Some ideas are simply bad. There are numerous options available, ranging from “shall we bring back dinosaurs from fossil DNA?” to “shall I go down into the cellar of this spooky house to investigate those noises alone?”. But smart heads don’t always triumph, so when Moondrop decided to bring back the portable CD player, it made sure to hire an engineer who had previously worked on Sony’s first Discman. This time around, it’s called the DiscDream, and it’s far more advanced than the classic portable CD players you might recall.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen outdated audio technology revived. Fiio brought the Walkman back to CES last month. But, while I appreciate vintage technology, I’m also old enough to have firsthand experience with its drawbacks, such as portable CD players, which were useless because CDs and motion don’t mix. We do not have vinyl decks in our vehicles for similar reasons.
The DiscDream is unique, in part because it is more than just a CD player. It also contains an SD card, allowing you to use its built-in digital audio player, which is similar to one of the top MP3 players, to play your digital audio files without skipping. The CD player here is designed for stationary use, and it is far more advanced than any music player that used to be tossed around on the school bus.
What the DiscDream Brings to the CD Player Party
The DiscDream was apparently created by a 30-year Sony Discman veteran who modified the player to fit the more stringent needs of modern audiophiles. There’s a 32-bit MasterHiFi Cirrus Logic decoder and three audiophile-spec oscillators for precise timing, as well as what the company claims is a high-quality motor drive and a shock-absorbing laser head. The 3,500mAh battery powers six independent power supply chips, while the headphone output has its own amp with a claimed 115dB output and 0.00037% harmonic distortion.
The digital audio player can play many of the most recent high-resolution audio codecs from a memory card, including APE, FLAC, LL-AAC, MP3, OGG, and WMA. Moondrop’s DiscDream can also stream up to 384kHz PCM and 11.2896MHz DSD from your computer via USB-C.
The price isn’t bad – it’s $199 in the US – but if you want one, you’ll need to provide your own set of headphones and be patient: some pre-order customers are apparently still waiting for delivery of DiscDreams they ordered in September, and MOONDROP’s retail partner Shenzhen Audio is not currently accepting new orders until “all pre orders [are] shipped out”.
