Earlier in the year, we took a closer look at Cairn's obscurely named Fog 3 CD player.

Manufactured in France, it had its fair share of Gallic charm and provided more thrills than we've encountered in digital audio for some time.

Small, but perfectly formed

Now we have the first sample of its new stablemate, the Tornado - a similarly designed player that manages to bring the price down quite dramatically by cutting back on luxuries. While the Fog 3 will set you back over two grand, the Tornado is only £850.

The Tornado is the base disc player in Cairn's small, but attractively formed range (there are two further one-box players, including the aforementioned Fog 3 and the Via, which is only available built to order).

Described as a simplified version of the Fog 3, the Tornado is smaller and is less lavish; the former's attractively ventilated silver casework being replaced with a standard black finish behind a 5mm front panel. It is not quite as smart as the Cambridge 840C, but is very much on a par with most of the competition.

Inside the box, savings have been made by shaving off the XLR output and the digital inputs. More significant, perhaps, is the change of DAC board, with the Tornado having a standard 24-bit/96kHz chipset and filtering.

Sound effects

The four filter settings on the Fog 3 offer a broad range of sound tailoring, far wider than the filters we've tried on players in the past, with everything from relatively smooth and relaxed all the way up to 'in yer face'. So the way that Cairn has set the filter on the Tornado will probably have a distinct impact on the impression it makes.

The analogue output stage is a Fog-like bipolar design that runs in class A and is devoid of negative feedback, an approach much vaunted by the valve amp designers.

But Cairn is also an amplifier maker with three integrateds and a pre/power on its roster, so the chances are that it has its own ideas in this department.

For the newcomer, the Fog 3 had some peculiar operating procedures and the Tornado is no exception. Opening the disc tray or playing a disc, requires holding in the operation button for a longer period of time. Turning the unit on requires you to double click the on/off button.