Complete DAB Digital and AM/FM Tuner

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The PURE Digital DRX-702ES was warmer and fuller sounding.
Hi-Fi News, July 2003

On top of the AM/FM analogue tuner section, with a Panasonic-sourced RF unit, the DRX-702ES adds other useful features not seen from the competition. Volume can be controlled from the remote handset, and XLR balanced outputs are available as an option, using Burr-Brown op-amps on a daughter-board that attaches to the rear panel. This will be of interest to pro users for studio monitoring, and to XLR-equipped audiophiles with a taste for Digital Radio.

Sonic voicing of the DRX-702ES was rather different to the other tuners tested here, almost certainly steered from the usual thinness by PURE Digital’s use of a proprietary PAC II technique. This is a revised version of the Psycho Acoustic Compensation circuit first seen in the DRX-601…The effect on the DRX-702ES sound, available only through the DAB section’s analogue outputs, is a warmer and more rounded sound, bridging the gulf that lies between the comforting, fuzzy, compressed sound of FM and the thinner, brittle sound of DAB.

On the DAB side, the PURE Digital DRX-702ES was warmer and fuller sounding, with some subtle lift in the upper bass which added a little chest to male spoken voices. It was as open and revealing through the midband as the Cambridge Audio model, and also excelled at the one quality that FM finds difficult to match - the blackness between notes and voices.

The XLR balanced output worked very well into Chord pre-/power amplifiers, and is worth specifying if balanced-line equipment is available.

Also available: Black Version