I hope you all had some good pagan holidays.

This year the best girlfriend and I decided to hold a credit crunch Christmas (ccc) and limit the presents to the appropriate sums for a general recession. Nevertheless there was something on my mind for some time: I always wanted a small, ‘all in one’ solution for the bedside: It needed to be small, be able to dock my Ipod, play music from my media server via uPnP, stream from the internet, play DAB stations and FM. Tall order.

Or so I thought.

Enter one the most ridiculously named products ever, the Revo iBlik Radiostation.  Revo are a Scotland (Lanark, to be exact) based company specialised in DAB/Multisource devices, and the afore mentioned device does it all. So, I can listen at night not only to Radio4, but also to my podcasts on the Ipod, and, even more amazing, my beloved Radio New Zealand National via wi-fi or ethernet.

It all does it from a stylish little box with an antenna, an ethernet connector, a headphone adapter and, crucially, a stereo cinch connector that can hook up to an amp and a set of proper speakers, making this a very delectable choice for the living room as well.

So, does it work?

Yes. All of it, every bloody feeature. No bugs yet, and I have to admit that I am mightily impressed.At 180 pounds (that’s really favourable in Euro, btw) it doesn’t come cheap, but it does everything it should do, with so much more flaire and style than the other multisource options out there, like the ridiculously expensive and ugly as hell Phillips Streamium. Honestly, good hardware does not have to look like something out of ‘Star Trek: The next Generation’ and does not have to be as expensive as a dilithium chrystal either.