While wandering the halls of CES, we couldn't help but drop in on our fellow Brits abroad from Pure. But after sitting down for a nice cup of tea, we had to get to business and take a look at the recently launched Contour radio.
Pure has always been focussed on digital radio and so obviously this latest model is no different, but the high-end sound system packs a lot more features to boot. It's able to stream internet radio stations and local media stored on a PC or NAS over a WiFi connection and has a retractable iPod/iPhone dock for plugging in your shiny Apple toys.
Of course, there is also an FM tuner and a standard 3.5mm input for connecting any other devices.
As well as delivering high-quality sound courtesy of the class D amps, the Contour features a few thoughtful inclusions, including component, composite and s-video outputs for playing videos from an iDevice onto a TV.
The sleek stereo should be available around April or May in the UK, with pricing set at £199.
Although it's not quite ready yet, Pure is also preparing to launch its new FlowSongs service, which is currently in an open beta in the UK. By pushing a button on compatible Pure stereos, the service will automatically detect the song that's playing, purchase it and save it to your Pure The Lounge account for download or streaming later. The detection is managed by Shazam and the tracks are provided by 7digital, who also supply tracks to Spotify, and the success rate is currently somewhere around 90 per cent.
There's an annual cost of £2.99 to cover the cost of detection and individual tracks will be priced at standard rates between 29p and £1.29.
