Some DAB radios can play music from an iPod, but this mini DAB hi-fi from Denon does away with the need to connect a portable player.

Capable of storing MP3s itself, it can even be plugged into a wireless home network and the internet to play music from virtually anywhere.

The D-F103HRDAB comprises three separate products. Of main interest is the DAB module, better known as the DRA-F102DAB. There's also a CD player, complete with a hard disk drive big enough for around 13,000 songs, and a pair of high-grade speakers - although you can buy the system without them, for £850. An optional cassette deck costs an extra £150.

Likes to network

Around the back of the brushed aluminium casing there are plenty of inputs and outputs. You can plug in a record deck, connect a laptop's audio, add a subwoofer - whatever. But this hi-fi's key feature is its networking ability. Using an Ethernet port at the rear of the CD/HDD unit, you can access Internet radio and the Gracenote database of CD info, as well as play music from a PC or Mac.

It's not simple, though, and setting up the system had us in a bit of a muddle. Cables everywhere - a real mess. A similar knot of wired aerials, one each for AM, FM and DAB, eventually gave us the bare minimum of DAB stations. A telescopic aerial is lacking, sadly, but at least it's easy enough to flick to other DAB stations.

With no seven-day guide available, just about the only thing that this Denon can't do is record from the DAB tuner. Almost every other desire is catered for.

While importing a CD - which is done at 8x speed by simply pressing a red button - the first track starts to play, then stops. We found that the system doesn't update itself mid-track, so if you play a CD while it's being imported, the next track isn't automatically selected. Although you can fetch MP3 files from a PC or Mac and store them on the HDD, CD-Rs containing MP3s can't be ripped.