Irrespective of how handy Spotify is, bodily media will at all times really feel extra particular. And positive, proudly owning vinyl and CDs is nice should you’re an audiophile, a collector, otherwise you identical to to the touch stuff together with your fingers, however you additionally want a good way to play these discs. For that finish, Shanling simply introduced what is likely to be one of many coolest moveable CD gamers I’ve ever seen.
The EC Zero AKM is at the beginning what I simply said: a conveyable option to play CDs. Not like different CD gamers, moveable or not, it helps Bluetooth audio gadgets like wi-fi headphones, earbuds, and audio system. Should you’re questioning, “Why would I am going to the difficulty of taking part in a CD simply so I can degrade the standard by Bluetooth?” Properly, fortunately Shanling has that half lined too, for the reason that EC Zero additionally helps AptX, which is a hi-fi format like LDAC (it doesn’t, nevertheless, assist LDAC). It’s not completely lossless, but it surely’s way more nuanced than common previous Bluetooth. It additionally has not one, however two jacks: a 3.5mm and 4.4mm if you need extra conventional aux play and coaxial outputs for hooking this factor as much as displays.
The EC Zero AKM is moveable in any case, so there’s a battery, which Shanling says will final for 10 hours for wired playback and 18 hours through Bluetooth.
You’ll additionally discover some USB-C ports, which work for charging, but additionally one actually nifty functionality, which is CD ripping. The EC Zero AKM can, when linked to a pc through the USB-C cable, rip CDs from the participant onto your gadget in actual time. As Darko Audio notes, meaning ripping a 70-minute CD will take 70 minutes. God, think about that: having music information exist on a tough drive that you personal. Revolutionary!
If all of that wasn’t cool sufficient, the EC Zero AKM ups the ante by doubling as a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). For anybody that’s unfamiliar with DACs, these gadgets are coveted for his or her superior potential to transform digital info into sound, which implies they often produce way more immersive and nuanced sound than the run-of-the-mill sound card in your PC or different gadgets. Shanling says that, as a DAC, the EC Zero AKM helps a most pattern price of 32 bits at 768kHz, which is method, method, above the CD commonplace of 16 bits at 44kHz.
In case all of that cool stuff wasn’t sufficient to persuade you, Shanling says it additionally included an “lively magnetic clamp” on the EC Zero AKM, which stabilizes the CD because it spins and, in accordance with the corporate, ought to considerably scale back the whirring and noise created by different moveable CD drives. That’s a pleasant contact should you’re actually centered on getting essentially the most constancy out of the listening expertise.
Superficially, if I’ll add, the EC Zero AKM simply seems cool. The metallic CD participant has an old-school tape recorder vibe, and there are bodily buttons for play/pause and observe skipping, a slider for adjusting the quantity, in addition to a 1.68-inch digital readout on observe info and achieve ranges. The draw back for all that coolness is that the EC Zero AKM prices $320. You possibly can order it from Amazon. I’d be mendacity if I mentioned I wasn’t nonetheless tempted, even with that value.
