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Once you get this radio into your home there'll be no going back.
Your Guide to Hi-Fi & Home Cinema, January 2004
I have a confesion to make. When I first saw the original EVOKE DAB radio it was love at first sight and I joined the throng of people traipsing from store to store only to be told that it was out of stock. Eventually persistence paid off and now I've spent 11 happy months living with that very pretty creation.
The newer EVOKE-2 follows the same style but is a whole lot bigger; about 40% bigger in fact although it looks more. The most obvious differences are the provision of two 3 inch speakers instead of one and accommodation for six battery cells making this radio a true portable which can be used outdoors as well as, inevitably, in the kitchen. The other major change is that this model can recive conventional FM broadcasts so you can still listen to the handful of stations which are not available on the digital bands.
PURE Digital is actually a really high tech comapny, part of Imagination Technologies, and they design all their own DAB integrated circuits and also supply then to other manufacturers. As expected the construction of the radio is first class both in terms of the external appearence and the internal circuit boards. Round the back ther's a fair amount of activity; the battery compartment; the tlescopic aerial, the socket for the external power pack; a headphone socket for private listening and finally a very nice extre feature, the choice of an optical digital output or an analogue stereo output. Using either of these two outputs means that the radio can be wired into a hi-fi system in place of the traditional tuner or wired to a recorder such as the Mini Disc set. We tried this feature and it gets our thumbs up.
The EVOKE-2 is a delight ot use, offering easy tunig and crackle & hiss free reception. You can argue 'till the cows come home about the mrits of DAB versus FM Stereo in terms of ultimate sound quality but there's no doubt that once you've got used to the abscence of inter-station noise and variable reception quality you don't really want to ge back to the good old days. ..
The display shows all the expected data supplied by the broadcaster such as song titles, artists names, programme description and news headlines and there's also a DAB tuning aid which shows signal level to help you find the optimum aerial alignment. You can slo adjust the DRC value which lifts up the quieter passages if you are in a noisy environment like our office.
How does the EVOKE-2 sound? Compared to the original EVOKE the sound is a touch brighter; a but more in your face having lost some of the old 1950's warm tone. Compared to our FM rference the soun is very clean and focused albeit with a touch of grittiness. So much for the audiophile bit. In practice this radio will largely replace conventional radios and then the comparison puts the EVOKE-2 into its own class. As I write this review I'm listneing to a Billy J. Kramer track that sounds better through DAB radio than it did on my old Dansette record player back in the 1960's. Belive me, once you get this radio into your home there'll be no going back. You'll just wonder why it took you so long to take the decision.
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