PURE Chronos CD Series II, DAB/FM/CD Stereo Clock Radio - White

I would say that this is a good cd/radio unit for a bedroom, could do with a little more base and warmth to the sound if it is sound quality that you look for. People who see it say that it is a nce modern looking unit.

I bought this unit for my kitchen. I already had a Pure One DAB radio but wanted a CD player as well, and this was the smallest CD player with built-in DAB radio I could find anywhere. I'm very pleased with the size, it sits unobtrusively on my dresser, and produces very good quality sound for its size. The CD player is completely silent, there are some reviewers saying otherwise so perhaps they have ironed out the earlier problems. The DAB reception is very reliable, picking up the full range of stations with perfect reception from the small wire aerial. The green backlit display is very easy to read and yet unobtrusive. If I wanted to read the text on my old Pure One (for example to find out the name of the piece of music playing) it involved a lot of peering at the small display with pastry-covered hands; this one requires no more than a quick glance. (The Pure One is a superb unit though and is now in the sitting room). It also has a useful Aux in port on the front so any other items can be easily connected, and it has a USB on the top which is useful for charging things like the camera or the Kindle, no need to hunt around for chargers. It really does have the feel of being a well thought out and well designed unit. It'd be a nice item for a bedroom with its alarm and snooze functions but is superb in a kitchen as well. It does exactly what I wanted and needed and more. Very pleased.

Initial impressions were good - a nice solid feel to the unit and decent quality plastics. Lots of useful functions, including the ability to 'trim' stations which appear in the on-screen listings, but for which you can't get good reception. Also, you can set up 'presets' for your favourite stations, so station-hunting isn't really a problem. You can also set the alarm (of which there are 4 available) to wake you with any one of these preset stations, CD, MP3, alarm tone or the last used radio station. Sound quality is much better than expected from a system of this size - at normal or high volumes. I didn't find the volume too loud to fall asleep to, 2 or 3 bars on the volume slider is fine. But I did find that sound quality is a little 'woolly' or muffled at low volume - partly overcome by tweaking the treble and bass settings. Although they look good, the buttons were a let down. As others have said, poor feedback/response, a bit bit fiddly, especially in the dark. With the buttons being on the front of the unit, we end up pushing the system backwards across the bedside table just changing channel or adjusting volume! The remote control is a bit on the small side, but isn't practical in the dark (unless you learn the locations of all buttons). Lastly, there is a good manual - clear, illustrated and legible - so often manufacturers supply these in about ten languages, using miscroscopic type to save on paper and print costs. I'd have given it 3.5 stars if possible, but went for 4 as I realise that I do actually like it - despite its quirks - and wouldn't want to change it for anything else on the market in that price range.

Neat and compact unit that is fairly easy to set up and does everything it is supposed to. Instructions on setting alarms are poor but I worked it out eventually and like the multiple alarm pre-sets that are possible. Only disappointment is the lack of bass which is almost non-existent. It's not Bose price, but it does not stand comparison with the Panasonic micro unit with two small remote speakers that it has replaced after the CD player failed. It also has less bass than the little Pure One Classic that we have owned for the last year or two.

It's not fair to lambast this product when the fault is clearly mine for not doing my homework first. It seemed to be just what was needed to live in our kitchen and to replace a similar, FM-only, device (Aiwa) which had finally packed up. I thought that digital would work well as we have a £15 DAB radio from Argos that works very well in our bedroom. However, I reckoned without the large effect of stone walls - the Chronos simply couldn't deal with the poor DAB signal in its appointed place. The ridiculous wire aerial (common enough on many such radios) made no difference however we deployed it. The Aiwa had used an external aerial socket and it was very frustrating not to have been able to connect the Chronos to it. I have since discovered that aerials are key to decent DAB reception and that people have posted advice on the Internet on connecting external ones by drilling holes through the plastic casing etc. Well, not for me. I would like to see the specification for all radios include a description of the aerial connection options. Some (perhaps most) of those with telescopic aerials (rather than dangly wire ones) can be converted simply by unscrewing the telescopic bit and attaching an adapter. But the buyer cannot tell for sure - certainly not when Internet shopping - and the retailers usually don't know either. The Chronos is in its box waiting to be collected for a return. It was supposed to have been picked up on 14 December but nobody came and I have been unable to track it (tracking not working) or contact anyone at Amazon about it. Perhaps someone will read this? By the way, we did try the Chronos in FM and it would have been nice to say that it produced a good sound. Sadly, we thought it sounded tinny and nowhere near as good as the Aiwa it was replacing.

The DAB sound quality is excellent - crisp and articulate. The CD player is abysmal - mine has a noisy high pitched whine which in a bedroom is impossible to live with. The resetting procedure mentioned at the end of the user manual does not cure the cd player's noisy operation. The ergonomics and layout are not great but would be acceptable if the CD player was usable. A disappointment.

This is a good looking, compact high quality radio/CD. We are using it as a player in the kitchen, rather than as an alarm clock. For that purpose the sound quality and volume is more than adequate. Radio reception appears very good using DAB, and there is always FM to fall back on if necessary. It's easy to use also. We have not found a downside to this product so far.

We wanted a compact DAB/CD unit for the kitchen; fairly small but with a reasonable sound output to replace my daughter's rejected and rapidly-dying micro stereo. The Chronos 11 does what it says on the tin. It's a shame that the input and output sockets are on the front of the unit and not behind as you can have wires trailing in front of it. But otherwise, it's nicely designed with the speakers slightly offset to enhance the stereo effect. However, it is only 5w per channel music output and the tone is a bit tinny, especially if you listen to pop/rock music with drums in the background. I've tried it with a pair of good quality PC speakers with separate tone controls and that improves the effect a fair bit. I think, on reflection, I should have listened to more units, perhaps paid a bit more and gone for something with a bit more oomph. My fault, not Pure's!