[Editorial] Nostalgic for the Sony DiscMan? Here is the Moondrop DiscDream

I continue to observe, a bit amused and perplexed, the crazy market of audio and its media, in particular the new wave of revival that is hitting this field. In a world where carrying your music with you has never been so easy, just think of portable file players or, simply, smartphones connected to streaming services, it is certainly bizarre to think there is a market for old portable CD players.

Born as a prototype in 2023, it seems that Moondrop's DiscDream is ready for take-off. Portable CD players have never really disappeared from the market, there have always been several sold on AliExpress, but the DiscDream is a different creature, a more flexible device, and designed with audiophile intentions.

Meanwhile, let's see who is involved. Moondrop is a Chinese company founded in 2015 by Herbert Zheng and produces headphones (even very expensive planar ones), an audiophile smartphone and audio players of different types. The company has onboarded an engineer responsible, at the time, for the development of the legendary Sony DiscMan portable player, the technological edition of the Sony WalkMan. Carrying CDs with you was not and still is not certainly practical, even if you decide to leave the CD cases at home. Why bring with you a CD bag with 10-15 titles when you have all the music in the world, millions of albums, all available immediately just a single click away? In fact...it doesn't make any sense. Not only that, but in addition to the CDs, you have to carry around the player, hundreds of grams of bulky weight, so what does this DiscDream have that is so extraordinary?

It would seem that whoever designed it wanted to make it an audiophile quality player. It can play CDs, but also microSD memory cards, and can act as an external sound card for a computer. It has a line output, to connect it to a HiFi system or a pair of active speakers, and a headphone output. Particular attention has been paid to the power supply, the D/A conversion section and the headphone output, which is served by an internal amplifier capable of delivering 500mW, therefore capable of driving the majority of headphones on the market, even those with low sensitivity and impedance. In general, the headphone output of similar devices was of questionable quality, to say the least.

The D/A conversion section uses the Cirrus Logic 32-bit MasterHiFi chip, for a dynamic range of 115 dB. The laser mech is well isolated from vibrations and transfers the data to a reading buffer, so to avoid interruptions and clicks during reading. The 3,500 mAh battery supplies energy to six independent power chips. The player implements excellent components as well: Ruby metal film capacitors and three audio-grade NDK oscillators. The player supports many of the most popular latest high-resolution audio codecs, including APE, FLAC, LL-AAC, MP3, OGG and WMA. It can also stream PCM audio up to 384kHz and DSD256 from your PC via USB-C.

The suggested retail price is around €200 but Moondrop's business partner, Shenzhen Audio, is not currently accepting new pre-orders since “Pre-order ended and orders are accounted to factory for producing. It will be on sale again once all pre orders shipped out.”

Upon closer inspection, perhaps this DiscDream could be the heart of a small, fairly flexible audio system that uses good quality headphones and/or active speakers. In fact, it allows you to play CDs, audio files from a memory card or use it as an external high-quality audio card for a PC or notebook. Usually I smile a little at these bizarre revival attempts but this time, considering the features of this device and the absolutely reasonable price, I will try to be more supportive, and I'm daring to ask for one on trial.

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