Denon S-52DAB: The audiophile's wireless audio streamer

It's no secret that Denon is responsible for making our favourite audiophile headphones, the outrageously expensive AH-D5000s. The company's new networked home audio solution, the S-52DAB, is set to be just as expensive -- and just as delicious.

You may have noticed it looks like a tripped-out table radio. That's because it is. The S-52DAB will stream Internet radio via Ethernet or Wi-Fi, and it'll pull your PC or Mac's music library over your home network -- wirelessly, if you've got Wi-Fi buzzing around your pad. Fancy.

As the name suggests, it's also got DAB built in, but there's good ol' FM support and a CD player too. Also, iPods can be docked, just in case 7,000 Net radio stations, your entire PC music library and DAB radio wasn't quite convenient enough.

Our favourite feature -- and we're not ashamed to be this nerdy -- is support for FLAC. True, the player will handle MP3, WMA, WAV and AAC as well. But FLAC is the mother of lossless audio formats and the audiophile codec of choice. Having support for FLAC means that big fat terabyte hard drive sitting in your new PC can be filled with hundreds and hundreds of losslessly compressed CDs, and Denon's new toy will pull them into any room of your house. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we in the industry call 'bloody awesome'.

The £500 S-52DAB promises superb sound quality and we'll be getting our hands on one for review ASAP, so watch this space. If you're just itching to get one already, they'll be showing up in John Lewis stores from next Wednesday, 7 November. -Nate Lanxon

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