Syitren has raised more than $540,000 on Kickstarter for the RM1, a transparent wall-mounted CD player. That is roughly 180 times its original goal of $3,000. A single unit costs $109, and the first orders are due to ship in October.
All the RM1’s internals sit behind a frameless clear acrylic shell, so the disc, the pickup head and the moving parts stay visible while a track plays. Built-in lighting turns the mechanism into part of the design. The player can hang on a wall or sit on a shelf. It measures 260 × 260 × 42 mm and weighs 0.9 kg.
The look is a deliberate throwback to hi-fi gear of the 1990s and 2000s, when the mechanism was often left on display rather than buried inside a sealed box. Syitren names the Bang & Olufsen Beosound 9000, with its exposed discs and transport, as one reference point.
Demand for discs is climbing again. US CD sales hit 17.5 million discs in the first half of the year, and the RM1 campaign is one more sign that physical media has not disappeared alongside streaming.
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The RM1 plays standard Audio CDs as well as discs loaded with MP3 files. Speakers and headphones connect over Bluetooth or through a 3.5 mm jack. A removable 18650 battery rated at 2,000 mAh gives six to eight hours of playback, and a USB-C charge takes one to two hours. Physical buttons and a remote handle the controls, and there is a small dot-matrix display on the front.
The audio side is modest. Bluetooth is limited to the SBC and AAC codecs, so there is no lossless wireless playback. The analog output is rated at over 70 dB of dynamic range and under 0.1% total harmonic distortion, which is unremarkable by modern hi-fi standards. The RM1 is aimed at people who want the look and the nostalgia rather than at audiophiles.
Crowdfunding prices are low. A single player costs $109, a bundle with the N200 Bluetooth speaker $139, a two-pack $169 and a four-pack $319. The speaker on its own sells for $59.
