Pure Evoke-1 DAB Radio

Firstly the plus points, and there are plenty of them. The appearance is good; well designed and carefully assembled from pale wood and light metal, so with the fresh and stylish look of it there is an immediate feel-good factor about having the thing in the room. Switch it on, and tuning is done for you, just like that. In a second or two you have everything from Red Dragon to the World Service instantly available to you at your fingertips. Sound good so far? It gets better. In the little green window it tells you what station you're tuned to, and gives a scolling read-through of information about the station, or of what is currently playing. So if you miss the announcer's introduction, the radio will tell you what you're listening to. The controls are faultless. An on-off button, a volume knob, a tuning knob and a few pre-sets. They are all comfortable, pleasant to use and intuitive, so you won't need to refer to the instruction book after an initial glance. The tuning knob deserves special praise. It is dual function; rotate to browse available stations, press it and the radio switches to your new selection. Perfect.

The sound you get from a digital broadcast is clear and free of hiss. No more straining to listen to crackly, hissy signals. No more re-tuning every five minutes as the signal drifts off. No more jumping out of your skin as a distressed sybillant goes off in your ear like a gunshot. Digital radio signals are always clean. And perfect? Well not quite, but I'll come on to that in a minute.

The addition of a 3.5mm jack to phono connector (Richer Sounds will sell you one for £10) allows you to connect up to your hi-fi. Radio 3, re-produced in this way is simply wonderful. The signal is broad and filled with detail throughout the register. Classical enthusiasts please note: for you this is easily a five star machine, and please don't read any further. Other stations suffer from compression. Listen to Virgin over the hi-fi and the clarity of the signal becomes brutal honesty. Rock music is thin and forced, and with puny bass and reedy vocals you won't want to leave it on for long. Jazz suffers similarly. This, I hasten to add, is not in any way the fault of this machine, which is merely presenting what is there. I hope that in the future more channels will offer an un-compressed signal, perhaps as an alternative for those like me, who want to plug into the hi-fi and fill the house with foot-stomping boogie. I suspect that there are issues such as bandwidth and possibly the old chestnut of digital piracy to be dealt with before that happens.

So if this machine is so good why only four stars? Two reasons really. Firstly the in-built speaker is no better than the one in my old Sony portable radio. Admittedly I did listen to a few before buying, and the Sony was miles better than the rest. But it did only cost £15. This one really ought to have a better speaker for the price.

My main criticism is the non-portability. Don't be fooled by the handle on the top; there is no facility for battery power, it's mains or nothing. Now this is a serious drawback. I am a lover of radio. I wake up with Radio 4, go to sleep with Radio 3, and flirt with 5 live, Virgin and other local staions in between. The best thing is that you can listen to it whilst doing other things; want to wash the car or do the garden whilst listening to the test match ball by ball? Pick up the radio. Want to carry on listening to John Humphries whilst cleaning your teeth? Easy, take it in the bathroom with you. Except you can't. Not with this one, and for me at least, this is a nuisance. It means I won't be getting rid of the old Sony, even though I have to hit it sometimes because of a loose wire. It's portable, and the Pure Evoke, for all it's wonder and charm, isn't.

But the plus points massively outweigh the minuses and I do not regret buying this machine for an instant. It is flawed and expensive, but worth every penny and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Originally it took me months to track one down, but wow, was it worth the wait!

The Evoke scores full marks in both form and function. Easy to set up, easy to use, excellent quality sound, very easy on the eye and a joy to use. Tuning is simple and easy and all the controls have a quality feel about them.

A few reviewers have commented about the lack of portability. This is only a down side if you need it to be truly portable.
If I am working in another room for a few hours I am happy to take the mains adapter and plug it in there - No more hassle than having to change the batteries regularly and much cheaper. I have not qualms about the fact that my Evoke will not run on batteries.

A number of reviews also say that they have not / will not bother with the extra speaker. Well, I would say, think again! I had mine for a few months before getting the extra speaker & I believe that it is an excellent addition, with great quality stereo imaging. Obviously if you can plug your Evoke into your hi-fi then don't bother with the extra speaker, but if you use it regularly where you don't have a full hi-fi system, then it is money well spent.

So, is there any bad news? Well, I am struggling to find any but would agree with a comment made elsewhere.....I have mine on my desk, which means I look down on the display, which makes it a little difficult to read! OK, no big problem, but that is how good the Evoke is.

Conclusion - If you are reading this you are interested in an Evoke, don't read any more, go ahead and buy one. You will not be disapointed.

The down side... well it's only mains powered so I'm not sure it counts as a true "portable", and personally I would like to have had a dimmer on the display (which tends to light the whole room up at night), but that's about it really.

The Evoke was one of the first in the market and it is now available in a variety of packages (you can get versions with additional speakers, different finishes and alarm clocks added etc etc), and with a bit of shopping around you can find some very competitive deals now. Whichever way you cut it you will be able to find cheaper DAB receivers, and ones with more features for the money, but for me... I'll stick with the Evoke any day!