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

[aceedburn]

It is expected that the next version of DM13 software will solve the following problems:
1, the first second sometimes can not be read, are trying to cancel the very beginning of direct play, you can try to play it by yourself
2, optimize the charging of the power display
3, to improve the ability of read some discs

Currently submitted to the technicians to modify , but the completion of the time is not sure, but now the V25 firmware, compared to other CD products, has been very good. You can use it with confidence.

Thanks for your reply @FiiO Willson

What is number 2? Optimise the charging of the power display? You will show an indicator when the device is charging and fully charged?

How about the flashing volume indicator during Bluetooth playback? Is that normal behaviour?seems rather odd.

 

[Kogut]

My main concern is this odd buffering with ESP off. Why is it buffering 8 seconds ahead when ESP is off?

ESP is not lossless, so how about this one? I have to check if I hear the difference.

 

[pacmanbr]

It is expected that the next version of DM13 software will solve the following problems:
1, the first second sometimes can not be read, are trying to cancel the very beginning of direct play, you can try to play it by yourself
2, optimize the charging of the power display
3, to improve the ability of read some discs

Currently submitted to the technicians to modify , but the completion of the time is not sure, but now the V25 firmware, compared to other CD products, has been very good. You can use it with confidence.

And what about the buffering even with ESP turned off? Is this a design issue and can't be fixed by firmware upgrade?

 

[uptipp]

To be honest after a few teething problems I’m having no issues with my DM13,still using V22,not updated it yet,all these problem other posters seem to encounter with their DM13 I’m not,no buffering etc etc,it’s working perfectly,touch wood,although my only gripe is the time it takes to charge the battery and no way of telling if it’s charging unless power on button and a quick press anyway I for one am delighted with my player and as previously postered I’m enjoying sitting in my garden in an unusually warm Ireland enjoying my CDs that have now been giving a new lease of life
So to all at FIIO I’m delighted with my purchase and it cost me €145 via Amazon which compared to its nearest rival is I think a bargain

 

[FiiO Willson]

Thanks for your reply @FiiO Willson

What is number 2? Optimise the charging of the power display? You will show an indicator when the device is charging and fully charged?

How about the flashing volume indicator during Bluetooth playback? Is that normal behaviour?seems rather odd.

The main thing is to change the accuracy of the displayed charge, for example, now it often shows BAT-2 or BTA-3, when in fact it should probably show BAT-4 at this point in time

 

[FiiO Willson]

Thanks for your reply @FiiO Willson

What is number 2? Optimise the charging of the power display? You will show an indicator when the device is charging and fully charged?

How about the flashing volume indicator during Bluetooth playback? Is that normal behaviour?seems rather odd.

The main thing is to change the accuracy of the displayed charge, for example, now it often shows BAT-2 or BTA-3, when in fact it should probably show BAT-4 at this point in time

 

[brownstone2025]

The main thing is to change the accuracy of the displayed charge, for example, now it often shows BAT-2 or BTA-3, when in fact it should probably show BAT-4 at this point in time

I often get shutdown on BAT-1. Is this also related to this issue?

p.s. I would like to see in the new firmware - 4 the display mode - even more dim. (Perhaps then the display will make less beeping sounds)

 

[FiiO Willson]

I often get shutdown on BAT-1. Is this also related to this issue?

Yes, Normally, it should shut down at BAT0, but because the movement uses a lot of power when reading hard-to-read disks, it is possible to shut down at BAT1

 

[gwompki]

Anyone else hear a high pitched whining when listening through sensitive IEMs? I am in early days, but I'm also struggling with the sound of the onboard dac/amp. I love the device overall and want to keep it, but so far I'm struggling. Going to try with a portable dac/amp via the optical output this weekend and see if that improves things. I'd love to have an all in one unit though for portability reasons.

 

[brownstone2025]

Anyone else hear a high pitched whining when listening through sensitive IEMs? I am in early days, but I'm also struggling with the sound of the onboard dac/amp. I love the device overall and want to keep it, but so far I'm struggling. Going to try with a portable dac/amp via the optical output this weekend and see if that improves things. I'd love to have an all in one unit though for portability reasons.

Yes, I can hear it. It's a problem with the power supply and the screen (I think mainly with the screen, because depending on its brightness, the squeak pitch changes). I've written about it in this thread many times, but it seems like the company representative pretends not to understand what I'm talking about. You can hold the device up to your ear with the screen facing you, and hear this squeak even louder. But yes, it can get through to the sound path, and on sensitive headphones it will also appear in the sound.

I am sure that this problem could have been avoided. If the manufacturer had taken this seriously. Nowadays even the most basic $20 phones do not behave like this.

I will allow myself a little more criticism: many problems of this device are very strange, as if we are reinventing the wheel. For example, this concerns problem gapless playback of tracks, problem the start of the first track with a delay. Players of the 1980s were able to do all this well, because they followed the standard. Now it seems that we are reinventing this standard

 

[gwompki]

Yes, I can hear it. It's a problem with the power supply and the screen (I think mainly with the screen, because depending on its brightness, the squeak pitch changes). I've written about it in this thread many times, but it seems like the company representative pretends not to understand what I'm talking about. You can hold the device up to your ear with the screen facing you, and hear this squeak even louder. But yes, it can get through to the sound path, and on sensitive headphones it will also appear in the sound.

I am sure that this problem could have been avoided. If the manufacturer had taken this seriously. Nowadays even the most basic $20 phones do not behave like this.

I will allow myself a little more criticism: many problems of this device are very strange, as if we are reinventing the wheel. For example, this concerns problem gapless playback of tracks, problem the start of the first track with a delay. Players of the 1980s were able to do all this well, because they followed the standard. Now it seems that we are reinventing this standard

Thanks for the reply. I saw your posts but assumed this issue might be different. I haven't noticed the sound without IEMs. Will check today.

I ordered a Shanling H5 to try with optical out. Will see how that goes.

 

[Kogut]

I will allow myself a little more criticism: many problems of this device are very strange, as if we are reinventing the wheel. For example, this concerns problem gapless playback of tracks, problem the start of the first track with a delay. Players of the 1980s were able to do all this well, because they followed the standard. Now it seems that we are reinventing this standard

Exactly! They fixed the problems with gapless playback by implementing this odd buffering. It’s a very unusual workaround. CD players from 40 years ago have no issues with such basic features. I’ve heard that other Chinese brands also struggle with gapless playback. Weird.

My DM13 had problems reading long discs (70+ minutes). It was skipping on the last tracks. This seems to be solved in the V25 version (probably because it buffers the sound).

It’s the strangest CD player I’ve ever used. I bought the DM13 because playing CDs via Bluetooth sounded tempting. Do I regret it? Hard to tell. It’s still a nice device, but these software issues are annoying.

The squeaking noise probably comes from the display. Reducing the brightness level helps a little. I always set a 5-minute timeout because I don’t need the display most of the time.

As for features (not bugs), I find autoplay really unnecessary. It starts playing every time I switch the output. Please allow the user to disable this function.

Bluetooth output is unstable. Sometimes the sound just disappears, and I have to pair it again or restart the device. I hope the optical output will work better, but somehow I can’t plug in the 3.5mm mini-TOSLINK. It just doesn’t fit.

 

[2leftears]

Exactly! They fixed the problems with gapless playback by implementing this odd buffering. It’s a very unusual workaround. CD players from 40 years ago have no issues with such basic features. I’ve heard that other Chinese brands also struggle with gapless playback. Weird.

It is a feature of not using red-book spec CD drive mechanisms (largely, because they are no longer being produced for portable players). Most of these modern drives are primarily designed for high data throughput for reading data files (CD-ROM), and supporting playback (or rather reading) of MP3, WAV, FLAC, AAC files etc.

Old-school CD drives from 40 years ago only read red-book spec CDs (CD-DA), i.e. they read a continuous single track of linear PCM data, no concept of "files" as such. Traditional red-book CD-DA CDs (i.e. shop-bought pressed music CDs) don't contain any music "files", even though a computer OS may read the CD's TOC and conveniently display the indexed "tracks" as "files" to you in a finder/file browser. The servo controllers and decoders used in those old drives were different, and as a result flawless gapless playback is something that was baked-in these drives in terms of both hardware and non-programmable controller/decoder chips.

The "gapless" playback for many of these modern drives is something that needs to be implemented in software as a work-around. Some have a better track-record in implementing this than others, and much depends on what the chosen drive offers as fundamental read-out options to begin with.

As an analog analogy, you should imagine the bulk of the modern CD drives to be the equivalent of a turntable for vinyl that simply is no longer able to play the record without lifting the stylus out of the groove between the songs, and spins the vinyl at a minimum 200rpm, so the vinyl needs to be read in intervals and everything needs to be buffered on tape and spliced for playback at the right speed (which in the digital age with digital buffering is of course 1000x easier than tape splicing ever used to be)

You are not going to find any modern drive mechanisms suitable for portable use that work exactly like the CD-DA drives from 40 years ago, and gapless playback issues and other strange buffering quirks are not surprising (unfortunately).

 

[gwompki]

Exactly! They fixed the problems with gapless playback by implementing this odd buffering. It’s a very unusual workaround. CD players from 40 years ago have no issues with such basic features. I’ve heard that other Chinese brands also struggle with gapless playback. Weird.

My DM13 had problems reading long discs (70+ minutes). It was skipping on the last tracks. This seems to be solved in the V25 version (probably because it buffers the sound).

It’s the strangest CD player I’ve ever used. I bought the DM13 because playing CDs via Bluetooth sounded tempting. Do I regret it? Hard to tell. It’s still a nice device, but these software issues are annoying.

The squeaking noise probably comes from the display. Reducing the brightness level helps a little. I always set a 5-minute timeout because I don’t need the display most of the time.

As for features (not bugs), I find autoplay really unnecessary. It starts playing every time I switch the output. Please allow the user to disable this function.

Bluetooth output is unstable. Sometimes the sound just disappears, and I have to pair it again or restart the device. I hope the optical output will work better, but somehow I can’t plug in the 3.5mm mini-TOSLINK. It just doesn’t fit.

Thank you for the tip on reducing brightness and screen timeout settings. Those have helped some. Unfortunately the noise is still present even with screen off.

My shanling h5 didn't show up yesterday as expected, but I am not hopeful because I am also having trouble with 3.5mm mini-toslink plugs fitting. As I understand Fiio uses a wonky coax trrs plug as well so my 3.5mm coax cables probably won't work either. Ughhh.

I love Fiio products generally, and want to love this one, but having a hard time.

 

[Kogut]

@2leftears

Thanks for the explanation, I understand the difference between reading Red Book CDs and playing files. I just hadn’t thought about it, since all my players were non-portable. I’ve only ever used traditional hi-fi CD players, never Discmans, so this behavior was new to me — but now it makes sense

I use the DM13 only in desktop mode, as a transport for an external DAC. I might end up using the coaxial cable, since Bluetooth is unstable and the mini-Toslink doesn’t fit properly.