DALI covers a wide price range, from about 150 bucks (Oberon-Series) all the way to new-car prices (Epikore-Series).
For the “lazy audiophile” they got some “wireless” (power cable required) home-theater speakers where the speaker position is selected by the push of a button in the back. Maybe useful if there is no space for a hifi-rack.
For my particular “painting of self into corner”-situation, their On-Wall options.
The Rubikore On-Wall to be precise.
While thin compared to book shelf speakers at under 6 inches (140mm), this one is still has all the size it needs at 11 inch wide and 18.5 inch tall (280 by 460mm). As a party-trick, they can be reconfigured for “landscape”-mode.
For the price, they better be good! Since one of these is about what I paid for my pair of floor model B&W 603S2’s, I expected about that level of performance and then some.
Since they are meant to serve as surround or rear speakers in a home theater setup, I was very much surprised to have a pair of perfectly acceptable speakers in front of me in the demo. If the listening room were limited and the speakers being flat against a wall was to make it work, these could absolutely do the trick!
With all that said, I am going to take a step down from the Rubikore’s to the Opticon LCR MK2, which cost less than half of the Rubikore On-Wall.
I owned a pair of Dali Mentor 6 a few years back and thought they were excellent. The ribbon tweets were detailed but smooth, nice fleshed-out midrange, good bass extension. I’m surprised I don’t see more chatter about Dali when I’m making the occasional rounds on the audio forums…
I used to have Oberon 7’s for TV duty and now have Menuet SE for desktop system and would describe the house sound as natural mids with a some meat on the bottom and refined, detailed but not fatiguing highs (there are other opinions about the not fatiguing but not to my ears/experience, maybe on the models with soft dome + AMT). They are all built around their SMC technology, patented wood fiber cones and soft dome tweeters so they share a lot of characteristics across the lines. In my humble opinion, the wood fiber cones create that natural sound, like the paper cone woofers I grew up with, but add stiffness that provides speed, control and technical abilities of more modern materials.
From experience on the lower end and reading about the higher end, they also all have decent ability to get some “holographic feeling” going. Not that Horikawa’s Bubbles were floating around me but even on the lower models you could get a sense of width and depth that creates that magic. With movies on the Oberon 7, sounds were coming from the back and while the Menuet SE’s on my desk are compromised by the BF2 OG in terms of clarity of the image, width, depth and air between instruments is actually quite nice. It’s a bit too easy to just lean back and close my eyes when something that creates a bit of that magic is playing when working. It handles everything well but vocals and instruments shine. There is a steep roll off at 60hz so I use a REL T/5x with it, sounds excellent together.
The cheaper models like Spektor, Oberon and regular Menuet are made in Asia but Menuet SE and from Opticon upwards are made in Denmark. They have their own R&D and make all parts in-house, on my Menuet SE, even the screws have DALI engraved. I like that they have clearly decided on a certain sound and the materials they want to use for that. Those R&D people have their 8 hours to fill with improving this design, iteration by iteration. The sweet spot in bang for buck is the Opticon range imo, you get the higher end drivers with full SMC but regular MDF cabinet. From Rubicon you get more rigid and expensive cabinets. Within the models there are speakers with a woofer above the tweeter section, like the opticon 8 or their flagship Kore. Those are apparently the ones to get for the best soundstage ability.
note: this image has been altered by AI, I have asked chatGPT to remove all the dust lol, it did a pretty good job, lost a tiny bit of detail on the veneer and cone but it’s still the picture I made
Maybe the reason why they’re less know in USA is that they have very broad dealer network here in EU, not sure if that’s the case in USA. Also price/value might be different there, certain after tarrifs I imagine. Here almost every store that sells speakers, being hifi or consumer audio, is very likely to have some product of the Dali range in stock. DALI is founded by Peter Lyngdorf (Lyngdorf Audio, Purifi, NAD, Steinway, …), he also has his own distribution through Hifi Klubben, a big chain in several EU countries.
