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Acoustic Solutions are known for better quality Hi-Fi and amplifiers, here the all important chip is provided by 3GA. In fact 3GA and an annual event held in Cambridge for new innovations is the whole reason I knew about it.

Two weeks ago a cold day in November saw me on a train to Cambridge at some horribly early hour. This annual event hosts a range of technological innovations some never get beyond the early prototypes, some appear again in a slightly different guise and occasionally something like the SP150 from Acoustic Solutions appear on the chip manufacturers stand to show what the current version can do. They were also showing the next generation with more bells and whistles but as yet it has not gone into production. Indeed should it do so I will certainly write about it.

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For an example at the first of these events three years ago I saw a very early prototype product of an Internet radio, last year it was there again and contracts were 'only weeks away', this year it looks rather different but still not yet in manufacture so technology is not always immediate.

The box is 43x32x8cm with leads attached. The weight is something under 5kilos. The rear has output for sound and input for mains lead.

The front looks very like a standard CD player and indeed it has push buttons for forwards, backwards, play and stop. Above these buttons is a 6.5x1cm two line LCD display. To the right of this is a large knob that allows a lot of choices to be made and a smaller eject button for the full height CD tray next to it and beyond that the on/off switch.

So far this is just a rather expensive CD player and indeed it can play CD's. However the clever bit courtesy of the 3GA chip is the ability to store the content of music CD's not just uncompressed (CDA) but also more usefully in one of three compression modes. These are described as Most Compressed 128kb (the same as used on most MP3 players) 192kb Normal (default) and 320kb High Quality.

So far this may still be something of only limited appeal. Now we get to the clever bits, Insert a CD and the Display gives you the option to play or store. If you choose store you are then asked if it should compress immediately or later, should you say later (default) a CD can be transferred in an average of three minutes. When idle the unit will carry out the process of compression. The unit has CDDB database built in and unless your CD is rather obscure or very recent it is likely that not only title but track information is already there so not often will you need to use the supplied 32 key remote control to enter the information. On the occasions this is needed it will be easier for those used to 'texting' as  the numeric keys are used to enter information.

The unit is supplied with a 40GB hard disc that is said to be able to store up to 8000 normal length tracks when compressed or around 800 uncompressed. I certainly have stored dozens on CD's with no problems. The menu system allows you to check how much space is used and remains. You can easily change the compression method dependant on the type of music being stored.

Searching for a particular artist, album, or track is quick and easy and there are several methods of choosing what to play. Should you wish there is a preview and even a random mode. Another advanced feature is the ability for segueing tracks together thanks to Audio Blend software. You can also create playlists to suit varying moods.

So should you want to store a lot of CD's and have almost instant access to them then this could be for you. The down side is that you need an external output and that really needs an amplifier, however you can preset the output level.

This is certainly a gadget and I can see that the 3GA chip will have spin offs that may produce even more goodies. However the Acoustic Solutions SP150 HD Audio Jukebox is available now at around £199. It is certainly available from Argos at £199.99 see link.