In fact, this is a player with a serious grip on proceedings, and this is very much a characteristic that cropped up during the test process. Throughout our protracted listening period with various amps (some employing balanced connection, since the Digit offers that facility) and speakers, we found it a consistent feature.

We wouldn't want to imply that the sound is, therefore, relentless or dissected with some kind of grim determination, as there's no hint of any such unpleasantness, but there is definitely a sense that things are in no danger whatsoever of getting out of hand.

This is most obvious, not surprisingly, in the bass, but also applies higher up the band - the decay into ambient noise of high-pitched percussion, for instance, is deliberate rather than entirely airy.

Is that praise or complaint? We'd say it's praise - the Digit presents things as they should be, rather than adding its own element of chance. We're confident in saying that because we tried several recordings of familiar performers in familiar spaces - familiar, that is, from live encounters - and the overall sensation was impressively lifelike. This player is admirably honest, particularly in its rendition of tonal character.

That said, we have reservations about certain aspects of the sound. Chief among these was stereo imaging. It's a tricky thing to get just right, because it relies on very subtle cues to work well, so the smallest departure from perfection can have a noticeable impact. In this case, images seem to become compressed towards the front of the soundstage as the music grows in complexity and dynamic level.

Image width is much less affected: if one is to be really fussy, there's perhaps a slight narrowing, but it's definitely the depth that's more clearly affected.

Along with that, there's just a trace of grain at times in some kinds of music, pretty much the kinds you'd expect to show it up - precise and polished classical, for a start. Some recent opera recordings are not quite as clear as we've heard them, while one or two rock recordings made with audiophile principles in mind show up the same characteristic.

At very low levels we could find nothing amiss: the player's lack of intrinsic noise or grunge making for beautifully silent backgrounds, so whatever defect causes the grain clearly is a function of the audio signal itself.

In fact, we've a suspicion it may be jitter, as this was the only measurement we took on the player, which fell a little short of the high standards that are so prevalent these days. But it's not a permanent feature of the sound, and most of the time the good aspects significantly outweigh the bad.

One particularly praiseworthy area of the Digit's performance is solo human voice. Because voice is almost invariably mixed near the centre and fairly forward, it's not affected much by any kind of imaging oddities, and its tonal nature makes it less critical of grain, so it can benefit fully from the Digit's excellent tonality as well as its fine dynamic ability.

We listened to a wide range of vocal tracks in all sorts of styles and found ourselves getting really involved - the true nature and raw emotion of voices from Johnny Cash to Kathleen Ferrier come across with very little impediment.

The Digit is similarly confident with piano music, where the grip we have come to love (see earlier) makes for a sound with plenty of impact and clearly detailed resonance too.

On the debit side, orchestras and other large ensembles seem a little lacking in spatial scale, and choirs are perhaps a touch homogenised. This kind of thing tends to become more obvious the longer one listens, and we found that it dampened our initial enthusiasm for

the player somewhat. Then again, a few minutes listening to the right sort of music restores positive feelings. Bizarrely, 'the right sort' included both highly energetic and very laid-back styles - it's the stuff in between that seems to trip the player up.

We may seem to have been a little harsh on what is without doubt a good player, but then standards around £2,000 are high, and we've become fussy through being spoiled. We have nothing but admiration for the Digit's looks and found a lot to like in its performance; we'd certainly recommend giving it a try.