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No matter how convenient Spotify is, physical media will always feel more special. And sure, owning vinyl and CDs is great if you’re an audiophile, a collector, or you just like to touch stuff with your hands, but you also need a great way to play those discs. For that end, Shanling just announced what might be one of the coolest portable CD players I’ve ever seen.
The EC Zero AKM is first and foremost what I just stated: a portable way to play CDs. Unlike other CD players, portable or not, it supports Bluetooth audio devices like wireless headphones, earbuds, and speakers. If you’re wondering, “Why would I go to the trouble of playing a CD just so I can degrade the quality through Bluetooth?” Well, luckily Shanling has that part covered too, since the EC Zero also supports AptX, which is a hi-fi format like LDAC (it does not, however, support LDAC). It’s not totally lossless, but it’s much more nuanced than regular old Bluetooth. It also has not one, but two jacks: a 3.5mm and 4.4mm if you want more traditional aux play and coaxial outputs for hooking this thing up to monitors.
The EC Zero AKM is portable after all, so there’s a battery, which Shanling says will last for 10 hours for wired playback and 18 hours via Bluetooth.
You’ll also notice some USB-C ports, which work for charging, but also one really nifty capability, which is CD ripping. The EC Zero AKM can, when connected to a computer via the USB-C cable, rip CDs from the player onto your device in real time. As Darko Audio notes, that means ripping a 70-minute CD will take 70 minutes. God, imagine that: having music files exist on a hard drive that you own. Revolutionary!
If all of that wasn’t cool enough, the EC Zero AKM ups the ante by doubling as a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). For anyone that’s unfamiliar with DACs, these devices are coveted for their superior ability to convert digital information into sound, which means they usually produce much more immersive and nuanced sound than the run-of-the-mill sound card on your PC or other devices. Shanling says that, as a DAC, the EC Zero AKM supports a maximum sample rate of 32 bits at 768kHz, which is way, way, above the CD standard of 16 bits at 44kHz.
In case all of that cool stuff wasn’t enough to convince you, Shanling says it also included an “active magnetic clamp” on the EC Zero AKM, which stabilizes the CD as it spins and, according to the company, should significantly reduce the whirring and noise created by other portable CD drives. That’s a nice touch if you’re really focused on getting the most fidelity out of the listening experience.
Superficially, if I may add, the EC Zero AKM just looks cool. The metal CD player has an old-school tape recorder vibe, and there are physical buttons for play/pause and track skipping, a slider for adjusting the volume, as well as a 1.68-inch digital readout on track information and gain levels. The downside for all that coolness is that the EC Zero AKM costs $320. You can order it from Amazon. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still tempted, even with that price.
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