The benefits of a dedicated separates over an iPod dock.

The current trend for home audio systems seems to been based around downsizing systems and utilising the ease of an iPod / MP3 player as the source of music. Whilst there are many benefits of this in terms of ease of used for the general day to day listening, it does take some of the pleasure away from music.

From my experience, listening to music should be about the album in as a while piece of work, and not just listening to your music collection on shuffle. You should take time the time to sit down and listen to the music rather than it just being background music.

iPod docks have their place and they are great for quickly accessing you music with the minimum of fuss. It is not the convenience that I don't like; it is the poor sound output. I think we have all become used to the way they sound - processed and a bit thin. I recently went round a friend's house who has a separates system. Listening to music on this makes you realise how much is missing from the iPod output. So I intend to immerse my components to think about it is hard to know where best to spend your money.

Your system is going to be made up of dedicated systems like and amplifier, CD player, dab radio, and speakers. As the units are stand alone it allows you to choose different brands based on the best performance. It is often the case the one company is good at making a DAB radio may not produce the best CD player. The best thing to do is go to an independent retailer and listen to the units and get their advice on what works well together. From my experience you want to spend the most on the amplifier and speakers. Getting this right will give you a solid basis to build your system on. If you are going down the home cinema rout then the same principle applies. I would recommend spending some research time on What Hifi as they have fantastic 'best buys' section that will suit all budgets.

If you are looking to really bring your music alive then you can't beat vinyl it is the best sound quality by far and the while listening experience is improved is a strange way simply by handling the packaging. New vinyl is expensive, but you can still pick up loads of good quality vinyl from ebay and second hand stores. Take a chance and add a record player to your system and you will never return to the compressed format of MP3's.