Nakamichi Sound Space8

Author's product rating:   

Picture Playback
Sound Level
Ease of Use
Range of Features
Value for Money

Advantages:	Style, size, sound quality
Disadvantages:	None really

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The last time I bought a hi-hi it was over 10 years ago and it was obvious when looking at the system. A selection of very large black hi-fi seperates joined together with metres and metres of cabling. Not too good in my stylish flat...the CD player was starting to wear out too. It had to go!

Having spent over a £1000 on my car system it needed to be good for me to be satisfied with the sound, but needed to be sleek and stylish so that it didn't dominate the appearance of the room. That's where the problem was - good sound quality normally means boring design and good design normally means poor sound quality. Not strictly true, but there are very few that combine the two for around £1000.

I noticed the Nakamichi SoundSpace 8 as soon as I got to the hi-fi dealer. It's incredibly small - it's about the size of a sheet of A4 paper (slightly thicker though) and it can be wall mounted. There is a single sub-woofer that that produces the low frequency sounds (it's about the size of a standard speaker and it houses the amplifier as well and looks very stylish). There are also two very small satellite speakers that can also be wall mounted.

The system itself has a tuner for AM/FM and a five-disk CD player. How the CD's all fit in there I'm not sure, but you feed them in one by one and they sit in the unit until you want to play them. It has all the usual connections you find on a hi-fi which allow you to connect to other devices.

The sound is top quality. The hi-fi purists will say that the sound quality is sacrificed for the sake of looking good, but I call it a very good compromise of sound quality and style. I'm very impressed at the quality of sound that it can produce. It's not something you could really use at a party in a large room because it's not designed for it. It does, however, have more than enough power for normal listening, with more than enough bass to annoy the neighbours.

If you've got £1100 to spend on a stylish hi-fi system then go and buy the Nakamichi SoundSpace 8. If sound quality is the most important thing to you, then maybe you'll prefer the sound of a larger plainer looking hi-fi. I'd still ask for a demo - you might be surprised.