The new system, which will be in the shops late this month at £1250, clearly has Arcam's Solo systems in its sights, packing as it does a 3.5in full colour display, illuminated touch-sensitive buttons and 2x100W Class D digital amplification.
The fully digital signal processing allows digital audio sources, such as the built-in CD player and DAB radio, to be processed and amplified entirely in the digital domain, while analogue signals, such as those from the built-in FM radio, are transformed to digital to optimise performance.
An FM/AM version will be available in those areas of the world without DAB reception.
Tone control and equalisation are also carried out entirely in the digital domain.
The Mi utilises data from the iPod to generate menus on its full colour display screen, these mirroring those on the iPod, and dynamic text sizing makes them easily read from across the room, allowing convenient armchair selection of artists, albums, songs, playlists, podcasts and musical genres.
Bluetooth MP3 music can be received from A2DP-compliant devices, such as Bluetooth music phones. An optional Myryad BluePlay module is available for this, and plugs into the rear panel of the unit.
Inputs extend to two optical digital sockets, two stereo analogue and a tape in, plus a 3.5mm stereo input on the front panel, while there are also digital optical, analogue and headphone outputs.
Infrared in/out sockets expand the control flexibility, and the Mi comes complete with an extruded aluminium remote handset.
