It might look like your average cassette tape, but the Duo-DX AR-496 is a combined MP3 player and dictaphone that allows you to encode MP3 files directly on the player.

The unit looks impressive thanks to its dark grey aluminium casing and feels like it could take a few hard knocks.

The lack of buttons also backs up this no-frills sturdiness, but it does mean that the transport controls generally have more than one function. For example, during playback pressing the Play button repeatedly will skip between the various EQ settings.

We were a bit disappointed with the fast forward and rewind setup as, although they allow you to skip through a track, there's no audible cue to give you an idea of where you are in the song.

There's no LCD display to show song titles or where you are in a track, but it does have an LCD remote on the headphones.

When we placed the Duo-DX into a cassette deck, sound quality was clear and crisp with plenty of bass, but bizarrely the playback through the headphone socket wasn't as good.

The unit can play both WMA and MP3 tracks but we encountered a strange problem with some VBR (Variable Bit Rate) MP3 files.

When we turned the Duo-DX on and started playback of the VBR file immediately, it would play without any problems. However if we played a non-VBR file first and then skipped to the VBR track the song would jump and skip during playback.

We also had problems with the onboard encoding. When we placed the Duo-DX in the tape deck and pressed Record the results were always quite quiet so a lot of hiss was recorded.

The encoding isn't of great quality anyway as it introduces lots of MP3 artifacts such as warbling on high-frequency sounds and poor bass reproduction.

SPECS

DETAILS

Price: £199 (£169.36 ex VAT)

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