Tangent Quattro

When internet radio first started gaining momentum, many dismissed it for its limited content and low-quality audio. But today internet radio is huge, with thousands of stations available across the globe, a number which is growing all the time as regular broadcasters move online as well. Best of all, many now broadcast at bit rates of 128kb/sec or higher, resulting in sound quality that's as good as most people's home MP3 collections.

The beautifully retro Tangent Quattro radio certainly isn't in the same price bracket, especially if you go for the gorgeous red gloss finish, which adds a further £20 to the cost. But it's a wonderfully designed piece of kit, with enough oomph to the speaker to make the best of even the most average audio streams. We're not convinced that positioning it upwards in the roof of the device will be to all tastes, but with the volume turned up it drowns out the BT and Pico models with ease.

Ten control buttons and two smooth dials make it a breeze to find your favourite stations, and we were up and running on our network in mere seconds. It has plenty of other features such as the always-useful alarm and sleep functions; it can stream MP3s from a PC, just as the others can, and offers a headphone port, as well as both line-out and aux-in for external sources and speakers. The Tangent Quattro is well-built, good-looking and undeniably expensive, but as an all-in-one table radio we simply haven't seen anything that comes close to matching it.

Author: Jonathan Bray