The new NAD C715 DAB Micro System will please anyone who has used NAD equipment in the past. The trademark NAD styling makes you feel immediately at home and you'll be expecting to hear the high quality, value for money, hi-fi sound that all NAD products seem to easily deliver.

We've been looking at DAB equipped Micro Systems for a while now, but have always found a compromise with most options so far. The various derivatives from PURE; both the Pure DMX60 and Pure DMX50 come with the pedigree of accomplished DAB componetry, but on audition we've found them to be acoustically challenged - ie they don't sound very good.

We cast our net wider to the similar looking, and similarly priced options in the form of the Onkyo CS-515 DAB Micro, the Yamaha CRXM170, the Denon DF-103 DAB Micro and the Denon DF-102. All come from manufacturers with reasonable hi-fi sound credentials, but the products themselves all seemed first generation and lacked in terms of functionality. We thought we'd found the ideal solution to our search in the form of the TEAC CRH-255 - we had the comfort of knowing the sound would be up to scratch (TEAC can produce some high quality hi-fi when it wants to), it also looked good and was feature-rich, including the record to MP3 function we wanted. But after watching TEAC target the gadget-market with it's advertising and then seeing them change direction by adding a DVD player facility ( and at the same time dropping the record function in the TEAC DR-H300 DAB Micro ) we wondered if the TEAC CRH-255 was really going to please.

We then scoured the web for some reviews and found a mixed bag - especially on DBA reception ( the quality of DAB reception is highly dependent on your location and even the best products can struggle if you're in a poor reception area)

When we finally heard about the release of the NAD C715, we were sure our prayers had been answered. A great looking product, featuring DAB, CD playback and MP3 record facilities, backed up by what we expect will be the trademark NAD audio 2x25W amplification; how can it fail to meet our approval? Reading through the specifications we may have found a slight flat=spot in that it seems not to be able to play CD's containing MP3 format files - can that be true when most other micro-systems seem to be able to manage this?

So the final question for us is, what speakers to place alongside this system? - the immediate choices would be either the Tannoy Mercury F1 Custom speakers or the new Monitor Audio BR1, both at the top of their class for Bookshelf speakers costing around the £100 mark. Both look well matched at 6 ohm impedance. The Tannoys have loads of great reviews but the BR1's are too new to have enough written about them, but given the success of their big brothers ( the Monitor Audio BR2 ) we'd expect them to be star performers. So it'll come down to a shop audition for us or we'll take some relaiable advice from friends - either way, we expect to have a super DAB Micro system sitting in our office by the end of the week!

Price - we found you could get one in the UK for around £350 online (the non DAB version sells for less at around £290)

• AM FM DAB Tuner; Plays CD, CD-R/RW discs
• Power Output 2 x 25 Watts power at 6 Ohm
• Size (WxHxD): 215 x 110 x 359 mm
• USB Digital record / playback (MP3 or WMA) for MP3 Players and memory sticks
• includes remote control
• 3 analogue stero inputs
• 1 Analogue Output
• 1 Optical digital output
• Sub Woofer output
• Timer / Clock / Alarm
• 10 DAB presets / 30 AM presets / 30 FM presets
• Headphone Output