The Fell Disc is a genuinely engaging listening experience; a device that reminds you that CD still has a huge amount to offer. It wraps this in attractive, well-made casework and it will work well both in an all Fell system and as a partner for many other amps as well. This is a fantastic option at the price point
Excellent sonic performance- forgiving yet detailed
Well-made and finished
Attractive design
No digital inputs
Some functions on the remote only
Streaming rivals can feel more flexible
Squirrel Widget
Key Features
Trusted Reviews IconReview Price: £499
Audio formatsCD/CD-R/CD-RW playback
ColourBlack and silver finishes
OperationRemote control for playback
Introduction
Setting up a whole new hi-fi company is no small undertaking but Fell Audio has made a solid start.
Their opening trio of products are designed to be cost effective options at the £500-600 price point that balance performance and features in such a way as to be the right choice for a few different use cases.
The Fell Amp has also been reviewed here and it embodies this idea rather well. It has the inputs you need combined to a respectable amount of power, all wrapped up in solid and handsome casework. If that is a fairly conventional start to proceedings, the Fell Disc might be seen as a little more unusual. At a point where streaming services dominate most people’s access to content and the vinyl revolution hoovers up an ever larger proportion of physical sales, the Disc is a no nonsense, full size CD player.
Advertisement
There is a method to this particular perceived madness though. CD is a format whose best years are realistically behind it but when those ‘best years’ included almost total domination of recorded music sales, there is a long way to fall. What’s more, plenty of companies have vacated the market so the share available for companies still making players could potentially be a rather decent one. Of course, to do this, the Disc has to be good so let’s see how it gets on.
Availability
The Fell Disc exists to be sold by Peter Tyson without them having to compete with other retailers on price. To this end, the Fell Amp is available exclusively from Peter Tyson for £499.
As well as two physical stores, Peter Tyson is one of the major online hi-fi retailers in the UK so don’t worry if Carlisle is a bit of a trip for you. At the moment, the Fell range is not being sold in The USA or Australia but it does look like there are some efforts to locate a distributor who might be able to get these sales up and running.
There is a deal to be done though. At the time of writing (mid-January 2025), if you are shopping for both a Fell Disc and the matching Amp player (which I;ve reviewed as well), you can have them as a bundle, saving you £100 over buying them separately.
Design
Elegant, full width casework
Inhaler type mechanism
Remote control and display options
Advertisement
Extract the Fell from its well designed and largely plastic free packaging – including a rather lovely branded tote bag and it makes a good first impression. The Disc comes in casework that matches the Amp which is both fairly unsurprising and good news.
Fell Audio Disc slot loading CD
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
What Fell has done very cleverly with these components is tinge them with nods to the past in a few areas but without making the whole device feel old fashioned. This means that people like me can be reminded of all sorts of past products when we look at the Disc but people with a more 21st century mindset can appreciate that they look uncluttered and modern. This is helped by the touch sensor buttons. I’m not always a huge fan of these but on the Disc they are responsive and work well.
As a modern CD player, the Disc makes use of an slot disc mechanism. This is partly because the number of tray type mechs available in any quantity is very limited in 2025 and, even when they are, they tend to be more expensive than slot disc models. Judged by the standards of slot disc type devices, the one used on the Disc is pretty good. It’s not completely silent when loading the CD but it does this nice and quickly and settles down after that. Once running, the Disc is silent from a few centimetres away.
Fell Audio Disc remote control
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
As well as the touch sensor buttons, the Disc has a decently sized green on black display that can be dimmed or switched off that will show you a decent amount of information about the CD itself. There is a remote handset and this is needed to access features like shuffle so it is worth not losing down the side of the sofa.
Advertisement
Specification
ESS DAC
Choice of analogue and digital outs…
…and that’s your lot
The Fell Disc is- when you get down to basics – entirely straightforward. It plays CD, CD-R and CD-RW discs (and some real oddities like a soundtrack encoded as WAV on a PS1 game disc – remember those?) via the slot loading mech and uses an ESS 9018K2M DAC to decode the information on the disc.
This is the same DAC that the Fell Amp uses for its digital board and it’s capable of more than decent performance. Fell Audio has made the decision to use another toroidal transformer to power the Disc and while this isn’t the most densely populated device going when you take the lid off, the components that are in there are of a high quality.
Fell Audio Disc rear panel
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
This is made available to a set of RCA outputs and the digital stream is available via optical and coaxial outs. The presence of the latter is useful because, if one of the possible upgrades you can see in your future is an upgraded DAC, the Fell will continue to work happily as a CD transport connected to that. It also means that, if you have chosen a Fell Amp to go with your Disc, you have the option to see whether connecting via analogue or digital works best for you.
What you don’t get is… well anything else really. CD players went through a phase of having some interesting extra features like volume controls, digital inputs and the ability to play things that were almost like CD like SACDs.
Advertisement
Fell Audio Disc double stack
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
The Disc cannot do any of those things and in a world where companies like WiiM seem content to cram everything short of the kitchen sink into their products, the Fell can feel a little limited. This does mean that it focuses on doing one thing and one thing alone which means that it should- hopefully – do it rather well. When seen as a partner with the Fell Amp, there is no feature overlap you have wound up paying for twice either which is smart practise.
Performance
A well-considered match for the Fell Amp
An excellent balance of refinement and engagement
Reminds you how good CD can be
It doesn’t take much listening to discover that the Fell Disc is very clearly the work of the same people who developed the Fell Amp and the two complement each other well.
There is something of the same tonal ‘darkness’ to the Disc that means that something that Outsider by Marina and the Diamonds absolutely powers along, showing a real ballistic edge to it. It’s confident, dynamic and engages at an emotional rather than a cerebral level. This balance also shifts your attention to the bass extension which means that listening to the Disc never feels lightweight or insubstantial.
Fell Audio Disc hi-fi system
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Advertisement
There are some other rather useful attributes too. I was able to play Infra Red by Placebo on the Disc and actually enjoy what is one of my favourite Placebo songs but blighted with an absolutely dreadful master. The Fell can’t do anything but point this out but it does it in such a gentle way, you can still appreciate the dark euphoria of the track as a whole.
You can then pivot to Ray LaMontagne’s Till the Sun turns Black which is a truly outstanding CD master and the Fell is able to show it off to brilliant effect. There is a flute solo at the end of the track You Can Bring Me Flowers and it’s startlingly and compellingly real.
In fact, the Disc has done a tremendous job of reminding me quite how good CD can actually be. There have been points where I’ve listened to the Fell playing the CD before listening to the same album in 24 bit on a streaming service and the optical disc wins out. Sure, there might be more data in the high res recording but at times there’s still audibly less compression on the CD which means that there is often a great deal more perceivable space around the recording itself. The Fell is good enough to remind you that 16bit audio can be staggeringly good when treated with a bit of care and attention.
Fell Audio Disc hi-fi rack
oplus_1048576 Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
This last thought leads to another which sits both in the sound quality and pride of ownership camp. At the moment, CD is sufficiently out of fashion to risk being… cool? It’s 2025 and turntables are ubiquitous and expensive re-pressings of records that absolutely didn’t need to be re-pressed stretch as far as the eye can see.
CD is actually the subversive choice at this point; a physical format that is firmly out of love and where actual, genuinely interesting things can be found in charity shops. As a case in point, I pottered around the various CD sections in the small market town where I live with a budget of £10 and picked up the three albums mentioned in this review and still had money left for a packet of Rolos. Building a genuinely interesting physical collection of CDs needn’t cost the Earth and the Disc will be there to deliver it in fine style.
Advertisement
Squirrel Widget
Should you buy it?
Everything you need…
The Fell Disc is well engineered and a pleasure to live with. A great deal of care and attention has gone into its design and construction and it’s a pleasure to listen to and live with.
…but not a lot more
In a world where network audio players are festooned with features, the Fell can feel a little bit limited. If your amp doesn’t have any digital inputs, there is absolutely no way of using the DAC in the Disc for any other purpose which might make it more limited than other digital front ends available at the £500 point.
Final Thoughts
The Fell Disc is naturally a decent partner for the Fell Amp but its rather more than that. Thanks to its sensible dimensions and carefully judged styling, it’s going to wind up partnering a wide selection of other amps for owners that still want optical disc support. What’s more, it’ll sound excellent while it does it.
Trusted Score
How we test
We test every CD player we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Tested for more than a week
Tested with real world use
FAQs
Does the Fell Audio Disc come with cables?
Analogue interconnect cables are included with the packaging.
Full Specs
|Fell Audio Disc Review|
|---|---|
|UK RRP|£499|
|Manufacturer|–|
|Size (Dimensions)|440 x 300 x 75 MM|
|Weight|4.6 KG|
|DAC|ESS Sabre ES9018K2M|
|Release Date|2024|
|Resolution|x|
|Colours|Black, Silver|
|Frequency Range|10 20000 – Hz|
|Audio Formats|CD, CD-R, CD-RW|
|Power Consumption|7.5 W|
|Amplification|Class A|
|Impedance|47 ohms|
|Remote Control|No|
|Outputs|stereo analogue RCA, coaxial, digital|
Advertisement