Hermstedt Hifidelio

As well as being able to stream music from a PC over a home network, the Hifidelio can also record music from CDs and store them on its 80Gbinternal hard disk.

It's quick to do so, taking around 40 seconds for a one-hour CD at the highest MP3 quality setting. It also attaches relevant ID3 tag information such as the artist, title and album names. The time can be reduced, and storage capacity increased, by dropping the audio quality.

The Hifidelio can stream music over a wired or wireless (802.11g) network, connections for both of which are built into the unit. The device even shows up in iTunes on a connected PC, allowing music to be sent directly to the player.

However, it wasn't straightforward to get the two devices talking to each other, and required a detailed read of the manual. It's also possible to connect a portable music player through the Hifidelio's USB socket.

The screen on the front is useful but small, so it's difficult to navigate through the menus from a distance. Although there were occasional gaps between tracks, more noticeable if streaming music, audio quality is very good, especially when using one of the two digital outputs.

The Hifidelio isn't cheap, but it's a neat audio player that's fairly easy to use and can free up a whole set of shelves from CDs.