It's fair to say that Tom DeVesto, president and cofounder of Tivoli Audio, still has issues with Creative Technology, the Asian electronics company that invested in, and then took over, DeVesto's previous cocreation, Cambridge Soundworks. Six months after the sale in 1998, DeVesto was gone, having resigned under heated circumstances.

When Gear reviewed a Cambridge Soundworks radio/CD combination about six weeks ago, DeVesto wrote the day the article appeared, touting Tivoli's Model Three, which shoots for at least part of the same market, while dismissing what "the mentality of a computer company" would produce. "I'd love to send you one," he wrote, and so I asked him to.

He was certainly correct that Tivoli's approach is vastly different. The Model Three is two pieces that together don't have the mass of the Cambridge Soundworks CD740, partly because the Model Three doesn't play CDs. Its larger piece, a simple clock radio, is about the size of a bread loaf, while the CD740 is almost bigger than a bread box.

Their appearance differences go well beyond size. The CD740 is black plastic with gray and silver accents, and includes a text display. The Model Three is housed in blond-brown cherry wood, and its controls are emphatically analog.

While quaintly retro, the analog approach has drawbacks, such as the sleep timer: First, it only plays for 20 minutes, while clock radios have long allowed users to decide how long before the radio shuts off. Second, it operates with a toggle switch that triggers a green light when pressed; but the light stays on, potentially for days, until the toggle is hit again. Since the light can shine whether the sleep timer is engaged or not, it doesn't really provide any information.

The Model Three's second piece is what lends it its zest. Essentially, it is a second speaker cabinet that can be put on the other side of the bed, with its own clock and alarm, giving the bed's second occupant control of her or his own alarm while providing the room with the high fidelity of component audio.

The Model Three's separate alarm controls are definitely better than the CD740's; the later riser doesn't have any responsibility when the first alarm sounds. But both sides should have access to the radio controls, and only the side trying to awaken should hear the radio output. Those sorts of smarts would come far more easily to the CD740, with its countless chips and buttons, but DeVesto said he was trying to create something simple.

Without having the Model Three and the CD740 in the same room, it's impossible to say which one sounds better, but it's accurate to say that both offer rich sound that would disappoint only the pickiest listener.

The two-piece Model Three I tested sells for $300, compared with $400 for the CD740. Ron Sylvester, Tivoli's national sales manager, said the base unit alone is available for $200, and a satellite speaker without clock or alarm is another $50. They all carry the legacy of Henry Kloss, the consumer electronics legend who cofounded Cambridge Soundworks and Tivoli, but the Model Three is Tivoli's first product release since Kloss died almost two years ago. DeVesto is on his own from here.