You can then use a UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) app to stream locally stored music as Jongo is UPnP compatible. For example, Bubble UPnP. However, please note that we cannot provide technical support when using a third-party app. This would suit a user of fixed habits. But disarming a daily alarm to give yourself a lie-in tomorrow morning, for example, takes you about ten key presses deep into the menu. The internet radio landscape has seen significant advancements in recent years, with newer formats such as Podcast and HLS Streaming becoming the new market standard. These new platforms offer customers a more advanced audio listening experience, which is not supported by the Flow platform . As a result, Pure has made the difficult decision to shut down Flow and focus on developing the newer technologies available. This strikes us as an odd design choice, but Pure has a history of this. The Bug, circa 2004 was an even more extreme departure from traditional radio set aesthetics.

The search for a new display having defeated me (and I don’t give up easily), in 2018 I was really delighted to learn that an enterprising individual has managed to source and import replacement yellow OLED displays that fit the PURE Evoke Flow, Avanti Flow and Evoke-1S Marshall, PURE's guitar amp style DAB radio. Flow is a cloud-based data system from Pure that supports the functionality of Pure internet radios and the “Pure Connect” mobile app. The embedded software in Pure Flow radios and the mobile app pulls programme information from the Flow cloud. The original promise of DAB was high fidelity audio without interference and the very first DAB broadcasts in the UK (test transmissions of birdcalls) employed a wide radio bandwith, providing excellent audio quality. As newer DAB radio stations crowded into the airways DAB quality fell alarmingly and many audiophiles preferred to return to FM transmissions to listen to concerts.

Most of the time we were putting this review together we were accompanied by the Pure Evoke playing one or other of our favourite Internet radio stations: Jazz 24, Bossa Jazz Brasil or Radio Alpha Fado (when it wasn’t tuned to the deeply saddening news coming out of Eastern Europe). The sound quality is truly room-filling, particularly when Jaco Pastorius is in the line-up. In 2008 I received a PURE Evoke Flow DAB/ Internet radio as a birthday gift and this cherished radio receiver had been on duty ever since as a portable Internet tuner (thanks to a Chargepak rechargeable battery), doubling as a bedside radio with dual alarms and wireless remote control. The radio recharged overnight ready for a busy day ahead, seated on my desk. The PURE Evoke Flow opened up a new world of online streaming radio with integral services such as Pure Sounds (rainfall, babbling brooks, breaking waves etc.) and BBC Listen Again, both of which, sadly, have long since been discontinued and are greatly missed.

The three radios are very similar in style, each featuring the same fold-out colour display, and their range of functions is largely the same. The Spot has room only for a single 3″ speaker. The Play expands the output to stereo by accommodating a pair of small tweeters on either side of the 3.5″ woofer that drives a fairly booming base reflex port (more on this below). The Home uses the same 3.5″ speaker and base reflex but takes advantage of the wider form-factor to improve the stereo soundscape by adding a second pair of small speakers. It also adds a CD player, if you’re still into that. THE PURE EVOKE PLAY IS a very solidly built FM/DAB over-the-air and Internet radio that doubles as a Bluetooth speaker. It also adds Spotify, if you’re so inclined (we were not. But we delved in anyway, see below.). A recent firmware update has added Internet podcasts. Those old-fashioned bass and treble knobs are long gone from radios like this. We miss them somewhat *.This message appears on your device's screen on any occasion of an interruption of the internet connection. Unfortunately, this screen message is embedded within the product and cannot be altered, as it is hardcoded. The product was not originally programmed to have the internet service removed, so this generic message is the only one that can be displayed.