New Cygnett is a musical Maestro (From The Northern Echo)

New Cygnett is a musical Maestro

5:43pm Thursday 25th February 2010 in

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THE iPhone and the iPod Touch are great music players and, with their substantial storage capacity, they make an excellent jukebox replacement for a home hi-fi.

Just imagine how uncluttered your home would be if you could throw away your piles of old CDs, tapes and even (oh,the horror) those scratchy old LPs.

Not to mention that hulking great "music centre" your folks bought 30 years ago or the expensive (and massive) separates system the bloke in the hi-fi shop persuaded you to buy.

One way to do this is to plug the iPod's headphones output into the auxilliary inputs on a traditional music system - but that's an untidy solution which leaves cables snaking around the room.

A speaker dock such as the Cygnett Maestro offers a far more elegant solution. Because it incorporates an iPod/iPhone connector socket, you can just drop your device into the Maestro and hit play - no fuss and no mess.

Although the Cygnett is a petite all-in-one unit it still produces a big room filling sound thanks to high quality twin mid-range speakers and a separate downward firing sub-woofer in the base.

If you use the iPhone it even knows when a call is coming through and fades down the tunes so you can answer without reaching for the credit-card size remote control. Once you have finished, the music fades back in seamlessly. It's a seriously cool touch.

The remote controls the device's volume, menu, shuffle, repeat, mute and search functions.

It also charges any iPod/iPhone that's attached, so your music player is ready for a day on the road after an evening's listening.

Don't own one of Apple's iconic devices? Fear not, the Maestro has got your back. There's a standard aux input for generic MP3 players, portable CDs and even tape players (if you must).

You can power the Maestro from the mains or load it up with batteries and take it with you on holiday. Unlike some cheaper iPod docks I could detect no mains hum when it was plugged in.

With rock and pop the sound was clear and detailed with plenty of bass slam. More complex classical tracks are rendered with clarity and precision - you simply won't believe your iPod can make such sweet music.

The Cygnett Maestro is available now from all good music outlets including Amazon and iWorld. It costs an entirely reasonable £59.99.