I purchased a Roberts Stream 83i on Saturday to replace my Pure Evoke Flow that I have been having problems with.
I have to say I'm very impressed with it. The sound is excellent much better than the Evoke to my ears. Its especially useful to be able to adjust the bass and treble settings to my own preference. For such a small unit the amount of bass it is able to generate is particularly impressive (I always found the evoke flow to be disapponting in that regard).
The interface is intuitive and instantly useable, I often found myself unnecessarily going back and forth through the menus on the Pure when wanting to switch between channels or switch between DAB, FM and Internet radio. Mainly due to the irritating implementation of the 'back' button on the Evoke, particularly irritating if using listening to Internet radio or listen again feeds. (people who own one will understand). The 83i interface is a massive improvement and simply works as you would expect it to.
The FM reception is about the same as the Evoke, however the DAB reception is much better. The Evoke was very sensitive to whereabouts in our kitchen it was placed but the 83i has an excellent signal wherever it is, even with the aerial only half up!
The internet radio is very good, connecting much quicker than the Evoke did. I particularly liked that the BBC has its own menu within the internet radio menu, which gives access to all the BBC live feeds, podcasts, and listen again feeds. The website used to set favourites is also much simpler to use than the Pure website.
I'm also very impressed with the music streaming capabilites, I have a QNAP TS109 NAS with all my music on that runs Squeezecentre and Twonkymedia. And the 83i found Twonkymedia instantly and streamed everything I tried perfectly (I have a mixture of MP3, AAC and FLAC files). I'm so impressed I'm actually considering getting another one to use in my bedroom as a compact replacement for the squeezebox classic + amp + speakers that I have in there at the moment.
I highly recommend the Roberts Stream 83i to anyone who is looking for a DAB/Internet radio/Music streamer.
I have to say I'm very impressed with it. The sound is excellent much better than the Evoke to my ears. Its especially useful to be able to adjust the bass and treble settings to my own preference. For such a small unit the amount of bass it is able to generate is particularly impressive (I always found the evoke flow to be disapponting in that regard).
The interface is intuitive and instantly useable, I often found myself unnecessarily going back and forth through the menus on the Pure when wanting to switch between channels or switch between DAB, FM and Internet radio. Mainly due to the irritating implementation of the 'back' button on the Evoke, particularly irritating if using listening to Internet radio or listen again feeds. (people who own one will understand). The 83i interface is a massive improvement and simply works as you would expect it to.
The FM reception is about the same as the Evoke, however the DAB reception is much better. The Evoke was very sensitive to whereabouts in our kitchen it was placed but the 83i has an excellent signal wherever it is, even with the aerial only half up!
The internet radio is very good, connecting much quicker than the Evoke did. I particularly liked that the BBC has its own menu within the internet radio menu, which gives access to all the BBC live feeds, podcasts, and listen again feeds. The website used to set favourites is also much simpler to use than the Pure website.
I'm also very impressed with the music streaming capabilites, I have a QNAP TS109 NAS with all my music on that runs Squeezecentre and Twonkymedia. And the 83i found Twonkymedia instantly and streamed everything I tried perfectly (I have a mixture of MP3, AAC and FLAC files). I'm so impressed I'm actually considering getting another one to use in my bedroom as a compact replacement for the squeezebox classic + amp + speakers that I have in there at the moment.
I highly recommend the Roberts Stream 83i to anyone who is looking for a DAB/Internet radio/Music streamer.
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