One of the undoubted reasons for the iPod's huge success is the growth of a so-called "iPod economy", a $1-billion dollar industry that specialises in making accessories for Apple's digital music player.

It would seem fair that as Apple effectively created the market that they should want a little slice for themselves. First came the official "made for iPod" branding which nets Apple a slice of third-party revenues, now there's the first true Apple iPod accessory - an iPod Hi-Fi which marries the music player to a one-box speaker system that claims not only to have reinvented home stereo, but to deliver "audiophile" sound quality too.

The whooshing sound you can hear is that of a million audiophiles whistling through very clenched teeth...

They have a point. Just look at the evidence: the system's three drive units are housed in a single white plastic box. Its 'source' is a digital audio player that's most likely to be stuffed to the final sector of its hard disk with low bit-rate AAC and MP3 audio files.

Plus the, ahem, 'Hi-Fi' has a frequency response of 53Hz to 16kHz which is a bit like giving someone a bottle of sparkling wine and calling it finest champagne (True 'music fans' only truck with 16Hz to 20kHz audio).

In its favour Apple's engineers have reinforced the Hi-Fi's enclosure with a dual layer skin to increase rigidity and reduce unwanted vibrations. Plus the speaker driver design is proprietary, being specially developed for the iPod Hi-Fi's box.

The unit also boasts an incredibly efficient Class D amplifier, although Apple is someone coy about its output in watts RMS. Not to be overlooked is the fact that the iPod is also capable of relaying lossless audio as well as uncompressed music files both of which give the Hi-Fi a fighting chance when it comes to competing with traditional stereos.

But first the practicalities. Fetch the Hi-Fi out of its box for the first time and you're immediately struck by its weight - 6.6kg as is, or 7.6kg when fed with the six D-size batteries that act as its alternative means of power.