CDs are on the comeback trail and this could be the Hi-Res player to help

The FiiO DM15 R2R is a go-anywhere CD deck with built-in Bluetooth and Hi-Res support

FiiO DM15 CD player next to a laptop on a wooden desk
(Image credit: FiiO)
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Quick Summary

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.

FiiO DM15 CD player in four different colours

(Image credit: FiiO)

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.

Carrie Marshall
Carrie Marshall

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).

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