Denon D-F103HR System - a micro surprise

When I first heard about this micro hi-fi I’ll admit I was surprised. It wasn’t a shock that a company had brought out a type of iPod for the living room. What took me aback was that it carried Denon’s logo. Denon is a company very much associated with quality  and there’s an inherent inferiority built into this system.

It’s the same as an iPod in that all the tunes are stored and played from its hard drive. The hi-fi’s CD player exists just for users to transfer discs without using a computer. However, converting music to MP3, WMA, AAC or any other TLA (three letter acronym) leads automatically to a loss of quality.

This doesn’t really matter when you’re walking down the street listening to your iPod because the external noise of the world drowns out the imperfections. But if you plug an MP3 player into a quality music system you can hear the difference compared with CDs or vinyl.

Fortunately, Denon’s equipment is sufficient to iron out many of the imperfections. But I think I’d still go for a CD-based system if I was forking out this much.

There is, however, much to be said for the convenience of a hard-drive based music system. For a start you don’t have to hunt around for CDs or even, for that matter, get out of your seat to change albums.

The Denon is also designed to play internet radio using your broadband network. This is an amazing resource. There really are thousands of stations based all over the world. Whatever your taste you’ll find somewhere playing it 24 hours a day.

One day all stereo systems may be made like this Denon. But until the price of hard drives has fallen to the point that it’s economical to store all your music uncompressed, it may be best to stick to a conventional system and just plug in your iPod when necessary.

This article originally appeared in The Scotsman in January 2007

Related articles by Zemanta

• Discman makes a comeback as cheap gadgets win the day over complex technology
• Portable CD players make a comeback
• The iPod: Seven years on