Then the fun started. Having gone through the room correction setup process, which took all of five minutes including unpacking and connecting up the microphone, we cued up some familar recordings and had a long session of comparing the settings. Since for most of this review we weren't using a subwoofer (a brief session in a system with a single one was quite impressive), we had effectively two options, mid-frequency correction only, or mid and high.

The results in a way say as much about how recordings are made as about room correction in itself. By far the most convincing results came with recordings made by this review's author, recordings of small classical ensembles in venues with a decent natural acoustic. Of course, a major factor in this case was that the original sound was still fresh in the memory, but in addition there's a fundamental difference from studio productions in that the latter have no absolute reference – they are mixed over loudspeakers to sound generally plausible, but are paintings rather than photographs.

If you put a single high-quality microphone in a reverberant space, however, you are capturing sound in a way that can theoretically be replayed precisely. It's no exaggeration to say that such recordings really came to life with room correction engaged. Studio productions can sound impressive via room correction, but the difference is much less night and day and is not always an improvement.

No surprise: the 'reference' included speakers and a listening room which may have been somewhat similar to ours or yours. But there's a happy conclusion to draw.

At the prices being asked, this is a very good CD player and a mighty fine amp, even without the extra features. Having those features may make things even better for you - if not, just ignore! We had to wait a while to get these new products: it was worth it.

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