Onkyo tunes hi-fi for UK ears
You’d have thought that making a hi-fi for the UK’s musical ear would be nigh on impossible given our multicultural tastes, but that’s what Onkyo clai
You’d have thought that making a hi-fi for the UK’s musical ear would be nigh on impossible given our multicultural tastes, but that’s what Onkyo claims to have done with this DAB-equipped micro hi-fi.
Apparently, its engineers didn’t just assume that we all like the Arctic Monkeys – they spent months researching the sonic differences between our music and the Japanese charts, and produced components and speakers to suit.
The result is the CS-515DAB, which is available as a complete system or on its own as a CD/DAB receiver.
It’s quite a high-end affair as bedroom systems go, with costly circuitry and a top-range Wolfson D/A converter promising sound quality which Onkyo claims rivals separate systems.
We’ll have to wait for a test session to see if that stands up, but the features list is promising. It has 59 preset slots for the DAB radio, offers AM and FM frequencies as a back up, and the CD player handles CD-R/RW and MP3-loaded discs.
Connectivity is strong with four audio inputs for MP3 players and a digital optical audio input for laptops, and Onkyo is also selling a DS-A2 iPod dock and UWL-1 USB Wireless Adaptor to let you stream tunes from your PC. Whether it can rival our top dog, the Yamaha M170, remains to be seen.
Onkyo CS-515DAB
Price: £300
On sale: Now
Contact: Onkyo
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Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
