I'd wanted a Bang & Olufesen system since I was eight years old. There was just something so ... right ... about them.

If you reach your hand towards the doors, you obviously want them to open, so they do. If you were recording a CD to tape (ok, this is going back a bit ...), and you paused the CD, the tape paused too. If you wanted to listen to track 5 of a tape, you just pressed 5, exactly as if it were a CD.

B&O also manage to achieve the perfect aesthetics, blending hi-techness with beauty with a no-nonsense functional look.

Now, at this point, I have to make a confession. I'm no audiophile. I listened to this system, and I listened to a Denon system costing less than half as much - and I couldn't tell much difference. Or, at least, couldn't say that one was better than the other. But I didn't care. I knew that every time I looked at the Denon system, there would be a little part of me wishing I'd bought this instead. So I did.

Today, it's even worse. My entire music collection now sits on my iPod, so the B&O system is now nothing more than an iPod amp & speaker set - and I'm sure that audiophiles will insist that it can no longer be referred to as hifi. (Actually, I have one mate who would say that's true of B&O systems anyway, but then he's a man who has spent several tens of thousands on his system, so is clearly a nutter and his views don't count.)

But I still don't care. I need an amp, speakers and tuner, as well as the ability to play the occasional CD and tape, and I can't think of anything I'd rather have to do the job than my Overture.

I have no more excuse for these:

Do they sound better than the iPod earphones? Well, yes, but that wasn't difficult - even a €15 Sennheiser pair managed that. Do they sound better than the Sennheiser earphones? In fact, do they sound nearly ten times better? We-ell ...

But, it will not surprise you to hear, I don't care. They are the most comfortable earphones I have ever owned, they look beautiful and they qualify as gadgets in their own right.

They are adjustable in all three planes. First, the round-ear holder hinges, enabling you to adjust the position of the earpieces in the forward-back plane (and they open fully for ease of putting on and taking off):

Second, they earpieces slide up and down the column, so that you can adjust the vertical positioning.

Third, the earpieces themselves hinge in and out, so you can have them snug to your ear or with a little space for extra comfort. And they open all the way out to remove the plugs from your ears without having to take them off your ears, which is a great convenience when you need to have a brief conversation with someone when travelling:

Like the hifi, they give me pleasure every time I use them, and that's enough justification for me.