Denon D-F103HR

Miniature hard-fi

Denon's asking for 1,000 of your handsome British pounds in exchange for this micro hi-fi, but before you turn and scoff in sheer disbelief, bear in mind that it brings a feature list long enough to shame an AV receiver.

Snap open the box and there are three component parts: a receiver, CD player and a pair of speakers.

The receiver is the same unit that's found in the £500 D-F102DAB micro system, so you get a muscular 35 watts per channel, plus a tuner that handles DAB as well as AM and FM.

Where the D-F103 differs from its little brother is in the speakers and spinner departments. The speakers add, well, they add a black gloss wood grain finish. Which is nice. Even nicer, though, is the CD player, which adds a 40GB hard drive.

You can rip up to 800 hours of music to the HDD. Factor in Ethernet and USB ports and you've got a system capable of transmitting internet radio, replaying straight from an onboard MP3 player, and sucking tunes from a PC. Still, built-in wireless ability would have been nice. That said, it's still brutally simple to use and you'll be ripping in no time.

The D-F103 delivers a reassuring, rather than thrilling, sonic ride. A characteristic that's especially evident with digital tunes that have been ripped at lower rates.

Don't get us wrong, this micro doesn't sound boring: crank the volume and it'll power out your cheesiest techno. And, hey, we're not overly shallow, but it also looks rather gorgeous. All in all, it's pretty darn good, then.