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Well. It was always going to happen....

A few days after posting my comments on a need for a Brennan JB7 hi-fi, I finally allowed Anne into talking me into ordering one .

So. It was delivered on Monday (or more accurately I collected it on Monday after they tried to deliver it the weekend before). And I've got to say - I'm more than happy with it. It does exactly what it sys on the tin (so to speak).

I'm really just starting the process of loading it with music, and given that I've got a few thousand disks it is going to take time. It goes through a two stage process. In the first instance it loads the CDs in loss less format (and you can play them straight away). However, when you next leave it in standby mode it silently starts to compress the files into your chosen format.

I can't say I've noticed any degradation in sound quality at all - though I'd be the first to admit that my ears are not perfect. One of the first albums I loaded was Andy Sheppard's "Soft On The Inside" as I always use the track "Carla Carla Carla Carla" as a sort of personal "bench-test" to check out the quality of a system - and this passes with flying colours.

So. As I say all I have to do now is plough my way through the old collection and load it. At the moment I'm still at the stage where I'm loading it with, mainly, stuff I want to listen to a lot. But I'm also trying to add more obscure stuff by starting to go through the collection in order. It takes about 5 minutes to load a CD ... so without sleep I could get everything loaded in about eight and a half days!

So. Friday's bargain find - The Mingus Big Band "Que Viva Mingus" (£1.99 - Barnardo's) has the honour of being the first album that has been loaded directly into digital format without being listened to first on a CD player.

It looks as though from now on CDs will simply be the means of storing and transporting the media rather than the primary source of listening. A brave new world.