When TAG McLaren Audio first burst upon the hi-fi scene a couple of years ago it promised to change the way people looked at hi-fi. No longer would we have to put up with super sounding kit that looked like it'd been knocked up in your grandad's garage from a Meccano kit and parts ordered from an electronics catalogue. TAG McLaren Audio's aim was to make hi-fi an experience - from the way the kit was packaged, to the quality of the design and materials, to its mindblowing sound. It didn't quite work that way though.

The company - which applied the same design principles used in its pricey watches and F1 racers to Audiolab's sonic expertise - was accused of arrogance, managed to get everyone in the hi-fi industry's back up and ultimately delivered an anti-climax. Its first system, the F3 Series looked like the usual collection of black boxes, albeit massively over-engineered and with solid aluminium dials that managed to look like they were made of plastic. It sounded good, but wasn't great. The tweakers went back to their garages and started soldering once more. And now there's this: the Aphrodite Music System AvantGarde. Ostensibly a CD player, RDS FM/AM tuner and 50W per channel amplifier in a single box, the Aphrodite's not so much a hi-fi as an event. Its wedge-shaped design, sloping gently from front to back with the CD enclosure sitting above the main box, bears a startling similarity to an F1 race car's nose cone. The thing's made entirely from aluminium, weighs in at a hefty 10.5kg and is dressed in a high gloss metallic finish that's available in eight different colours (we're testing the electric blue version) and is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. The minute you see it, you just have to take it home. Only you won't get the usual 'not another hi-fi' whines from your partner. They'll fall in love with it too.

So let's put a little meat on the Aphrodite's bones. As you'd expect, this is no button-festooned monstrosity. On the front and top, you get a select few flush-mounted buttons (the rest are on the remote) so you can play your CDs, tune into the radio, or listen to another piece of kit you've hooked up to the Aphrodite. A large chrome dial with blue LED on the left enables you to tweak the volume, and there's a large central blue LED display that tells you exactly what the machine's up to - supplying text information alongside radio broadcasts, for example.

The CD tray on top is isolated to protect the laser and disc from unwanted vibrations caused by stomping your feet in time to your tunes and is accessed by a clear perspex cover that glides open from right to left with all the class of a lady with long legs in a short skirt sliding out the back of a limo. There's even a chrome magnetic blob (or disc clamp - technical ed) that sits on the CD spindle to stop the disc wobbling around. The radio has 99 station presets and on the Aphrodite's shapely bottom are four Sorbothane feet with a sexy red centre designed to stop the whole lot sliding around on your hi-fi rack. It's all fantastically well made, weighty, solid, and Teutonic. The Aphrodite even manages to make rival 'quality' lifestyle systems from Bang & Olufsen and Bose look archaic.

Round the back, the system comes with a similarly minimalistic range of socketry. You get one pair of gold-plated binding posts for your speakers (TAG McLaren doesn't believe in bi-wiring), a pre-amp output so you can feed audio signals to an off-board power amp and a bunch of sockets that enable you to make and playback tapes, hook up your TV, a CD-recorder or MiniDisc deck. It also comes with two FM sockets - one for a regular radio antennae, the other for cable radio broadcasts - and a pair of TAGtronic Communication Bus ports which enable you to update the system's firmware or use the Aphrodite as part of a multi-room system.

Partnering the £2,995 Aphrodite are a pair of £1,495 Calliope speakers, also from TAG. Naturally they differ from regular wooden boxes, the curvy cabinets being made from extruded aluminium alloy that not only eliminates unwanted vibrations, but gets rid of the nasty standing soundwaves that can occur inside J H rectangular speaker boxes, so wrecking the sound. All three pieces of kit can be mounted on dedicated optional stands costing £379 for the Aphrodite and £499 a pair for the Calliope.

Best of all, this system is seriously easy to use. You power it up, plop in a CD, add the magnetic blobby (it's a disc clamp! - technical ed) and listen away. You can even set the Aphrodite to wake you up in the morning or send you to sleep in the evening thanks to a built-in alarm clock, while tuning in and storing radio stations is so simple your cat could do it while sitting in a tree, blindfolded and armed only with a very long bamboo stick. Only the remote lets the side down somewhat, festooned as it is with 47 buttons, many of which look the same.

So what does this mother of all lifestyle hi-fi systems sound like? Well you have to choose your tunes carefully. Like the F3 Series we reviewed way back in T28, the Aphrodite/Calliope combo is so transparent and revealing, it shows up every little flaw in a CD's recording, making stuff like thrashy indie too wearing to listen to for any length of time. Pick a decently mastered disc though and the system's qualities shine through - a large soundstage that doesn't ask you to grow a beard, wear only one sock and sit in the middle of the 'sweet spot' to get the best out of it, with plenty of tuneful bass and large lashings of treble. With dance and rock it sounds mighty fine, although the system's transparent nature can make even decent recordings sound a tad cold and clinical - swap the Calliopes with warmer sounding speakers and you'll end up with a system that truly rocks your world. Where the system delivers best though is with classical, instruments sounding spacey, open and natural. Just the thing for that dinner party in yuor minimalist loft apartment.

Yup, it looks like TAG McLaren Audio's lived up to its initial promise and delivered a system that truly mixes style and substance. As sonic goddesses go, this one's heavenly indeed.