Snowsky DISC: a 68 mm player with a round screen

An aluminium square of 68 × 68 mm and 12.9 mm thick, a 1.8-inch round touchscreen, and inside two CS43131 DACs in a balanced arrangement. The DISC has a 3.5 mm and a 4.4 mm balanced output, takes microSD cards up to 2 TB, and also works as a USB sound card. 77 g.

What it does

• Dual CS43131 DAC, balanced: 125 mW into 32 Ω over 3.5 mm, 280 mW over 4.4 mm.
• 1.8-inch round screen, fully laminated panel at 360 × 360, touch-sensitive and rotating.
• Lossless formats: FLAC, WAV, AIFF, ALAC, APE, WMA Lossless, plus MP3, OGG and AAC. PCM up to 384 kHz/32 bit, DSD64 and DSD128 natively.
• Bluetooth 5.4 transmitting in LDAC, AAC and SBC. Wi-Fi with AirPlay.
• Three uses in one: player, two-way USB sound card, and SPDIF coaxial output through the 3.5 mm socket.
• 12 h of battery life from 1,450 mAh, full charge in one hour.

What it doesn't do

• No customisable equaliser. Eight presets, and that is all: you cannot adjust a band yourself.
• No gapless playback at the product's launch. A firmware update is announced, with no date.
• The system is not Android: no third-party app can be installed. No Spotify, no Qobuz, no Tidal locally.
• As a USB sound card, it only works in UAC 2.0. Devices that require UAC 1.0 will not recognise it.
• The internal memory capacity is not reliably documented by the manufacturer: plan on a microSD card.

Footprint

68 × 68 × 12.9 mm for 77 g, aluminium alloy chassis with a satin finish. It fits in a shirt pocket.

Skill required

None to listen. You do, however, need to plan on a microSD card and copy your music onto it: this is not a streaming player.

In the box

• 1 Snowsky DISC player

See also: Gaming accessories