The real surprise here is the fact that the CD-10 exists at all. Micromega has had a fine reputation, in particular for its range of CD players.

Since its first outing in the late 1980s, the range has included what is claimed to be the first top-loading CD player, (the CD-F1 Hightech in 1987) and in the following year the first separate two-box transport/DA converter combination, though we are not convinced of the veracity of either of these claims.

From this reviewer's memory, we thought both Philips and Meridian had prior claims to top-loading players and one of the early iterations of Cambridge Audio was surely the first with a two-box player?

But from the outset Micromega had a real cachet for sound quality, but some of its models were hit by reliability problems with the Philips-sourced mechanisms, which was surely not Micromega's fault, but eventually led to the company's demise – temporarily anyway.

And now, after a gap of several years, the company is back with a reorganised leadership and design team, a new range of products and new UK distribution. The company, still based in Paris, is now headed by one-time motorcycle-racing champion Didier Hamdi, whose other interests include the company that provides the very impressive lighting for the Eiffel Tower.

He has since reconstituted the design team under the company's original founder, Daniel Schar. All this came to light on a recent visit to Paris, where the reconstituted company was formally announced.

Here in the UK, distribution is now in the hands of Absolute Sounds, the company that handles many of the most prestigious audiophile companies including Krell, darTZeel, Wilson Audio, Koetsu, Sonus Faber, Audio Research and Magico.

Another surprise is, that at the tail end of the most severe economic recession in recent times, Micromega's focus has been on on the affordable end of the market, the sector that has suffered most during the recession.

Most of the new components, which include amplifiers, CD players and tuners, cost less than £2,000, while the entry-level award winning CD player tested here costs just £799. A price which puts it in line with counterparts, from the likes of Rotel and from the mainstream end of the Marantz and Denon range. This is virgin territory for Absolute Sounds, which makes the new distribution deal all the more intriguing.

As for the bits you don't see from the outside, the CD-10 is built around an R-core transformer, chosen for its narrow bandwidth, which is said to be superior in current-limited situations to the more usual toroidal solution, because it provides higher levels of interference rejection.

Micromega cd-10

The linear power supply is constructed in several stages to mitigate crosstalk between digital and analogue circuits. The digital section provides sufficient current to power the CD drive and the user interface – the display and associated logic. The analogue section is optimised in a different way.

After rectification and filtering, a high-impedance, low-noise power section is combined with tracking regulators, in a design with a rejection level higher than 100dB. The digital section of the D/A converter has a constant power source and a very low noise shunt regulator.

The disc drive in this player is a DVD-type, chosen because this kind of mechanism, is produced in very large quantities at low prices and with extremely high levels of reliability, a subject that Micromega is understandably sensitive about.