It rewards a lengthy listen and does wonders for those whose tastes have matured beyond the plebeian. Although, if you do just happen to spend your entire musical life listening to X-Factor runners up through the USB port of the CD-S700, the A-S700 has a small bonus for you; those tone controls seem designed specifically to tame the hardness and trebly thin sound of MP3. These are some of the best in the business and only tone-shaping in the digital domain can do better.

Limited scale

Between them, the Yamaha 700 duo pass the Layla test; this overplayed track is the last one on an otherwise excellent, if monotonous album.

If the system exaggerates the treble and if it over-exaggerates the rhythm, you'll stop tapping along after about eight or nine tracks.

The limits of the price become apparent only when really punishing the amplifier. Play large-scale orchestral madness (Mahler's Eighth, for example) through relatively demanding speakers and the amplifier tends to smooth things over too much.

Level-headed pair

That said, few similarly priced competitors will do a better job with that particular musical onslaught.

What's the bad side, then? Well, it's fair to say that there are more dynamic sounding products out there (especially amplifiers), and this helps produce a sound that's less exciting than some.

On the other hand, most of these more dynamic products make a more exciting sound at the expense of some other aspect of the musical presentation, usually the coherence of the sound. Many will look to the Yamaha 700 series as the more level-headed sound.

Coupled to the right speakers, the Yamaha CD-S700 and A-S700 may not be the Dynamic Duo, but do represent a call for honest reproduction of music that few others can provide at the price. If you are fed up with overly warm, overly bright or overly 'exciting' products, this is the remarkably grown up choice.