Had one of these for a number of years now and it doesn't suffer from the long term reliability problem of the Evoke 3. I bought the extra stereo speaker and although expensive, the quality is good and I particularly like the fact that I set the sleep timer in 15 minute increments. It doesn't have the touch snooze handle or the ability to record to memory but it is the entry level model. Picks up DAB signals easily which is something my expensive Hi-Fi fails to do.

This has been a family friend for over 7 years. the sound quality is very good and i cant imagine anyone wanting better from a household radio. There is very little distortion so go and grab a bargain you can trust. Of our 4 pure sets in the house on has finally stopped but i diagnosed a faulty transformer and got a new one for 11 quid on the internet. Being external to the radio makes this a simple task. radio fans- BUY ONE

Pure Evoke 1 is beautiful and easy to use. As a bedside radio the display is easy to read and clock brightness either auto or manually set.
Alarm has weekday,weekend or once only options. Also use as an evening I really love it. It sounds great but a second alarm would be so much better. They should combine the Evoke and Tempus models. Really irritating that they don't include the battery pack. Does not use standard rechargeables. Only one alarm. (The Pure Tempus gives you four but no battery back up which is essential if using as your alarm).

Wonderful sound - nice and neat, compact radio. No need to have the aeriel raised. Lovely clear reception on all stations I have accessed. I love it! The Pure Evoke 1 is the most wonderful radio, highly recommended and I love it so much I am buying one for me Dad!

I've just bought this little beauty at CPC.co.uk for a cracking £42! It's for my wife, because her little FM radio she used to have in the kitchen fell to pieces, and the batteries needed changing every so often. Ordered the Pure Evoke 1 online with CPC and I got it the next day, brilliant! Soooo easy to use. Plug it in, it will scan the available stations and off you go. Unfortunately living in Suffolk means the coverage of DAB is rubbish, but that's not Pure's fault. I can only get about 10 stations (all BBC), but you can connect an external aerial so that will probably improve things. I've (well, my wife that is) only had it for a week but love it already. The sound is excellent, good bass and treble for various music types. Finally I get Radio 5 live in audible format without listening on the laptop. The sound for speech is not as good as for music due to the bass setting, which can't be changed; you just need a bit more midrange for speech, really. Classical music just sounds fantastic as there is no interference whatsoever, just like listening to a CD. Only get BBC3 though, not ClassicFM. The only downside to the Evoke 1 is that there is no AM or FM, just Digital. But then I've got my HiFi for that. Saying that, you can connect the Evoke up to a HiFi through the line-out into aux. The only other slight downside is that you have to be pretty much in front of the display to read it properly. It is set at an odd angle for a portable, but I'll try to mount it a bit higher than the worktop in the kitchen. The transformer (power) is external so you've got quite a bulky plug and need quite a lot of space around the socket. But it is 12volt so I assume that is if you want to use the socket in the car for when you're on holiday. Otherwise, a smart, good-looking piece of equipment for £42. Shame it's made in China.

I compared the sound quality of the Pure Evoke-1 DAB digital radio against a whole bunch of others in Curry's, and it was the best by far! The others all seemed tinny, even the more expensive ones.
Setting it up is a doddle. Just switch it on and it scans all the available stations, twiddle through them using a knob not a + or -, and press the presets for 3 seconds to store... easy.
I am very pleased after one months heavy kitchen use.

The Pure Evoke-1 Has been used as a kitchen radio for nearly a year and has performed faultlessly. The sound quality sets the pure evokes apart from the rest and reception and features are also excellent.

Being a busy mum, I seem to spend about 50% of my time doing tedious stuff in the kitchen. I therefore like to listen to talk radio stations as a distraction from peeling spuds and often despaired at the terrible reception my old analogue radio afforded. That is now a thing of the past thanks to this cute little wooden box.
First thing that struck me was the appearance and quality; both are excellent. The wooden finish and retro styling look great, and it feels like a really well made item which would stand up to some wear and tear. There are some nice little touches too like the brushed chrome effect handle, sturdy rubber feet to prevent sliding and a cable tidy to avoid spaghetti junction by your plug socket.
The features include 6 presets, a nice little tune and select button, a green LCD display which you can customise to your own preference (ie if you want to see the time and date under your station name or the signal quality etc), a headphone socket and the option to hook it up to a hi-fi for proper stereo sound if you are that way inclined.
Anyway there is more to life than looks and thankfully the sound quality proves that beauty really is more than skin deep! I managed to pick up 65 stations in my area and they all sound crystal clear to me. It really is hiss and crackle-free and I don't think I could bear to listen to analogue radio again after this. My ears are getting spoiled!! I am not an expert on digital radio so I can't really elaborate any more on this but suffice to say I would consider this a sound investment for anyone who loves to have their radio on as background noise to accompany their mundane chores!! No more whining noises in my kitchen - well not from my radio anyway unfortunately I can't say the same about my 2 year old!!

We have two Pure Evoke 1 DAB Digital Radio's. The one downstairs required an external DAB aerial as reception was continually 'muddy' and 'dropping-out'.Reception is perfect now. The one upstairs is perfect with the supplied antenna. The point: Don't expect reception to be faultless just because the word 'Digital' appears and take into account you may have to install an external aerial to get the best results.
I like the design which is very stylish and prefer the Evoke-1 to the Evoke-2 which I believe to be very bulky looking in comparison.I would have liked a tone control on the Evoke-1 but find the sound acceptable.Radio 4 listeners will love the sound as it has that 'old' radio tone during speech.
I am delighted with the variety of stations and in particular,3C('Continuously Cool Country')which makes-up for the loss of CMT on Sky.
The radio is simple to set-up and the display can be changed between,for example,signal state and present song title/artist..a great help when you want to take notes.
The radio is mains only(with supplied adaptor).
The optional speaker is an excellent addition for 'Stereo' and I would recommend the Evoke-1 with extra speaker rather than the Evoke-2 for a more spacial image.

I purchased my Pure Evoke 1 digital radio around eight months ago, and have given this radio a fair test, both in the home (and other peoples homes), and even in the car. I have just recently given the radio to my father. I am distinctly unimpressed by the Evoke, and DAB in the UK. Read on to find why.

When you buy an Evoke, the manufactures (Pure) urge you to return an enclosed warranty card to them with your views of the radio. Clearly many purchasers have done this, judging by the number of carefully selected snippets along the line of "great radio, excellent sound quality", etc, published on their website. Many of these flattering one-line quotes seem to me to be written by people who have probably never used a good modern quality portable FM radio, such as the ones I use, and perhaps they do not have much experience of other radios to compare the Evoke to. Well, I returned my card but they didn't quote any of my views in their publicity material. I wonder why ? Well, hopefully this review might go some way to balance out some of these IMO rather uninformed opinions.


I suppose I listen to radio a lot more than most people, at home and at work. I use several radios, all Sony units. The cheapest one cost around £10. I have owned this one for nine years and listen to it in the bathroom. In the bedroom I have an RDS equipped model from 1997, which I use as an alarm clock as well as a radio. The newest, a stereo model CFD- S520L with a CD player, cost £50 recently. I listen to this in the kitchen, where its many presets for the radio stations and a remote control are very useful features. At work I use an ICF703L which cost £23 three years ago, and I have used it every working day for nine hours + a day in some rather less-than-perfect operating conditions, and the set is still going strong today. So hopefully I do understand what an analogue portable is like in use, and am in a good position to know what I should expect from a portable radio! You will note that all these radios cost considerably less than the Evoke, and I will tell you now that all of these radios are in all practical terms better than the Evoke. They are not only much less expensive and better featured, but they far out-perform the Evoke in terms of sound quality, build quality, reception and durability, and have the advantage of being battery powered for portability, which is a feature I need from any portable radio.

The Evoke has taught me that DAB is a poorly implemented system in the UK. This is a well documented subject and can easily be read about from a search on Google, so I shall not dwell too much on the system itself, such as the 'false-choice' of stations on there, the ever-diminishing bit-rates of the stations meaning poorer sound quality than on FM and in some cases, stations which sound little better than medium wave stations; stations being dropped to mono so that even more junk stations can be crammed in, etc. Instead I shall stick to specifics about the Evoke itself. Although I do urge anyone new to DAB to research the above issues BEFORE making a purchase, and at the very least, not to believe the marketing hype of 'CD quality' which is an absolute lie.

For a start, reception is simply not good enough. Even in a good signal area where the set shows a very low signal error, the sound is prone to seemingly random distortions that sound like bubbling mud, or worse still, total dropouts of the audio which can last several seconds. The result is not only unpleasant and extremely annoying, but listening to the broadcast becomes impossible. Whereas on an analogue radio , interference usually manifests itself as static or crackles, but the difference is that you would still usually be able to make out what was being broadcast under the interference. I am not saying FM is brilliant-it isn't, but I can always guarantee I will be able to listen to all of my favourite programmes from start to finish, whereas on DAB I simply couldn't, and on several occasions I had to switch back over to FM mid-way through a programme for this reason. This is a fairly severe fault inherent in DAB I would say. You will probably find reception is fine one day, but the next you have problems receiving either an acceptable signal without the 'mud', or even the same stations at all, for no obvious reasons. And very slight changes to the position of the radio affect reception greatly-you will most likely need to experiment frequently with where you place the Evoke to get satisfactory reception. .

Sound quality of the Evoke is not as good as my Sony ICF703L . The speaker in the Sony appears to be a much better quality full-range item, and the set also benefits from a tone control. The Evoke has no tone control, which is a shame as there is not enough treble, and the overall sound is flat and lifeless, and about as wooden as the Evokes case. Music really does sound horrible on the Evoke, even on a 160kbs station. Comparing the two radios side-by-side on the same station, you would think that the Evoke had a layer of hardboard nailed over its speaker. I guarantee the much cheaper Sony is far superior in this regard. Also, turning up the volume high on the Evoke induces the bubbling mud sound, so it would seem that this creates interference within the receiver itself.

Like all current portable DAB radios, the Evoke is large and ugly, with a cheap, 'knocked-up-in-a-shed' appearance. I didn't grow to like it. The wooden case is not as practical as plastic and has nasty sharp edges and corners.

Tuning stations in is a rather laborious task as when scrolling through the list of available stations, many stay on the screen despite turning the knob several clicks. I can only assume this is a design fault, as I have read of others with the same problem. Scrolling through the whole list could take some time, certainly much longer than I can tune a station on an analogue dial. Another step backwards...

The top and bottom is this: FM radio is a tried-and-tested system. It is simple technology and radios are cheap and durable, and sound good. There is no need for this over-complicated system. Let's face it, very few of the DAB-only stations are actually worth listening to anyway, so why not stick with analogue and save your money? On paper DAB might look good, but my fairly extensive practical tests have proved otherwise. It is simply inferior in nearly all everyday practical uses. DAB is a classic case of one step forward, two steps back. As a product it is sub-FM, and can really only be taken seriously as a medium wave radio service replacement. As such it is overpriced, and I suspect its true worth to be around the £20-25 mark, which I am sure these DAB sets will fall to when the quantities of scale effect kicks in, as always happens with new technology. Or when the enough of the general public become aware of how bad DAB really is and refuses to buy them, one of the two...

One feature of note is the two-year warranty you get with the Evoke. From what I've read regarding its reliability, you may well have cause to resort to it, so do save all the packaging and receipt should you get one. Better still, buy the Sony ICF703L for less than a third of what the Evoke costs. Save yourself a lot of money and grief.

It's all such a shame as digital radio should be so much better than this.

Originally purchased the Roberts Gemini 3 Digital Radio. Took it back to the shop - sound quality poor - far too much bass. The Pure Evoke 1 DAB is cheaper - sounds great and in my area has a far better signal.

First of all I should admit that I'm one of those bores that goes out and researches a product thoroughly before handing over my hard earned $$£££. After umpteen visits to Comet backed up by looking at various reviews seen on the Internet I finally opted for the Pure Evoke-1 DAB Digital Radio.

From the minute I plugged this set in I was really impressed.
It's very easy to set up and get running. You just plug it in and it automatically scans and picks up the stations available - almost 60 in my area of London! The reception is spot on - you have the ability to display the strength of the reception on this radio and, practically every one I tune into shows 100%.

The radio itself looks great - controls are set out neatly and logically and it's easy to figure out how everything works without looking at the instructions! It's slightly smaller than a shoebox and is finished in a very nice wood veneer. Overall build quality is first class and you just know its going to last you till your rocking chair days!

So how about the sound quality - to me the most important bit? Well, here I got a great shock. This is a small radio with only one little speaker so my expectations were fairly modest. Wow, when I switched the Evoke on it blew me away. Gone is all the static, hissing etc you get with a conventional radio but the sound from this little gem is superb. It has a full, rich, meaty sound to it that totally defies its size. Whether you like jazz, rock, acid, classical, vocals or just listening to footy commentary you'll just love the sound this thing produces. It puts out a decent amount of bass, helped by a small port in the bottom of the radio. I know you can buy an additional speaker for this radio but I really don't think it's necessary. If you really want to get full stereo sound then you have outputs at the back of the radio that will enable you to connect it to your stereo.

What else can I say? At well under £100 its great value for money and comes with a full 2-year guarantee. Oh, almost forgot the adapter. Yep, it comes with an adapter that's rather large and heavy - almost as heavy it seems as the radio itself! It doesn't run on batteries or offer standard FM reception but I wouldn't want either of these options anyway. I think this thing would eat up batteries rather quickly and I wouldn't splash out on DAB technology and to listen to standard (inferior) FM stations.

In summary if you want a superb radio at a great price rush out now and grab one of these off the shelves. It's a fantastic piece of kit that thoroughly deserves all the independent awards that have been heaped upon it by all the hi-fi and other magazines. Check them out for yourself on the manufacturers website.

I bought this Pure Evoke-1 DAB Digital Radio (with the extra speaker) for my wife last Christmas. I think it is probably her favourite present ever. The sound quality is very impressive and when I link it in to the hi fi system I find myself listening to music which I would normally eschew simply to hear the cd-like sound.

It is a heavy little beast but this simply reinforces the sense of quality. In value for money terms this is a steal !