because the parts that make up the device are not common any more. Suppliers simply don’t make the components in the same way any more because there is no demand from consumers or manufacturers for portable players.
The FiiO also likely costs more than your old player did with an RRP of £179. But for the price you get a regular 3.5mm headphone jack, larger 4.4mm balanced output, plus Bluetooth connectivity that can playback with the aptX HD Hi-Res standard if you have compatible headphones.
The easiest way to playback is with the 3.5mm jack, with volume excellent through my Bose QC45 headphones. I had to Google how to pair the same headphones via Bluetooth, which is fiddly but works, though the maximum volume is lower and isn’t as loud on lesser cans. It’s best to stick to wired output, though using wireless headphones is attractive because the player is too big for most pockets, so you can listen while it’s in your bag. The Bluetooth connection was also occasionally unstable for me, with cutouts on my Bose, but worked well through the Ultimate Ears Miniroll wireless speaker.
Music quality is excellent and evidently better than streaming services because CDs have great audio quality. Spotify’s current highest resolution playback is 320 kilobits per second (kbps), pitifully lower than CD’s 1,411kbps. Digging out my CD collection, my favourite songs sounded full of life again, though not as crystal clear as can be achieved through the highest resolution digital formats.
Though the FiiO’s form factor means you can take it out and about thanks to the built-in rechargeable battery that lasts about eight hours and the anti-skip tech that stops the CD cutting out when it gets jiggled around, I’ve been mostly using the DM13 at home. It’s best used with headphones and just sitting and actually listening to music, an album from front to back.
Much like plugging into your vinyl turntable stack all those years ago and bugging out to Dark Side of the Moon, the device offers you the time and space to solely enjoy music again, rather than the algorithmic playlists of streaming services that often turn our music collections into coincidental background jangle.
I tested the black version which looks slick but picks up fingerprints easily due to the matte finish. If you want to buy the DM13 I’d go for the silver version, plug in, sit back, and enjoy your music again. You just need to bring a bag with you, or simply dig out your older, sleeker Discman from storage.
You can buy the FiiO DM13 from AV.com
