Pure One Classic Series II September 2011

The Pure One Classic Series II is much the same as the previous Pure One Classic model, with a few embellishments to the appearance - such as a soft touch finish and a textured dial - and Pure’s Listen Later recording feature.

How easy is it to setup?

Setup is much like the original Pure One Classic – you can be listening to DAB radio within moments of unpacking the unit.

The cable fits into the back of the radio. There are three more sockets on the side – a headphone socket, auxiliary input – so you can connect it to an MP3 player and play music through the radio’s speaker – and a mini USB socket which you'll rarely use as it’s only for software upgrades.

The telescopic aerial is long, giving you a better chance of picking up a signal. You don't have to extend it all the way up if you're in a strong signal area.

The Pure One Classic Series II has few controls but plenty of features.

What's it like to use?

All the controls are on the front of the radio – you need to support it when pressing buttons to ensure it doesn't move on the table surface. You can operate it one-handed – supporting the radio with your fingers while pressing the controls with your thumb.

The buttons are easy to press, but don't feel particularly high quality.

When listening to a station, the dial on the radio controls volume. Even maximum volume isn't particularly loud, but should be enough to hear the radio over the sound of a washing machine on a spin cycle, for example.

Like the original Pure One Classic, it has a fairly small LCD screen that has space for three rows of information. The clock is displayed in standby, but it's not backlit, so at night it'll be difficult to read and the text is small, so it’s not easy to see at a distance if you haven't got sharp eyes.

At first listen, it sounds decent enough for a relatively small portable radio. We'd expect sound quality to be the same as the original Pure One Classic, which has been tested and rated by our expert listening panel in our test lab. 

Read our full Pure Classic One review to see how it performed in our listening tests.

What can it do other than receive digital radio?

The radio is straightforward to use even if a couple of buttons have different functions compared with the Classic One radio, due to the addition of the Listen Later function..

Pause and rewind live radio with ReVu.

It still has the Pure’s ReVu feature that lets you pause and rewind live radio - if you miss something you can rewind and catch it again. 

The radio is constantly recording as you listen to create this ReVu buffer. How far back through a show you can rewind will depend on the bit rate of the broadcast - we were able to rewind up to around eight minutes on a 128kbps broadcast.

You can view the bit rate used by a station on most digital radios by changing the display settings. On this model it's in the display info setting you can get to using the menu button.

There's room for 15 station presets on DAB and 15 on FM – accessible using the preset button and the dial. 

There is also an alarm, kitchen timer and sleep function. The alarm can be programmed to sound once, daily, on weekdays, weekends, Saturday only or Sunday. You can choose to wake to DAB or FM radio – and you can programme the station and volume – or you can wake to an alarm tone.

You can have the backlight on, off, or timed off. If you select 'on' the backlight doesn't remain on when the radio is in standby.

The Classic One Series II has textSCAN - so you can pause scrolling text – and Intellitext - on-demand text information. The radio has energy-saving mode enabled by default, which means Intellitext data isn't collected when the radio is in standby.

For more information on textSCAN and Intellitext see our Digital radio features explained page.

How easy is it to record a radio show?

The interesting addition to this Series II version of the Classic One is the Listen Later function. You programme the radio to record a show by entering the start time, station and duration of the show you want to record. It’s simple once you've done it once.

The maximum amount of radio you can record depends on the bitr ate of the station’s broadcast, but Pure quotes a reasonable 45 minutes of a typical broadcast as a rough guide.

Access the bit rate of a broadcast in the info display settings. 

We got 47 minutes of recording time on a station with a bit rate of 128kbps – a common bitrate for music radio - and 1 hour and 15 minutes at 80kbps. Lower bit rates tend to be used on channels broadcasting mostly speech – such as live sport. Some music stations use a much higher bit rate; Classic FM, for example, is broadcast at 160kbps.

You can programme the Listen Later function to record for up to 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120 or 180 minutes, but the likelihood of getting more than 90 minutes of recording on this radio is slim. If you programme the radio to record for 180 minutes it will stop recording when it reaches its maximum capacity and the recording is saved – so you can listen to as much as it managed to record.

The Listen Later function can record in standby or when the radio is on, but you can't listen to one station while recording another. If you're already listening to the radio it will automatically switch over to the station you programmed it to record at the specified time. 

It’s easy to access a recorded programme by pressing the Listen Later button. You can pause the show while listening, but you can’t rewind as you can with live radio. If you want to listen to part of the show again you have to listen from the beginning.

'LL' is displayed in standby mode when the Listen Later function is recording. 

You can exit the recorded show at any time and if you want to return to the show you are given the option to listen to it from where you stopped, or start again from the beginning.

Listen Later can be programmed to record a show once, daily, weekly, on weekdays or on weekends, but there's only room for one recording in the memory. A new recording will replace the previous one - if you've programme the radio to record daily, you'll need to listen to the recording before the following day’s show. And you won't be able to download your recording to save it elsewhere.

You can’t record an FM broadcast.

Unplugging the radio loses the recording, unless you have a battery pack installed in the radio – it can accept six standard C size batteries, or can be used with a Pure’s own ChargePAK (C6L) battery pack which recharges in the radio when plugged into the mains.

Is it better than the original Pure One Classic?

The only real difference is the inclusion of the Listen Later function, so if you want to be able to record DAB radio shows from time to time you'll notice the benefit. 

The original Pure One Classic sells at around £50. The Pure One Classic Series II has an RRP of £64.99 and is on sale now.

More on this...

• Thinking of going digital? See our advice on what to consider before you buy a DAB radio.
• Find out about government plans for radio in our Digital radio switchover explained guide.