soundberry La prossima radio digitale

The PURE Evoke 2 portable radio follows on the heels of the highly successful Evoke 1 the first real mass produced sub £100 DAB radio. It should have been available months ago but the complexities of the new technology combined with some production delays in the shipping of the old technology mean that Imagination Technologies (the owner of the PURE brand) kept us waiting until everything was 'just right'.

At £159.00 it is more expensive than the Evoke 1 but how does it differ and is it worth the difference? For those of you who don't want to read the whole review or who skip to the summary, here is a shortcut. It is "great wee radio, stereo, optical outputs for digital recorders, battery and FM for those whose second favourite station is FM only- a good buy", but it's worth finding out more!

The Evoke 2 shares the same family styling of the Evoke 1 having a contemporary look. Twin speakers at the front with a backlit LCD screen. Three control knobs in the middle (volume,tone and tune).

The controls and way of working are very similar to the Evoke 1 and the virtually the same comments apply to this model. I make no apologies for cutting and pasting the next paragraph from my review of the Evoke 1, although wives and girlfriends may disagree, life is too short to say the same things in different ways. Additional comments are below.

"Getting the radio to play in the first few minutes was easy. Plug it together, press auto-tune, wait a moment and turn up the volume. There is a convenient backlit LCD display, which shows the station playing. Whilst still listening to your original choice you can turn the tuning knob to view other stations available. Once you've selected a station press the tuning knob and almost immediately the radio re-tunes.

By pressing the display mode you have the option of a number of displays. They are 'Scrolling text' (horizontal scrolling broadcast information, some text is more useful than others), Program Type (describing the content being broadcast), Multiplex name (displays the name of the Multiplex), Date and Time (presumably useful if you've come home plastered and don't know what time or day it is), Channel (gives the channel and frequency for the station) Mode (a non meaning name for stereo or mono and the data rate at which the audio signal is being transmitted, and Signal error rate (basically a signal strength meter). As well as having six preset stations which can be set up in the manner of most radios, (which if you are a sensible person means reading the manual, if you are a hifi 'expert' you press the buttons wildly for ten minutes until you eventually reach for the manual).It has some neat 'advanced features'. These include- Alphanumeric- Displays all stations in alphanumeric order. Fav station- displays the most listened to stations at the top of the alphanumeric list Active Station-Displays the active stations at the top of the service list and the inactive ones at the bottom of the alphanumeric list. Prune Stations- this isn't anything to do with fruit, but removes inactive stations from the list. Presets- Available only when Fav station has been selected. It transfers the top six stations of your ten favourite stations to the preset buttons.

You also have other facilities which are probably likely to be used occasionally. These include manual tune and DRC value (Dynamic Range Control- might be suitable for music being broadcast around noisy environments)."

In addition to DAB the Evoke 2 has FM. There are two ways of tuning in the FM, either by using the 'manual tune' or 'seek tuning'. In days gone by when things were more complicated this was called 'auto sequential tuning'. Six FM stations can be stored in the pre-sets as well as the six DAB tuners.

On the back of the Evoke 2 the facilities are as follows- An external aerial socket, (If you are using the radio in 'iffy' conditions you can improve reception) A stereo headphone socket (headphones not supplied) A digital output (you can record you favourite radio presenter onto cd and put them on constant play) Analogue stereo out (mini jack socket, feed the radio into a hifi system) There is a battery compartment for six 'C' batteries. The unit comes with a mains adaptor.

Power output is 3.Wrms@10% THD,2.8Wrms@0.1 THD, which means it goes loud enough for a standard size room.

This was obviously very sensitive on DAB bringing in all the local stations and much more sensitive than the Prestel portable which I had previously tried. Tuning in DAB is, as they say locally, 'a doddle.' Sound is better than the basic Evoke 1 without the external speaker. (We've always said you should have the extra speaker to enhance the Evoke 1). There is great clarity from the radio. The speakers are ported (i.e. have a hole facing down which helps the bass output) and there is a useful tone control.

On FM? Well, quite frankly why did PURE bother? The sound is so weak, lacking in punch, with higher background noise compared to DAB that no-one will bother playing FM unless they're in a DAB free reception area. If that is the case then write to the Beeb, Digital One or your MP! Whilst there is much controversy on the sound differences between FM and DAB there is no choice on this radio. FM sensitivity was better than our reference Japanese portable but not as good as other FM radios we have tried. I work under 'difficult' radio reception conditions and I could only bring in one commercial radio station on FM but the whole gamut on DAB. My office hifi tuner at present doesn't bring in any FM signals on an internal aerial.

Don't let my comments about the FM put you off. The sound on FM just isn't as good as DAB. The sound quality on DAB is excellent. We haven't had time to put batteries in it yet so we'll have to reserve comment on the battery life for another time.

I demonstrated the Evoke 2 to the Managing Director of Radio Forth (i.e. Forth 1 & 2 the most popular radio stations in the East of Scotland. His comments were, "On DAB (in comparison to FM)I can hear the acoustic of the studio, in fact I can see the studio" a compliment in deed!

On comparison to the less expensive Tivoli One (a fine FM radio) the Evoke 2 justified its price differential. In fact in my opinion it 'blew it away'. OK, this isn't a very scientific opinion but does express my feelings in an a/b comparison. Overall, its neat presentable, really good features, easy to use, and they say in the vernacular it is 'really braw'. The best portable DAB radio I've heard so far! Bad points- Stereo better from separate speakers but wouldn't be as convenient. FM pales compared to DAB.

Exceptionally Clear sound

Easy to use

Useful facilities

Neat styling

Battery and Mains FM and DAB One Aerial for both types of reception

Best sounding DAB radio on the market at present

These may end up being on allocation for months, so if you want one for Christmas 2003 we'd recommend you order it now!