PURE Digital Chronos review

PURE Digital Chronos Review

Reviewed by: Chris Stevens

Reviewed on: 14 June 2006

The clue to the Chronos' purpose lies in its Greek namesake. The ancient God Chronos was responsible for the passing of time, and so the Chronos DAB is a bedside radio with alarm clock functions. Its name may be Greek, but its design skips a few centuries back to Egypt. The unusual quasi-pyramidal chassis earned the Chronos the moniker "the DABmuda triangle" among the reviewers here at CNET.

PURE Digital has proved its mettle with a series of impressive kitchen DAB radios, such as the Evoke-3 and the One. We've been consistently impressed by the build quality and performance of the company's designs. But can a bedside radio as small as the Chronos deliver decent DAB reception given the limitations of its form?

Strengths
The only puzzling thing about the Chronos is PURE Digital's decision to include a manual for the device -- it really doesn't need one. As DABs go, this was the easiest we've set up in months. Plug in the power supply (battery power is not an option) and the Chronos automatically configures itself for you. Negotiating the controls on the top of the radio is elementary. Buttons are clear and bright, easy for sleepy fingers to locate.

The aerial is pre-attached in the form of a trailing strand of wire. This can be positioned neatly behind your bedroom cabinet, or trailed nonchalantly across the counter top like a strand of spaghetti. It's possible you may have to manipulate the wire to get optimum reception, but we had no problems with it in our test environment. Aerials like this have been standard fare for bedside FM radios for many years now, and although they're a little unsightly, they're a lot less intrusive than a full-blown retractable. It's strange that this wire aerial works so well, we haven't seen anything but telescopic aerials on the other DABs we've reviewed.

Tuning speed on the Chronos seemed to match what we've seen from the much heartier PURE Digital Evoke-3, and it trounced the tuning speed of the separates systems we've looked at. Everything is ready to go after just a few seconds.

The first thing the Chronos does when it's switched on is to automatically set the date and time -- presumably from the DAB feed. This means you can skip the annoying process of figuring out how to manipulate the controls on the radio to set the time. This is the bane of most radio alarm clock owners. Another advantage of the Chronos system is that if you accidentally unplug your alarm clock, or experience a power cut, the Chronos won't flash 00:00 like most alarm clock radios. Instead, the radio quietly sets itself to local time again. Ingenious.