And while the hi-fi industry champions audio quality, it's ignoring the easy accessibility that's MP3 players like the iPod provide which is now fueling the ipod acceories market. Going around your average hi-fi show is like wandering around The Hotel California 30 years after the owners locked the doors with the guests still inside.

70s acid rock casualties – their beards and sandals still intact – stagger around the dim corridors peering into the gloom at the cavernous rooms on either side.

Walk in and you'll see the same earnest men nodding, muttering and tutting over the latest turntable, speaker and amp combos, still trying to figure out where their decade went and why The Eagles ever split up in the first place.

For the Australian hi-fi industry is already largely irrelevant and could soon disappear altogether as the bulk of imports are from the UK, the USA and now China. Caught in a deadly pincer movement between digital audio players on one side and flat panel TVs on the other, the industry's response is largely to whimper, whinge and dust off their old concept albums.

Such a lovely place
The British Federation of Audio recently condemned the quality of audio being enjoyed by millions on their iPods, completely missing the point in the process. Arguably the people with the strongest interest in music – the young – are its most passionate and are keen to hear the bands they love however, whenever and wherever they like.

They don't want to be a chained to the ‘sweet spot' on a sofa listening to fricking Yes. They don't care how badly its recorded, what grade of vinyl its on or whether it'd sound better in 24-bit or 5.1 surround. They want sit on the bus, stick their earphones in and enjoy the whole of what music has to offer – including the stuff that was made in the last 25 years after Hotel California made its debut.

To be fair some companies are sufficiently ‘down with the kids' to offer MP3 connectivity through their devices – Arcam and Denon spring to mind – while others even go so far as to make dedicated iPod accessories like speaker docks and boomboxes. Others are cleaning up at the custom install end, fitting ridiculously expensive systems into homes that most of their owners don't even live in for most of the time or offering high-definition TVs to people whose lounges aren't big enough to ever see the benefit.

But you can never leave…
Outside the hotel in Bristol, the sun is shining, there are pretty girls everywhere and British music is in its rudest health for a decade. "Hi-fi", in its traditional sense, doesn't matter here… but the songs we can hear on our iPods will stay with us forever.

… And as if to prove the point, a week later, along comes Apple with its iPod Hi-Fi, one of three low-key launches to disappoint the rumour-mongers who'd been hoping for a touchscreen iPod and full-resolution moivie downloads.There are also three good reasons to be sceptical about this new iPod peripheral. First are the company's claims that this ungainly-looking box boasts a world-class acoustic design only to then fail to back it up with any kind of substantial technical specs.

The second is that it's just an it's an iPod accessory, not a high-class mini hi-fi or full-width separates system so those claims ("Home Stereo. Reinvented") look to be highly exaggerated.And third, there are already lots of competing products out there which look better, probably sound better and, ironically offer better iPod integration – just look at the way the iPod sits rather uncomfortably on top of the device rather than being integrated into the front like the Monitor Audio I-Deck.

We'll soon be able to tell you whether Apple is able to back up its claims with our forthcoming review, but bear this in mind – the iPod accessories market is already a $2 billion dollar industry and Apple will probably sell thousands, if not millions, of its so-called Hi-Fis at £249 a pop. And how many people in the hi-fi industry are able to say that of their products?

Rob Mead