Pure Digital Evoke-2S DAB and FM radio
Quality sound
Review With its ‘chip company that also makes radios’ label firmly in the past, Pure Digital can now move on to produce products at the top end of the market. But to justify its premium price of £170, the "luxury" Evoke-2S needs to deliver a something special. Fortunately for Pure, it does just that.
Pure's Evoke-2S: focused on sound quality
Right out of the blocks, the machine feels chunky and well built - it's 290 x 210 x 120mm. You certainly wouldn't want to drop it on your foot, but it’s still light enough to move around easily enough. The machine is done out in the familiar Evoke maple finish with carry handle, and has an attractive brushed aluminium face, with click dials and push-button controls.
Everything is laid out simply and labelled clearly, so there's no need to go near the manual to figure out which button does what. All the controls feel solid and precise.
The machine isn't overloaded with accessories. In fact, you get European and UK power leads, and that's it. However, you can purchase the company’s ChargePAK internal rechargeable battery for true portability, as well as an iPod dock. We can't help feeling that, for the price, the Evoke-2S really should come with these in the box.
In a bid for environmental credibility, there's a power switch on the back that flips between turns the radio off entirely to eliminate even the power consumed when the thing's on stand-by. Around the back, you'll also find an unused mini USB Port - it's for "upgrades", Pure says. There's a 3.5mm input socket for portable digital players or a CD deck, as well as a 3.5mm headphone socket.
Round the front, there's the screen, which we initially felt looked a little small and even after testing, we felt Pure could have been a little more generous here. But the yellow-on-black, 128 x 22 OLED screen is one of the brightest and smoothest we've seen on a DAB radio and deals with all the information available quickly and with good clarity.
COMMENTS
DAB hand
Just the thing for 1993. Only it's, er, 2009.
The DAB we in the UK adopted is so far out of date, and so lousy in quality, it's little wonder that slightly more enlightened countries elsewhere have dumped it long since.
Of course when DAB+ comes along, then maybe things will improve, but if you've shelled out this kind of money for something that looks like being non-upgradeable and therefore obsolete, you're obviously not going to be one of those embracing the kind of digital audio broadcasting which the UK should have had in the first place.
As for the price: it's doubtless based on volume (unit, not audio) cost and as the market for DAB in the UK is now slightly less than the total number of advertisers using ITV, then Pure has done a good job in bringing the price down to that level, seeing as how sales might reach half a dozen this month and two the month after.
El Reg shouldn't lament the apparent failure to include Pure's powerpack as standard though: the Internet has plenty of tales of users who found the powerpack rather too hot an attraction.
Ah well. Another DAB radio, another era.
Perhaps El Reg would now like to give a thumbs up review to the Binatone portable record player? Apparently it's very good.
dear oh dear
Oh my goodness. What a lot of party poopers. You lot sound as sad as the climate change deniers. Do you all hang out on bulletin boards and conspiracy theory sites? Get lives people- it's a radio with 30 WRMS - that makes it rather unusual at least.
Fablon Overload!
Apart from it being crap old-style DAB [no indication of whether it can be upgraded to DAB+] - just what is it about the producers of DAB radios which obsesses themwith wrapping their sad, misguided products in cheap tacky wood-veneer? Such 'style' reminds me horribly of 1970s MFI/Hygena kitchens and the first generation of VCRs and TVs from the 1970s whose stylists were clearly receiving major backhanders from the makers of 'Fablon' self-adhesive pseudowood.
If you want to sell crap DAB radios you need to make them look modern, not like a loathsome throwback to the horrid days of Bri-Nylon, Vesta chinese-meals and duck-egg-blue bathroom-suites.
Volume Dial
Is the volume dial free moving? Or is it graduated?
I had to take my last two Pure Dabs back as I couldn't turn the volume down enough for when I was about to sleep.
Oh dear, oh dear
"without loosing its clean sound". Fail.
Go sit in the naughty chair with the big pointy "D" hat on.
