It goes on sale later this month for £250 through independent retailers and department stores such as John Lewis. We'll be testing it in our radio roundup in the January 2009 issue of What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision, on sale from December 11th.
Roberts says the unit has a new CD mechanism to improve playback performance, and a revised, larger remote control.
The top-mounted dock will take all iPods, including the new Touch and 3G iPhone, and the unit comes supplied with all the necessary adaptors.
The wooden cabinet has been "acoustically tuned" and is finished in high gloss piano black.
Users can record from CD or the radio on to either SD card or USB, the Sound 53 will support MP3 and WMA playback and it comes with a clock and multi-function alarm.
There are 20 station presets for the DAB/FM radio and you can wake to any of the music sources or a buzzer.
There's also an adjustable sleep timer, snooze function, auxiliary input for other MP3 players and a six-position equaliser with separate bass and treble controls.
Other features include a line out socket, optical digital output and a headphone socket.
At the same time, Roberts is also launching the iDream DAB/FM/iPod clock radio for £80. We'll be testing that in our January issue too.