The Moondrop Discdream 2 Ultra is weirdly encased between present day and nostalgia. Speaking of which: I received my first portable CD player as a present probably around 20 years ago. A couple of years later I received my first MP3 player – with a whopping 256 MB onboard memory! This might seem entirely irrelevant, but here is the thing. Back then everyone agreed: the CD has already lost and MP3 has won. It is therefore quite interesting that here we are, 20 years later, after the CD was left for dead many years ago, with me reviewing a brand-new portable CD player! Let’s see what 20 years of technological advancement have achieved.
Disclaimer: I received a free unit from Shenzhen Audio. They sell it for $289.99. Additional info on the manufacturer’s official page.
TL;DR: recap
| Pros |
Cons |
| + Gorgeous design
+ Remembers last played track + Good power output + Balanced and optical outputs + Can be used as a DAC through USB-C |
– No USB output
– CDs are a little difficult to remove – Hiss |
Rating: 8/10
Packaging & Accessories
The cardboard box only contains the CD player, a manual and a USB to USB-C cable. No other accessories are included.
Design & Build
The distinctive thing about the Moondrop Discdream 2 Ultra is surely the design: it is absolutely striking and it reminds me closely of Braun designs from the ’60s – extremely simple and streamlined, which make it almost timeless. The main body looks like a single block of brushed aluminium, with a lid that has transparent slits which show the CD inside. It is interesting to note that the top of the main chassis has a different finish to the rest: the brushing is not directional and looks more circular and “diffused”.
The front hosts a small LCD screen (which looks retro due to its colours: it has a black background and orange characters), as well as various buttons to control the device: stop, play/pause, back/previous track, forward/next track, play mode (cycles through repeat track, repeat disc, shuffle), as well as volume buttons. The right hand side hosts the outputs: there is a 4.4 mm balanced socket, a 3.5 mm single-ended socket, and a combined line output and optical socket. On the back we find the power switch (which is an old-school switch you need to physically slide from “off” to “on”) and a USB-C port.
At 169 x 154 x 32 mm the Discdream 2 Ultra should be thought of as a desktop device you can carry, rather than a real portable device. This is due to both the size and the way it was designed, as we will see shortly. The weight is significant, but not excessive as you can hold it comfortably with just one hand.
For all its beauty and otherwise superb build quality, my unit has a small issue: the lid scrapes against the body in the right corner at the back. This seems to be due to an imperfect alignment of the lid, which is however difficult to correct.
One thing that puzzles me is the fact that the lid has no locking mechanism: you can just freely open it and nothing stops you. While this ultimately reduces the possible failure points by reducing the mechanical components, it also means that there is no way to secure the lid. I wonder why Moondrop did not insert some small magnets at the two front corners, as those would have attained the desired result of keeping the lid shut without adding further mechanical parts.
There may also be an issue with safety: on top of the lid being transparent, which isn’t ideal when you turn on the unit without a CD inserted as there is no protection from the laser, the fact you can open the lid at any time further exacerbates this issue, especially around children. It is a minor detail, but one worth keeping in mind.
One other thing I found a bit puzzling is the fact that there is only one cutout to pick up the CD from the player: this means that you will end up scratching the disc against the bottom on the opposite end, as there is no way to lift it without doing so. Offering a second cutout on the opposite side, or even better a larger space around the disc to avoid it scratching against the walls as well, would have prevented this issue. The way Moondrop designed the central spindle is to press it to release the CD, which however doesn’t really fix the issue. There is also the fact that you need to press with quite a bit of force on the plastic bits – Moondrop didn’t use the usual metal bearings, which could lead to a lower longevity of the product.
It seems to me like many choices in the Moondrop Discdream 2 Ultra were dictated purely by aesthetic reasons, leaving functionality and more practical aspects in the background. The Discdream 2 Ultra is surely gorgeous, but it does have a few points which would require attention in a future new version to further improve the product.
Extra Features & Specs
The outputs on the Discdream 2 Ultra include the 3.5 mm, 4.4 mm and combined aux and optical connectors, but there’s more: the USB-C port can be used as an additional input, so you can use the Discdream 2 Ultra as a DAC and amplifier. Unfortunately there is no USB out: in other terms, if you connect it to a computer it won’t register as a CD drive. That is a shame, as the ability to use it as a high-end CD drive to rip your CD collection would have been a great addition to the feature set.
Moondrop claims that they implemented a “double shock absorption technology” which should make playback smooth even when moving the player around. I have to attest that it works superbly well. No matter how much I moved it (though never violently…), the Discdream 2 Ultra always played music with no hiccups whatsoever. As this requires the player to use a buffer to store the music in some sort of memory, the question of whether this buffer is lossy or lossless arises. The company says that they implemented a “lossless buffer” which keeps your music unaltered while it’s in the buffer.
If you stop the playback, the player keeps the track and the moment you were last playing in memory, so you can start playing the CD again from right where you left it. There is, however, no memory for playback mode: if you want to repeat a track or shuffle, you will have to set that every time you turn the unit on.
Moondrop Discdream 2 Ultra |
| Input | CD (CD, CD-R, CD-RW)
USB (up to 32 bit / 384 kHz PCM) |
| Suitable headphones impedance | 8 – 600 Ω |
| Output impedance | N/A |
| Maximum output power |
|
| Frequency response | N/A |
| THD+N (@1 kHz) | 0.00177% (CD) 0.00058% (USB) |
| SNR | – 93 dB (CD) -131 dB (USB) |
| Crosstalk | N/A |
Moondrop says that they use a Cirrus Logic DAC, however they do not specify what specific chip it is. Interestingly, they even removed the markings on the chips in the promotional material to avoid declaring what chips they are using. Similarly, they don’t declare what amplifier chip they are using, though they do say that the player is capable of outputting up to 222 mW at 32 Ω in balanced mode or 112 mW in single-ended mode. This doesn’t place the device in the top 10 most powerful portable players out there, but it is a significant output nonetheless.
Battery Life
The Moondrop Discdream 2 Ultra has an integrated 3,500 mAh battery which provides about 8 hours of playback. The figure provided by the manufacturer looks quite accurate, and the battery doesn’t seem to discharge when you leave the player inactive (i.e. you don’t turn it on at all).
Sound
I tested the Moondrop Discdream 2 Ultra with various headphones, including a HiFiMAN Arya Organic and an IO Audio Sogno.
One thing to note which is not related to sound per se, but which kinds influences it, is the fact that the Discdream 2 Ultra produces a noticeable hiss, which can be clearly heard even when music plays if you are using open-back headphones. The noise is definitely louder when opening the lid.
Now, as far as the actual sound goes, the Discdream 2 Ultra is virtually indistinguishable from all the other digital sources I own, which is… exactly the way it should be! That’s the entire point of digital music and thankfully the Discdream 2 Ultra doesn’t stray from this path.
In terms of available power, it is absolutely capable of driving even demanding headphones such as the Sennheiser HD 6XX with no problem.
Final Thoughts
They say that this is the most nostalgic era of them all; I am not quite sure about that, but surely a new portable CD player brings back nostalgic memories of my adolescence, and of always having a CD player in my jumper’s large pocket. The Moondrop Discdream 2 Ultra is both a classic CD player and a very modern one; while it lacks some functionality that the last generation of the old products had, it also has new ones which set it apart and make it arguably a better product. All the basics are there, and more: there’s never any skipping, there is good output power, there are balanced and optical outputs, there is USB input to use it as a DAC, and the design is just absolutely gorgeous. The only drawbacks are that there is no USB output (so you can’t use it to rip CDs from your computer) and that CDs are a bit difficult to take out of the player.
Overall, I am super satisfied with the Moondrop Discdream 2 UItra. In fact, it’s one of my favourite products among those I’ve reviewed this year: it is such a whimsical device in this day and age, when everything is streamed from servers located who knows where, that I can’t help but love it. Physical media isn’t dead. Long live the CD!
