LG FA163DAB 160W iDock micro hi-fi system

Surprisingly above-average sound quality

The remote sits really comfortably in the hand and gives full control over any iPod connected to the unit’s top-mounted dock. The soft-touch buttons give a nice response and, carrying on the iPod theme, the main control array is a circular arrangement in the centre of the remote.

Dock your iPod in the top

The rear-ported speakers have no less than four drivers: two mid-range and one tweeter mounted on the front, and a large sub-woofer on the out-facing side, suggesting the unit might indeed have a superior sound capability than might be expected. However, the cables look cheap and, becuase they're hard-wired into the speakers, they can't be easily replaced.

Worse, the top drivers are just for decoration and entirely non-functional. We couldn't work out the rationale behind this. LG points to product aesthetics, but in our view the system would have looked fine with just the two drivers that are functional.

On the front of the main unit there's a flip-down door at its base which reveals the 3.5mm socket and a USB jack to give non-iPod users the option to connect their own player to the machine. There's also a headphone port, and clock and timer controls under the flap.

We started our test with the vertical-loading CD player, which will also play CD-R/RW discs containing MP3 and WMA files and can rearrange the order of tracks as directed by the user. We selected a few tracks from Black Ice, the new AC/DC album. The sound galloped out of the speakers with some impressive depth with good enough bass performance and punch to do the Australian veterans' no-nonsense tuneage justice. For variety we tried a few tunes from Duffy’s Rockferry, and again the machine coped well, presenting the Welsh warbler’s honeyed tones with some real warmth.

Side-facing subs

The player can also go very loud without struggling, delivering 160W of power. Also included is an auto equalizer which identifies the genre of music and matches it with the right bass and treble settings. Indeed, the CD unit does sound a little more agile than many other mini systems, and performs equally well regardless of genre.