By Stuart Pritchard

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Clever stuff comes out of Cambridge. Charles Darwin, Alan Turing, Stephen Hawking, the reflecting telescope, webcams, IVF, the ARM processor, and the algorithm that made iris recognition possible, just to name a few. It’s also home to some of the country’s finest AV manufacturers, such as Cambridge Audio, Arcam and, yes, Majority.

Founded in 2012 in Cambridge, the City of Perspiring Dreams, or Silicon Fen as it might be better known, the company has spent the last 13 years achieving its original mission statement, to use ground-breaking technology to deliver quality consumer electronics at an affordable price, to absolute aplomb.

Which brings us to its latest ear-opening innovation, an all-things-to-all-listeners black box of digital delights that blends essential elements of audio entertainment into one easy on the eye and eminently accessible unit, the Quadriga.

Yes, ‘Quad’ as in four, and ‘riga’ as in, erm, the capital of Latvia? No idea. In any event, the focus is firmly on the ‘quad’ part, as Majority’s newest arrival combines DAB+/FM internet radio with Spotify Connect streaming, Bluetooth, and a CD-player to culminate in a one-stop solution for quality audio.

A powerful 120W, 2.1-channel stereo system with 2x 4-inch full-range speakers and a decidedly punchy 6-inch downward-firing subwoofer that keeps the low-end thunderously nice and tight, setting these kind of things up usually proves to be a fiddly business.

With the handsome 5.4kg beast firmly planted on the test bench in my study, I braced for the sweary faff that inevitably follows, but no rant was forthcoming.

Once connected to the Wi-Fi using speedy WPS, I downloaded the UNDOK app as directed and sat agog as everything just, well, just worked.

Not a single expletive passed my lips. Pretty much instantly, I had Spotify Connect and an endless universe of internet radio up and running, not to mention use for the vast army of CDs I’d collected over the year and stubbornly refused to consign to the loft.

Which is all marvellous in itself, especially seeing as I can’t work without musical accompaniment, but the Quadriga’s flexibility doesn’t end there.

It also boasts an aux in, USB-A (for playback only), RCA in L-R socket, and SPDIF in (optical socket), so you can hook it up with pretty much all and sonic sundry, whether that’s the TV, your games console, a PC, a turntable, cassette player or, well, you get the idea. If it makes a noise, the Quadriga is ready to play.

Easy to operate via the aforementioned app, the included remote control, or even via the physical buttons and neat 6 x4.5cm colour TFT mounted on facia, when it comes to epic expanse of internet radio, you can search by continent, country, genre and/or station name, perhaps broadening your hearing horizons in the process or collapsing the horizons completely if you stumble upon some of the odder offerings out there. Once you’ve found your favourites, you can then assign them to the 40 preset slots available for instant access later.

Of course, if you don’t want all the hassle of searching through thousands of internet stations, you can simply switch to DAB+ mode and stick with more local/national radio content from the likes of Auntie Beeb, the Absolutes, and the Capitals, for example.

Now, while the room in which I conduct my reviews is of average size, the ceilings are outlandishly high, but regardless of that the power of the Quadriga not only utterly fills it, the sound quality is nothing if not full-bodied, rich and exceptionally well-balanced, like the audio equivalent of an exceptional Argentinian Malbec.

And that’s just on factory settings, for you can also play around with the preset EQ modes of ‘Normal’, ‘Flat’, ‘Jazz’, ‘Rock’, ‘Movie’, ‘Classic’, ‘Pop’ and ‘News’, or on the unlikely chance none of those float your treble and bass boat, custom settings let you create your own EQ, too.

More connectionally keen than needy networkers at a conference for the overly gregarious, more functionally flexible than a Chinese State Circus contortionist, and more majestic on the ear than a whole dazzle (new collective noun) of digital divas singing in sweet, sweet harmony, the Majority Quadriga is impressive in all areas, while the asking price of just £248 seems ludicrously low for a bit of kit this accomplished. How do they do it, then?

Well, I’d have to guess at witchcraft… or at least some kind of dabbling in the digital dark arts, but however they do it, for lovers of compact convenience and audio excellence, the Majority Quadriga is the one-box sounds solution made perfect.