Pure Digital Sirocco 550 review

Priced to intrigue but it sounds disengaged Tested at £290

What Hi-Fi? Verdict

It’s priced to intrigue, but the Sirocco 550 sounds disengaged

Pros

  • +

    Ample spec

  • +

    dock- and network-derived music, particularly, is detailed and quite poised

Cons

  • -

    CD sounds congested

  • -

    there’s a fundamental lack of vigour to music

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When we first heard Pure’s Sirocco 550 micro system back in September 2011, we admired the breadth of its functionality while bemoaning its lack of audio excitement.

Since then its price has dropped from £350 to below £300, and at least two similarly specified (and priced) competitors have arrived. So now seems an ideal time to assess whether a useful price-cut can make a product sound a bit more invigorating.

First, let’s recap. A CD player, DAB, FM and internet radio capability, integrated wi-fi for streaming from UPnP-compatible storage devices, integrated iPod/iPhone dock, USB socket, a brace of line-level inputs and a composite video output ensure the Pure is, as the motor trade likes to say, fully loaded.

Controls are a mish-mash
The remote control is useable, though the fascia controls are a bit of a mish-mash, and the stand-mounting, two-way speakers (rear-ported but forgiving of position) are solidly (if unspectacularly) built and finished.

The USB port can deal with MP3 and WMA files only; an iPod adds Apple Lossless and WAV capability, and the Pure can handle these formats when streaming too – but uncompressed formats like FLAC are off the menu.

The Sirocco exhibits pretty distinct differences in the sound it makes depending on the source you’re using.

Least satisfactory is the CD drive: a copy of Leonard Cohen’s Old Ideas sounds somewhat confined and short of detail, with little of the spacious lugubriousness of the recording described convincingly.

The voice, deeper than ever with age, lacks texture, and the top of the frequency range can be coarse and rattly in extremis.

Best via iPod and streaming
Things look up a bit with a switch to an Apple Lossless file of Fleet Foxes’ Someone You’d Admire via the iPod dock. There’s greater openness to the soundstage, though it’s still short of the dimensions the Pioneer X-MH70 can muster, and detail levels – particularly through the midrange – improve too.

Low frequencies remain a little vague at the leading edge of notes, though, and the unarguable excitement-shortfall we heard last year is in evidence too.

Streamed content brings us more of the same: reasonable poise from the midrange upwards, a touch of uncertainty below, and an overriding impression of a system that is nigh-on impossible to rouse out of its slightly pedestrian, slightly matter-of-fact sonic signature.

Nonetheless, the Sirocco 550 has sufficient merit for its not-inconsiderable price cut to edge it up towards four stars – or at least it would have, if Pioneer hadn’t shown up with its X-HM70 and demonstrated that full-on functionality needn’t be at the expense of sonic enjoyment.

Which unfortunately leaves this Pure pretty much back where it started.

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What Hi-Fi?

What Hi-Fi?, founded in 1976, is the world's leading independent guide to buying and owning hi-fi and home entertainment products. Our comprehensive tests help you buy the very best for your money, with our advice sections giving you step-by-step information on how to get even more from your music and movies. Everything is tested by our dedicated team of in-house reviewers in our custom-built test rooms in London, Reading and Bath. Our coveted five-star rating and Awards are recognised all over the world as the ultimate seal of approval, so you can buy with absolute confidence.

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