Pure Evoke Home
Two-minute review
You’re after something a little more advanced than just one of the best DAB radios. Yes, you want radio, but what about playing music and podcasts via Spotify? A one-box speaker from DAB experts Pure, the Evoke Home offers an impressive line-up of sources. It’s got DAB radio, Internet radio, Spotify Connect and Amazon Music, each represented by an icon on its colourful LCD display that pops up on the top of its white or black chassis.
Sadly, there’s no Apple AirPlay or Google Chromecast streaming, so you can’t indulge in lossless streaming from an iPhone or iPad ... though it does have Bluetooth 4.2.
Legacy music fans are treated better. Not only is it possible to hook up a record player – or anything else that a 3.5mm cable can be fed from – but the Evoke Home even adds in a CD player. Yes, compact discs! Remember them?
Design-wise the Evoke Home wireless speaker is good, but not great. At least, not for the money being asked. The soft-touch volume dial is constantly lit up by white LEDs, which is annoying in a softly-lit room, while ironically the (rather too many) buttons across the top of the device are very small and have hard-to-read labels. It’s a design that seems a tad rushed, an impression furthered by the Undok app, which seemed a little inconsistent during initial set-up. There are also no multi-room or stereo pairing options.
In terms of audio performance, the Evoke Home mostly impresses, with good bass and treble detail that extend to music streamed across Bluetooth, which was unexpected (though you do have to turn the volume up). However, with a little less mid-range than we wanted and with volume steps that are too far apart, the Evoke Home comes out as a good, but not great product that just seems a little overpriced.
Pure Evoke Home price and release date
- Out now in the UK
- Costs £399.99
Launched in November 2021, Pure’s latest Evoke range of connected digital radios are available now, although its website states that UK deliveries are delayed by 2-3 weeks due to Brexit.
The Pure Evoke Home – which became available in December 2021 – is the most expensive product in the range. It’s joined by the smaller Pure Evoke Play (£249.99) and Pure Evoke Spot (£179.99). All have identical core features and differentiate largely on speaker size, though the Evoke Play adds a carry handle while the Evoke Home includes a CD player.
Design
- Speaker grille uses recycled wool
- Illuminated volume control
- Comes in ‘Cotton White’ and ‘Coffee Black’
The Evoke Home looks like a serious, simple, and reasonably stylish one-box speaker. Weighing 3.9 kg, it measures 108 x 184 x 363mm, tapering towards the front to accentuate the size of its speaker grille, which sits in front of the Evoke Home’s two 20mm soft dome tweeters and two 3.5 inch woofers.
That grille is crafted from recycled wool that’s said to be both ‘eco-certified’ and ‘virtually odourless’, which is always good to know (we couldn’t smell anything weird!). If that’s a nice touch, so is the flip-up 2.8-inch LED colour screen. There are a few buttons underneath to help navigate the display, which sadly isn’t a touchscreen.
You can use those buttons to choose audio sources and tinker with alarms, timers and much more, but it’s all much easier to do via the Undok app. At this price the LCD display ought to be an auto-dimming OLED screen, though you can fold it down during music playback if you can’t stand the light leakage.
The rest of the controls can be found on the top of the speaker, with playback buttons and a CD slot in the centre and a soft-touch dial on the right end. The latter is primarily for controlling the volume, but gestures can also be used to mute the speaker, and more besides. It also acts as an on-off switch, but it’s illuminated by very bright white LEDs when the Evoke Home is on. It’s a bit harsh in a room with soft lighting, and this time, there’s not much you can do about it.
The Evoke Home is mostly aimed at streaming, so is largely a one-box solution, but there are a couple of wired options. You can attach anything to the Evoke Home via a 3.5mm minijack – most likely a record player – while a tiny rear panel also includes a headphones slot.
It’s a simple design that nevertheless lacks a few niceties you might expect at this price.
Setup
- No Apple AirPlay or Google Chromecast streaming
- Undok app is confusing
- Easy to pair devices via Bluetooth
Although it does include a CD player, the Evoke Home is mostly about streaming. No surprises there, but the way it executes it all is sometimes underwhelming. Its pop-up screen hosts shortcuts to a bunch of apps; DAB Radio, FM Radio, Internet Radio, Spotify, Amazon Music, Podcasts, Bluetooth, CD and AUX. Four of those require the Evoke Home to be attached to a Wi-Fi network.
Sadly, getting the Evoke Home connected to a home’s Wi-Fi network is needlessly complicated; it’s impossible to enter a Wi-Fi network’s password using the pop-up screen. Cue the free Undok app, which, despite having a ‘connectivity assistant’, informed us to go searching in the settings for the IP address. Finally it fired-up a wizard, which worked fine, though even with that successfully completed it told us the Evoke Home wasn’t attached to the Wi-Fi network despite there being no problems.
With the Undok app operating the Evoke Home we then fired-up the Spotify Connect app only to be told about a web address we had to visit. It didn’t work and wasn’t required, with the Spotify app taking care of everything. Undok is poor and adds an amateur feel to the Evoke Home.
There were also two small, separate issues we had with the Evoke Home during our review. The first was occasional network drop-outs during which Wi-Fi-related features – such as Spotify Connect, Internet radio and the Undok app – were unusable. The second was a loose two-prong power cable that sometimes became disconnected from the rear.
Audio performance
- 100W audio output
- 2x 20mm soft dome tweeters and 2x 3.5-inch woofers
- Warm, detailed soundscape
The Evoke Home has a quoted 100W of power from its dual 20mm soft dome tweeters and two 3.5-inch woofers, which are situated at either end of the chassis.
That ought to create some kind of stereo effect, but it wasn’t noticeable during our tests. What we did sense is that the Evoke Home has a definite sweet-spot. Sit opposite it and the soundstage was a lot more lively than if you sit to one side.
Bizarrely the Evoke Home is set to output music in ‘medium’ quality; dive into the settings on the Undok app and you can switch that to ‘high’. There are also some quick equalizer presets to choose from – comprising the likes of pop, rock, jazz, etc. – as well as very simple bass and treble settings. None of them make a great deal of difference.
Played with a variety of music – via DAB, Spotify Connect and Bluetooth – the Evoke Home demonstrated decent bass levels and plenty of treble detail, though not much in the way of a mid-range. We did find that the jumps in volume are rather too wide; you can tweak it from too quiet to too loud in just once press, which is not great for late night listening.
Should I buy the Pure Evoke Home?
Buy it if...
You’re a Spotify and/or Amazon Music subscriber
If you listen to the majority of your music via either Spotify Connect or Amazon Music then the Evoke Home will serve you well in terms of both convenience and sound quality.
You’re have a CD collection
If you still have some compact discs then the Evoke Home’s pop-in CD drive is a neat solution for straddling the decades.
You want to hook-up a record player
If you’ve got a record player then know that the Evoke Home has a 3.5mm input so can take a stereo audio cable.
Don't buy it if...
You want fuss-free lossless streaming
The Evoke Home doesn’t include Apple AirPlay or Google Chromecast streaming, so you can’t stream from a smartphone in top quality without fiddling with apps.
Your room has low light levels
The small light grey buttons are very difficult to differentiate from each other. They have white icons on them that are both tiny and hard to read in anything but bright, direct light.
You want a portable Bluetooth speaker
Although the Evoke Home does have Bluetooth 4.2 and plays music from smartphones in high quality, there’s no built-in battery - so you can’t take it away from mains electricity.
- Read our guide to the best smart speakers you can buy today
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