Back To The HIFI Origins – FiiO TT13 TurnTable Vinyl Player
FiiO TT13 is a $229 USD Fully Automatic Vinyl Turntable Player with a Built-In Powerful Phono Preamp, all aluminum alloy panel, aptX, aptX LL and aptX hi-Res Bluetooth Transmitter, DC / AC Dual Power Supply Design, and with a Fully Automatic Tonearm that is the star of today’s review. As this is the first review in which we explore a TurnTable / Vinyl Player, we will focus on the usage and experience rather than comparisons with other TurnTables on the market.
Introduction
FiiO has been on a roll with the release of their new products, including the JM21 which was released under the Jade Audio sub brand, but also with their UTWS5 2025 which are now my daily Gym Bluetooth adapters, and no one could ever forget the BTR17 that has just been launched. To complete the rather wide selection of products FiiO has, today we review the first Automatic Vinyl player the company ever made, and this one’s a true back to the origins product, as the Turntable medium is considered the standard top end audiophile material, but we will also explore the downsides of using Vinyl instead of CDs or Streaming sources.
As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases, and using the purchase links in my reviews helps me maintain this website and Youtube Channel. Huge thanks to FiiO for providing us with the sample for this review.
Product Link
Amazon – https://amzn.to/422nf1r
Aliexpress – https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_oEksmdL
Build Quality/Aesthetics
A huge selling point of the FiiO TT13, besides the excellent price, is the automatic design, so with one click of a button, it automatically lifts the arm and places it at the beginning of the disc, and with a touch of a button it stops playing, lifts the arm and places it at the back. You can set it to automatically play on loop, and this way you will be sure that you don’t damage your discs from mishandling and from the needle dropping on them too hard, or when the disc ends, as some TT players can sometimes scratch the entire disc when they stop playing.
FiiO uses a complex design with a playback control, movement control and LED lights, as well as the input buttons being controlled from the processor, and for the audio part they are using an AT3600La Cartridge, and a JRC5532 high-fidelity op-amps. Although TT disc players have their own unique sound given by the medium, you can explore my in-depth written review exploring the Burson PlayMate if you’re curious how a DAC/AMP using the JRC 5532 sounds like.
We get a powerful phono preamp, which can reach 800mW at 1kHz, and with TT13 you basically won’t need to purchase an additional phono stage. We are also seeing a luxurious all-aluminium solid build for the unit, as TT13 has a weight of 4 KG, and it uses robust feet to absorb vibration. Around the turntable itself, there’s a beautiful LED right that you can configure and for the Bluetooth version you can use the FiiO app to configure it. TT13 comes with a remote, and there is a version that comes with bluetooth, having SBC, aptX, aptX Low Latency and aptX HD.
At the back of the unit we have a balance potentiometer that allows you to set the balance between the left and the right channels, and also a size selector if you’re using smaller discs, for example popular with LPs (Long Plays) or EP (Extended Plays). As FiiO is using the ultra popular AT-3600LA cartridge, you can very easily replace and maintain it, and it is also known for its pristine sound and low price. The stylus will be consumed the more you play, so make sure to replace it, as just like tubes in a tube AMPs, it is considered a consumable.
And we get to the dust cover, which is brilliant, as it removes some of the tracking / surface noise, which is usually caused by dust. If you want to further reduce the grounding hum and noise, you can use the grounding wire at the back, and it is recommended to use it, as the default line out cable comes with an RCA plug for it.
Subjective Usage
Using FiiO TT13 is magical, like I’m brought back to when I was a child and first discovered my parents’ music collection, including many vinyl discs. This being said, it feels modern, well made and has a lower noise than most TT players if you have an original, high-end vinyl disc collection, and in Romania we can find those at stores like Carturesti, but they cost around 50 Euro for a single disc, which is highly prohibitive and only diehard fans of certain bands typically end up owning any vinyl discs. Setting up TT13 is nice and easy, especially as most of the operation is automatic, and it is well balanced, not lightweight, and it does not get hot during usage.
As there is a motor inside, and it has its own minimal vibration and noise, you also have to learn about the disc itself, as vinyl discs are one of the worst mediums from a HiFi / Audiophile standpoint. This is because while Digital recordings of a song can be stored and rendered with a 100% accuracy on the medium side, Vinyl Discs are rarely perfect, and most of the time there’s noise and distortion associated with playing Vinyl, including surface noise, coming from scratches, dust and poor pressings, and also motor noise coming from minor variations in the speed and power of the motor, which happens usually due to fluctuations of power inside of your house.
TT13 is free of self noise issues, it generally is very quiet and the phono stage is of a good quality, but it is sensitive to the quality of the disc that is being played, and you will hear surface noise, although now that I have high-quality discs I hear it much less than when I was young and heard a lot of it with my father’s turntable. The problem here is that you cannot completely remove this noise, as it comes from the actual needle reading the disc process, and it usually sounds like a continuous background hissing, pops, clicks and even a little bit of grinding sound from the groove and the needle. This background noise is constant, depends on the disc, and it is usually louder at louder volumes. This being said, as FiiO made an automatic player, TT13 is much less prone to it as you can close the top plastic cover, keeping dust out and allowing it to play with very little surface noise.
Sound Quality
Pairings and Match-up – The main way to enjoy TT13 is by having it act as the source and DAC for a different system, and it mainly has one RCA output at the back. The main setups I have used with TT13 include a set of Fosi Audio ZA3 Desktop Monoblock amplifiers driving a pair of Elipson XLS7 Heritage Speakers, a Sparkos Gemini Tube Headphone Amplifier driving a pair of HIFIMAN Susvara, a set of Topping B100 Amplifiers driving a pair of KLH Model five Speakers, but with a Singxer SA-1 V2 in between, a set of FiiO SP3 BT Active Speakers, a set of HIFIMAN Mini Shangri-La Electrostatic Amplifier + Headphones, and a HIFIMAN Prelude Headphone Amplifier driving a pair of T+A Solitaire P-SE Planar Magnetic Headphones. As fiiO TT13 does not have a variable volume, you cannot use it with setups that don’t have any kind of Pre or volume control. It has a clean sound with minimal background noise, but when talking vinyl, we can never have an absolute zero noise.
Overall Signature – Although it is generally very easy to describe the sound of a player, DAC, even cables, with a Vinyl player, you have to take into account that a lot of the description also describes the medium and the disc sound itself. This is true because vinyl discs have a waxy, warm, usually compressed sound to them, they characteristically have a tracking sound, like a static or popping sound that can be heard in the background, and a smoother treble than most digital sources. Vinyl basically will always have this sound, as the medium itself is more colored than digital, and much closer to tape in signature than CD is.
A little bit of irony can be found when describing the dynamics of vinyl, because although the medium has less dynamic range, and usually less resolution than CDs and Digital mediums, most audiophiles and folks listening to vinyl have a collection of music that has a higher dynamic range than most folks using digital streaming do. The idea is that if I was listening to the same classical piece from a streaming platform and from a vinyl disc, that song will have a higher dynamic range and resolution in the digital format, and usually will also sound brighter and colder. But I almost never listen to the same music in both formats, and most audiophiles who like to play vinyl also have older rock and songs that have a high dynamic range, while most rock and EDM I play in digital formats have less than 5 dB of dynamic range anyways despite the ability of the medium to reproduce that dynamic range.
A huge resurrection of Vinyl can be seen with bands that were established a couple of years ago, which is to be expected, but also with K-Pop in particular, and I’ve seen a much larger population of female audiophiles that own vinyl discs from bands like BTS and using a vinyl player and who will be likely customers for TT13 than the usual audiophile suspect that plays rock and metal. This is an interesting note as I’ve seen girls who have a rather impressive vinyl disc collection and who recently ordered FiiO TT13, while most of my friends who usually use DAPs and DAC / Headphone AMPs actually are reticent to cross to a Vinyl collection due to all of the inconvenience associated with the medium.
FiiO TT13 generally sounds rather balanced – warm, with a fairly good resolution and clarity, it gives music a magical warmth, thickness and a smooth treble / top end. There’s a strong sense of lateral separation, and FiiO TT13 has a really nice body to the sound it produces. There’s a sense of instrument separation, and the impulse response is generally on the waxy side, with a natural midrange. It is generally very easy on the ears, a bit laid back, but once again, there’s a huge variation between discs and the quality they have, and while with Digital formats I can quickly hop on youtube and explore any collection I want, with vinyl I am limited to my collection of discs.
You will also notice a fun little effect, but being tied to just playing and enjoying one CD without switching continuously between songs gives you a more relaxed state, more time to enjoy each song and the music you’re listening to, so using FiiO TT13 actually helped me have a much more fun experience with my collection than I typically do as it allowed me to focus more on music. This being said, I cannot physically make myself consider vinyl as a primary way to enjoy music as part of being an audiophile I feel is enjoying a huge library of music, and streaming services give you access to an unlimited collection of songs, with new pieces everyday.
Value and Conclusion
Today we saw FiiO creating the most affordable TurnTable on the market with this level of quality, features and just creating an atomic bomb level of explosion on the turntable market with their TT13, as it undoubtedly has the highest price / performance ratio out of all TT units I’ve seen or heard about so far.
At the end of the day if you’re just starting out, or if you want to see where we’re currently at when it comes to affordable turntables, FiiO made the TT13 as the best starting point you could wish for, and let’s not forget that it has less background noise and static noise than most TurnTables out there, and that it is easier to use, and even has Bluetooth for those who want to blend new streaming tech with their Vinyl collection. The expression “I have that on Vinyl” is now resurrected and you can help your friends explore the unique medium with TT13.
PROs
- One of the highest performance TT or TurnTable Vinyl Players available on the market
- Exceptional build quality
- Superb design
- Reliable
- Very low noise and static / Vinyl Disk noise / Low tracking noise
- High quality components
- Easy connectivity
- Dust cover that makes sure both the needle, and whole unit is free of dust as that can considerably reduce the quality of vinyl discs and players
- It has the most beautiful light design
Cons
- Has all of the downsides of using and playing vinyl, nothing inherent to TT13, but it costs roughly the same as 5-6 vinyl discs if you’re buying new
Product Link
Amazon – https://amzn.to/422nf1r
Aliexpress – https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_oEksmdL
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Full Playlist used for this review
We listened to more songs than those named in this playlist, but those are excellent for identifying a sonic signature. I recommend trying most of the songs from this playlist, especially if you’re searching for new music! The playlists are different for Spotify, Tidal and Youtube, and based on the songs I enjoy and are available on each!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_cjBXGmwSHSdGcwuc_bKbBDGHL4QvYBu
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5J3oloz8Riy9LxEGenOjQ0?si=979ba4f082414be7
https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/330fd544-8e5b-4839-bd35-676b2edbb3d5
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