[FIIO DM13] HiFi Balanced Output Portable Stereo CD Player DM13 Is Officially Released!

[llysender]

So you don't recommend it to anyone who wants to use it with an integrated amplifier and speakers?

I don't see why not. When I'm I'm not using it portably. I have it via spdif to my dac into speakers. If you want to you can 3.5mm into RCA or 4.4mm into double mono XR for your amp.

 

[HiFi Oasis]

So you don't recommend it to anyone who wants to use it with an integrated amplifier and speakers?

It will work fine in the way you describe, that's what the two line out connections on the back of the device are for.

 

[Safeinthemountains]

So you don't recommend it to anyone who wants to use it with an integrated amplifier and speakers?

He only said the quality of the built-in headphone amp is really good (from his perception). It just means you'll already have a good reproduction using it stand alone with good headphones. But you can also use either line-outs or optical/coaxial S/PDIF output with external DAC; the quality will then only depend on the DAC itself and the rest ot the chain of course

 

[Angel III]

Thanks guys. I'm waiting for the red version and with Bluetooth in Italy.

 

[Safeinthemountains]

Thanks guys. I'm waiting for the red version and with Bluetooth in Italy.

Good luck, I hope it will not take many months to get there...
As I stated before, I finally decided to order from Aliexpress, because the chances to get White Skylight from french/EU webshops is close to zero for the time being.

 

[darmok]

So you don't recommend it to anyone who wants to use it with an integrated amplifier and speakers?

He only said the quality of the built-in headphone amp is really good (from his perception). It just means you'll already have a good reproduction using it stand alone with good headphones. But you can also use either line-outs or optical/coaxial S/PDIF output with external DAC; the quality will then only depend on the DAC itself and the rest ot the chain of course

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. I have tried the S/PDIF out to an external DAC, but I don't really see a need to use it. I was very pleasantly surprised at how good the imaging was and how punchy the dynamics were as well. I am sure the pre-outs feeding an amp or powered speakers would also be quite good.

 

[inPhase]

Hello All - as a new shopper for the DM13 I have found it confusing regarding Bluetooth vs Non Bluetooth.
I have recently purchased a unit which I assume does not have bluetooth - however the included documentation does have an FCC note regarding compliance with regulations and frequency range broadcast by bluetooth.

**
The firmware reported in my unit upon startup is v11.
Has Fiio released the same hardware for both BT and nonBT units and simply postured the product as BT or not by virtue of what firmware is installed?
**

Would it be a mistake to attempt install of the available recent FW of v25?
I am curious if that would allow access to the bluetooth component if it is indeed in the hardware.

And furthermore are legacy versions of firmware available so that one could “step back” to previous version if desired?
Or second best … can a factory reset be performed to revert to stock firmware?
My questions are around how risky would it be to attempt install of v25 to this unit.

(Thank you and please excuse if I am posting out of line - I am new to this forum and forum conduct in general)

 

[sleepwizard]

Hello All - as a new shopper for the DM13 I have found it confusing regarding Bluetooth vs Non Bluetooth.
I have recently purchased a unit which I assume does not have bluetooth - however the included documentation does have an FCC note regarding compliance with regulations and frequency range broadcast by bluetooth.

**
The firmware reported in my unit upon startup is v11.
Has Fiio released the same hardware for both BT and nonBT units and simply postured the product as BT or not by virtue of what firmware is installed?
**

Would it be a mistake to attempt install of the available recent FW of v25?
I am curious if that would allow access to the bluetooth component if it is indeed in the hardware.

I think I read somewhere that if you install Bluetooth firmware on a non-Bluetooth device, you may actually lose some functionality.

 

[HiFi Oasis]

Hello All - as a new shopper for the DM13 I have found it confusing regarding Bluetooth vs Non Bluetooth.
I have recently purchased a unit which I assume does not have bluetooth - however the included documentation does have an FCC note regarding compliance with regulations and frequency range broadcast by bluetooth.

**
The firmware reported in my unit upon startup is v11.
Has Fiio released the same hardware for both BT and nonBT units and simply postured the product as BT or not by virtue of what firmware is installed?
**

Would it be a mistake to attempt install of the available recent FW of v25?
I am curious if that would allow access to the bluetooth component if it is indeed in the hardware.

And furthermore are legacy versions of firmware available so that one could “step back” to previous version if desired?
Or second best … can a factory reset be performed to revert to stock firmware?
My questions are around how risky would it be to attempt install of v25 to this unit.

(Thank you and please excuse if I am posting out of line - I am new to this forum and forum conduct in general)

@FiiO Willson would be the on who can tell us if V11 is the latest firmware for the non-Bluetooth version.

The only difference as far as I can tell between the two versions is Bluetooth, so one will have the Bluetooth chipset and the other does not. It would be incredibly risky to try and update the non-Bluetooth version with the Bluetooth version's firmware. There may even be checks in place within the firmware to prevent this, but I imagine at worst you would end up bricking your DM13.

Are you experiencing any issues with your unit that would prompt you to look for a newer firmware?

 

[inPhase]

Thank you sleepwizard and HiFi oasis for your input.

@sleepwizard - yes I recall seeing that comment mentioned in the Fiio firmware "how to update firmware" guide however it was worded in such a vague way - I wondered if it could be the case that they are warning that if you install the "non bluetooth" firmware over a "bluetooth" unit that you would indeed lose some functionality - specifically the bluetooth feature itself. Admittedly I am considering this entirely based upon interpretation of the comment.

@HiFi Oasis - no I am not experiencing any issues -- YET ... however again my reason for posting is to confirm whether or not there really are 2 versions of the product in terms of the hardware. There are a number of reasons I have considered that it may be the case that what is deemed a "non bluetooth" DM13 may actually be hardware equipped to support bluetooth limited only by the firmware not exposing that service. As I mentioned in my previous post - the documentation specifically calls out compliance with FCC bluetooth requirements - whilst the unit itself (with Firmware v11) does not offer bluetooth as on option ... hence my thinking - how about I try the v25 firmware and see what happens. Furthermore the documentation states "product contained may be upgraded and therefore may not match packaging".

Thank you again for contributing to this topic and yes I do hope @FiiO Willson can provide some confirmation / clarity on this front.

 

[sleepwizard]

I've been reading about CDs and how some early releases, particularly from the 1980s and early 2000s, used preemphasis—a process that boosts high frequencies during recording. If a CD player doesn’t apply deemphasis during playback, these discs will sound overly bright and harsh.

I looked into the DAC used in this device, the CS43198, and according to the schematics, it supports deemphasis for preemphasized CDs. However, this feature is off by default. To ensure these CDs play correctly, a player using this DAC must either provide a manual option to enable deemphasis or have firmware that detects preemphasis and activates the DAC’s deemphasis filter automatically.

I don’t have the player myself, so I can’t test it with my older CDs. Does anyone know if the player handles preemphasis properly? Have you tested it with older CDs, especially ones known to have preemphasis? How do they sound?

For those who are curious, you can check the player's DAC (CS43198) at the following link:

https://statics.cirrus.com/pubs/proDatasheet/CS43198_DS1156F2.pdf

Scroll to page 111 and refer to the table under section 7.5.2, "PCM Filter Option." Then look for:

DEEMP_ON

• 0 (Default): Deemphasis for 44.1 kHz is disabled.
• 1: Deemphasis for 44.1 kHz is enabled.

This confirms that, by default, preemphasized CDs will sound harsh unless this setting is switched from 0 (off) to 1 (on), either manually or through an automatic process within the firmware.

 

[2leftears]

I've been reading about CDs and how some early releases, particularly from the 1980s and early 2000s, used preemphasis—a process that boosts high frequencies during recording. If a CD player doesn’t apply deemphasis during playback, these discs will sound overly bright and harsh.

I looked into the DAC used in this device, the CS43198, and according to the schematics, it supports deemphasis for preemphasized CDs. However, this feature is off by default. To ensure these CDs play correctly, a player using this DAC must either provide a manual option to enable deemphasis or have firmware that detects preemphasis and activates the DAC’s deemphasis filter automatically.

I don’t have the player myself, so I can’t test it with my older CDs. Does anyone know if the player handles preemphasis properly? Have you tested it with older CDs, especially ones known to have preemphasis? How do they sound?

For those who are curious, you can check the player's DAC (CS43198) at the following link:

https://statics.cirrus.com/pubs/proDatasheet/CS43198_DS1156F2.pdf

Scroll to page 111 and refer to the table under section 7.5.2, "PCM Filter Option." Then look for:

DEEMP_ON

• 0 (Default): Deemphasis for 44.1 kHz is disabled.
• 1: Deemphasis for 44.1 kHz is enabled.

This confirms that, by default, preemphasized CDs will sound harsh unless this setting is switched from 0 (off) to 1 (on), either manually or through an automatic process within the firmware.

Doesn't the CS43198 handle that automatically?

The pre-emphasis flag is normally embedded in the I²S stream the DAC chip receives.

More pertinent is the question whether the DM13 embeds the pre-emphasis flag in the I²S stream based on the CD pre-emphasis flag in the TOC of the CD, or the pre-emphasis flag embedded in the subcodes of each data frame. CDs with pre-emphasis could historically be hit-and-miss whether the pre-emphasis flag was also contained in the TOC, or only embedded in the subcodes for every data frame for those songs that have it. This means ideally a CD player should observe pre-emphasis flags in BOTH the TOC as well as the subcodes in the data frames, but not all CD players do that.

EDIT: my bad, I just checked. The pre-emphasis flag is embedded in the S/PDIF protocol, but not in the I²S protocol. This means the decoder of the DM13 will have to set the de-emphasis filter on the DAC.

 

[sleepwizard]

Doesn't the CS43198 handle that automatically?

The pre-emphasis flag is normally embedded in the I²S stream the DAC chip receives.

More pertinent is the question whether the DM13 embeds the pre-emphasis flag in the I²S stream based on the CD pre-emphasis flag in the TOC of the CD, or the pre-emphasis flag embedded in the subcodes of each data frame. CDs with emphasis could historically be hit-and-miss whether the pre-emphasis flac was also contained in the the TOC, or only embedded in every data frame for those songs that have it. This means ideally a CD player should observe pre-emphasis flags in BOTH the TOC as well as the subcodes in the data frames, but not all CD players do that.

I was thinking that the player itself has to handle this because, by default, it shows that the filter is turned off. To me, this suggests that something needs to trigger it on. I would have thought that this process should be handled by the player—either manually, by pressing buttons to switch the filter on, or through an automatic process within the player's firmware that detects which discs require the filter to be enabled. It would probably be more ideal for the player to have a manual option to switch the filter on, because some CDs don’t have the appropriate flags, something I learned from poking around the Steve Hoffman forums. Hopefully, someone from Fiio can chime in and explain how it all works with the Fiio DM13. The functionality is present in the DAC itself. The question is what the player is doing in conjunction with the DAC.

 

[2leftears]

I was thinking that the player itself has to handle this because, by default, it shows that the filter is turned off. To me, this suggests that something needs to trigger it on. I would have thought that this process should be handled by the player—either manually, by pressing buttons to switch the filter on, or through an automatic process within the player's firmware that detects which discs require the filter to be enabled. It would probably be more ideal for the player to have a manual option to switch the filter on, because some CDs don’t have the appropriate flags, something I learned from poking around the Steve Hoffman forums. Hopefully, someone from Fiio can chime in and explain how it all works with the Fiio DM13. The functionality is present in the DAC itself. The question is what the player is doing in conjunction with the DAC.

Well, interpreting the pre-emphasis flag(s) on the CD and embedding them in the I²S stream feeding into the DAC is the task of the decoder that may also handle the CIRC de-interleaving. So it depends on what decoder and/or decoder software FiiO use in the DM13. Maybe they can confirm.

EDIT: incidentally, pre-emphasis is not a feature that necessarily applies to the whole CD. It can be song/track-specific and in theory there is the facility to also switch on/off the pre-emphasis in the middle of a song (not that I think anyone ever did that). Hence the importance to really look at the pre-emphasis flag embedded in the subcodes of each dataframe, rather than just looking at the TOC.
Also, be aware that the CDs mastered with pre-emphasis are few. And the ones where the flag has not been embedded in the TOC are even rarer. Unless you own a lot of older CDs, the problem is likely to be academic in practice for most people.

EDIT: my bad, I just checked. The pre-emphasis flag is embedded in the S/PDIF protocol, but not in the I²S protocol. This means the decoder of the DM13 will have to set the de-emphasis filter on the DAC.

 

[sleepwizard]

Well, interpreting the pre-emphasis flag(s) on the CD and embedding them in the I²S stream feeding into the DAC is the task of the decoder that may also handle the CIRC de-interleaving. So it depends on what decoder and/or decoder software FiiO use in the DM13.

Maybe they can confirm.

Yes, confirmation would be great. I have so many pre-2000s discs, and it would be disappointing to buy this player only to have a bunch of them sound terrible.