Absolutely love this channel!! It's obvious you both have had a long friendship and the shows come across really well with a warm and friendly atmosphere! I could listen to you both for hours!! Thank you!!
I also can say that the new rubikore absolutely sound fantastic. They sound natural but yet exciting and slightly warm and full. Heard them first time on Munich high end show and they were in my top 3 of all speakers there
I now have RUBIKORE 6s. Wow. If Mike likes the 2. He’ll be blown away by the 6s. But before testing they MUST have 50hrs+ run in. At about 60hrs the bass gets SO deep... and SO tight! (Also the RLJ album is superb. How, at 59, had I missed it!!???)
Hi fellas! An interesting video to be sure! IMHO, the DALI sound has always been a one of ease, unforced beauty. They don’t exaggerate any particular part of the spectrum but they’re not exactly neutral either. Listening to spoken word will reveal that. I agree with Mike on this one and in many ways, these are the ideal premium home speaker - they look fantastic, they’re made to a very high standard and they play everything well enough to please a large majority of listeners. If incisiveness or spaciousness are your top priorities, there are better options. If to-the-point / no-nonsense midrange is your priority, there are better speakers again. But the DALI’s many qualities seem to be in balance and so, they do not disappoint in any musical genre and they delight with most of them. The DALI is what I envision seeing when entering a living room of a modern upper-class European home. If they were a car, they’d be a Saab 9-3 Turbo. Elegant enough to be parked in front of a fancy restaurant and quick enough to have a good deal of fun on a Saturday morning. Now, please roll on the MiniDisc review! 😊 I, of course, realise that in order to keep the channel alive, you can have only so many retro riffs and have to review the new stuff, but to be quite honest and yes, I am selfish, I enjoy the retro stuff as much as anything else you’ve done and probably more. It puts things into perspective to know that David’s reference system is based on things that have not been made in years. I have to ask myself, has the technology really moved forward so much and if it has, are we enjoying our music more than we used to as a result of that? Studies seem to prove otherwise and in fact, general studies done on various aspects of modern music suggest we have gone backwards. I don’t want to derail what I just wrote about the DALI or your fine video but gentleman, I recently had a chat with a friend of a friend who is a recording and mixing engineer for the biggest recording studio and label in my country and the ex-Yugoslav region, and he mentioned that on average, a modern pop song has between 100 and 120 tracks! The lead vocal alone can be spread across 5 or 6 tracks! One dry, one with reverb and compression applied, one with some other kind of processing to make the voice sound like a whisper because apparently, that adds depth to the recording etc. Imagine what they do with a piano! I am certainly not going to criticise anyone but I think that has to be the reason why so much of modern music sounds overproduced. It doesn’t cost anything to add additional tracks in whatever software they’re using so they just do it. In the past, it did cost - quite a lot - those big Studer tape machines running at 30 ips burned that 2’’ tape like there was no tomorrow and you could only fit 24 tracks, each 25 minutes or so in length, onto a tape a kilometre long. Like one fellow on some forum said one time - I was hired just to tender the machines and splice the tape! Now, please don’t misunderstand - I am younger than both of you by at least 15 years - but there’s a lot to be said about discovering new music through new formats or even just by listening to radio. You learn more about the stuff and understating how things were recorded, which instruments were used and who played them, does make you a better listener. Though I play a guitar and keyboards myself, buying a genuine Hammon B3 with a Leslie wouldn’t make me Jimmy Smith! By the same token, buying the priciest HIFI stuff will not make anyone a better listener. Ah, yes, please do a MiniDisc video! Sorry about the long post but your brilliant video deserves an equally brilliant response! 😊 Cheers!
Thanks, so many points. We may do a dedicated episode just to address what you've said. I was lucky enough to watch Steve Levine (Culture Club producer, and many, many more) in action recording a film soundtrack just a few years ago. It was amazing the number of takes he did with one violin part - and he'd use the first 4 bars or one take, then the second 4 bars, of another, until he made it perfect. It was incredible to watch but I couldn't help think it's not a real performance, it was so technically perfect, it was artificial. And that was before AI arrived! Personally I love rock and pop recorded from the mid 1960s to the late 1980s, when studio techniques weren't insane, it was largely analogue and computers didn't rule the roost! MD video is coming soon but we're trying to put up some of the videos we had left over from the summer. In this one I am still recovering from a cold I got at the end of August!
@@MrVinylista Hi David and thanks so much for the reply! I am sorry to hear about the cold. My immune system is shot - I got Covid for the second time this year and still haven’t recovered. I know exactly what you mean by ‘artificial’. Somewhere along the line, the musical component got lost. You can have great musicians in the studio and with well-budgeted productions, they typically are, but playing along to a recoding and with actual fellow-musicians in the live room are two completely different things. Sometimes, the overdubbing doesn’t ‘jive’ and the music feels disjointed and as a result, it fails to connect with you as a listener. You are absolutely right on the older recordings and like you, I have great love for classic pop and rock music. Many people know, just by relying on intuition, that modern music sounds inferior to something that has been recorded two or more decades ago. The recording process has become too convenient today - you can spend a couple of hundred Euros and get a whole recording package, including a keyboard. In the sixties and seventies, the studio techs were lucky if they had motorised faders to automate some of the levelling during mixing, otherwise a lot of very well-timed running would be required. In the eighties, studios would actually hire techs just to program the synthesizers, the Yamaha DX7 being particularly popular and notoriously difficult to program. Knopfler even gave special credit to the programmer on the 1982 Love Over Gold album. Today, you don’t even need to pay attention to proper microphone placement because it can be corrected in post-production! The recording engineer for the 1982 Thriller had the ribbon microphone set at an angle to extend the HF - because the diaphragm itself isn’t massless and having the mic at an angle flexes it just a bit, naturally extending the HF! All of this must seem incredibly archaic today - as though you are a professional athlete running a 100-metre race at the Olympics and safe in the knowledge you can just restart the race whenever you want to, you don’t give a toss about how you do. In the past, your entire life as an athlete would boil down to those ten short seconds. Perhaps you are right and this would make for an interesting video. Though I meet an occasional toddler in the comments - they’re typically the rude, opinionated ones - I believe your viewers are generally mature (or just older!) folks and they might appreciate something a bit different. I certainly would. I will certainly be on the lookout for the MD video - whenever it comes, it will be a treat and a delight to watch. Greetings from Croatia!
Most Dali I've heard emphasise the upper mid/treble, generally treble. I saw one measured recently. And guess what. Emphasised treble. Done in a way that some people will like of course, might sound more airy and crisp without piercing at "reasonable" volumes
Mike - Internally DALI stands for 'Don't Angle our Loudspeakers Inwards'! LOVE Dali to death. Currently running Opticon 6s and an Audiolab 9000A, but going to upgrade to Rubikore 6s soon.
I have a pair of Dali Rubicon 6s floorstanders, and absolutely love them (got an ex-display pair from Richer Sounds in Bristol for an absolute steal). Dare I say it - they have put a stop to that Endless Upgrade Vortex Of Doom that's so difficult to escape from.
I’ve only recently discovered DALI speakers. Love the sound and the construction is flawless - I have the Rubikore 2 in gloss maroon on DALI stands. Thanks for a hugely entertaining video and I’ll definitely keep an eye out for more Riffing from you two gentlemen! 😊😊
Great review, thanks. Thanks for calling it the back wall. It is the back wall to the speakers, and since we are focused on the speaker system, and it is the wall behind the speakers, it should be called the back wall. If we were talking about the listener, it would be the front wall to the listener. Right? No.
It falls in the category of "passenger and driver side" of cars. Imo that's a dumb way to pick a side because it depends on country. It's easier to do in relation to the person. Right/left of car, when person is seated in it. Front wall, back wall in relation to person sitting down listening to speakers. Otherwise you get silly situations where you have front speakers on the back wall.
I have owned several pairs of DALI speakers for 20 years and absolutely love them. They seem to have no sound of their own but just play the music so natural. One question however, do you know why DALI most often present their speakers at shows using NAD electronics? Is it marketing or magic?
A good vintage. At that time, Castle in Yorkshire were doing some of the very best loudspeaker cabinetry in the world. That accolade has sadly now moved to China.
I heard some Dali opticon 5's in a shop demo and thought they were good value and had a nice tone in the bass. I also agree the Rickie Lee Jones album is well recorded and sounds very good.
Got a pair of Zensor Pico's on my 2nd system...are they but 10% of these? Martin Stephenson & The Daintess, Gladsome, Humour and Blue is an absolute joy...Wholly Humble Heart is my absolute favourite ❤
Next time you riff on some Dalis (or other Danish hi fi kit), try some Faxe beer. I discovered it some years back when I worked in Denmark for a few months. Very pleasant stuff and a nice alternative to the ubiquitous Carlsberg/Tuborg.
Excellent video as usual. It is strange how Dali is supposed to be the brand no one has heard of, but several of us seem to have a pair, me included! I have a pair of Oberon 5s, their entry level floor stander, and they are excellent in their sub £1000 bracket. I am also curious about how the Rubicore 2s compare with an LS3/5a which is my benchmark small speaker.
Don’t toe them in! 😂. Didn’t you know that DALI stands for “Don’t Angle Loudspeakers Inwards?”. Anyway glad David mentions that LS3/5As should be hard against the front wall, I have my Falcon Q7s positioned Kan-style and they do sound like awesome that way.
I know what you mean about small speaker producing big sound. I think they can often do this with better imaging than floor standers and the associated problems with cabinet resonance.
Great Riff. Mike, if your Quads give up the ghost again, and even if not give Martin Logan ELS speakers a go. The base units nowadays really integrate well with the electrostatic panels. I love them and use them as my main speakers. Also recently purchased a pair of Sound Artist LS3/5a’s from China. HMRC didn’t even charge any taxes or import duties and got a pair for £444. They are great value and maybe a giant slayer so why not do a Riff on them to see how they stack up against the LS5/3a’s you reviewed at £8000. Would be interesting. They are unofficial copies of the BBC speaker and sound pretty good in my book.
Madri is indeed a British invention and has never set foot in Spain, there are rumours it is the old recipe for Carling Black Label. Would the Dali’s work well with an Exposure 3510 or a naim nait xs3? I am currently running small Neat standmounters with a Rega Brio and am mulling over the idea of an amplifier upgrade and a larger speaker. I have been keen on Dali’s ever since I heard the Epicon 2.
Carling was originally Canadian (nobody seems to remember this), and the brand still continues there under Molson Coors. The British Carling was marketed by Bass Charrington and eventually came under Molson Coors in the post-2000 Competition Commission-mandated disposals following the sale of Bass's brewing interests to Interbrew, later Anheuser-Busch InBev. .
These are the successors of Dali Rubicon 2 (2014?). Same size, maybe a slight or bigger upgrade? I’ve got the Rubicon2 since 2018 (2nd hand) together with Cambridge Audio Azur851A (amp) & 851N (pre amp / network player). For me an awesome combination. You might once pay attention to the new Radiant Acoustic 6.2. Comparable size, a bit more expensive. Listened to these at HiFi Klubben. I guess designed by Lyngdorf (founder of Dali). Sounded bigger than the Rubicons and more refined. Brexit or not: it’s really worth while to review non UK speakers. Thank yo! Your channel is great btw, regards from Haarlem, the Netherlands.
Thank you for the info, and greetings to our Dutch viewers. I lived in Amsterdam for nearly a year and loved it. Many years ago! Mike came to stay and didn't want to go home!
Chaps, could you do a (unbiased?) Riff on Mrs. Price's Naims please? The Dalis might be a good match for them? If I moved into a smaller home and my beloved Epos 14's are a tad dominant, I wonder if these Dalis would fit the bill? A NAP 250 or 135's with them in place of my 140 plus my Hi-Cap/32.5 , I'd like to hear that.
Yes, I think the DALIs would be considerably better than the ES14s. I love the Eposes, they're an iconic speaker, but haven't aged particularly well. A NAP250 with its great current drive should be a good combo, and its liveliness would pep up the DALIs, too. It's worth getting an old Naim amps serviced by the factory, by the way. Not particularly expensive to do, and it should restore their performance to new.
@MrVinylista Thanks for your reply David, although I'd maybe feel slighted if a lesser man than yourself said that my beloved ES14's "haven't aged particularly well" ! 😢 Are you referring to appearance or performance? Coincidentally, I saw a second hand 250 the other day £660, but no box or anything, & it seemed to be in only 'OK' condition, so I'll hold out for an immaculate pair of boxed olive 135's with receipts etc. and I'd get them fully serviced, as you say. As they will be my 'final' upgrade with some inheritance money, they'd need to be the cats pyjamas. I'm more than happy with the Epos (what a beguiling midrange from a dynamic 'speaker), but a smaller living room might disagree, in which case the Dali's aren't THAT expensive if it means my system will be 'complete' - to my ears anyway. The Dali's look gorgeous too! I wonder if my Heybrook stands (HS1?) would compliment them well?
@@domo3552 No offence meant. I really like the ES14, but it is 'of its time' in terms of its power handling, dynamics and bass grip. Very nice midband though and a thoroughly musical speaker. I think you'd find the DALI will do a lot of what the Epos does but with more power and detail. A good choice re: the 135s. True classics that stand up to modern scrutiny surprisingly well - when properly serviced, of course.
@@MrVinylista No offence taken of course 🙂. Encouraging words, thanks, as I am fearful of losing the Epos' 'musicality' (BTW, Mike & yourself use that term almost apologetically in your Riffs, well you shouldn't as it is the most important quality isn't it?) which I put down to their (superficially?) simple but well engineered design. The Dali's are definitely noted as the potential successors to the Epos. Thanks for the informative Riff, as I follow for the entertainment & as an enthusiast, not as someone on the look out for the next purchase, but this one's got me thinking?
So where would you put them against bookshefs you reviewed recent: 1. Quad revela 1 2. Pmc prodigy 1 3. B&w 607s3 4. Atc scm7 5. AE 500 6. Neat majistra
Come on now you guys should really try a couple of speakers from ‘direct to the public’ hifi sellers- surely David can divert some funds from Strereonet and Mike can flog his Lexi’s and buy a pair of Radiant Ascoustics Clarity 6.2 , and down the track a pair of Burchardt E50 ( some homework for you both to do !)
Its is getting expensive following this channel. First I bought the A1 then this damn thing. Both products is very good and I am very happy with them. Cheers!
It's Bud-WHY-zurr... it's an American brand and absolutely we refuse to honor the enunciations or inflections of ANY language or culture that gave us ours 😉
Can't get over the reddy brown bass drivers, which strongly suggest a deeply unpleasant bowel condition to me. Also, I want to thank you for calling the rear wall the back wall when everyone else except me calls it the front wall, which is just daft. Of course it's the back wall. It's behind the speakers.
@ColocasiaCorm But it's behind the speakers. So it's the behind wall. And as "behind" is a bit rude, we call it the back wall. Unless your speakers are omnidirectional, in which case direction is arbitrary and meaningless, so it becomes the "near" wall. Really, it's all very simple. But what about electrostatic panel speakers, you may reasonably ask. I would suggest the term "retro-parallel".
And then we come to the thorny issue of backpacks.. My wife asserts the front of the backpack is called the "back", because it goes against your back. If it wasn't for the vows we would be divorced by now..
So, what is the wall behind you called? It's called the back wall. The wall in front of you is the front wall. But it is wall behind the speakers, so it is the back wall to the speakers, right?
What I am really curious about : how do these speakers compare with all the various BBC L 3a etc speakers in the market Personally I think all these various BBC speakers are seriously overpriced (not to mention :a hype) Now this would be interesting : to compare the most expensive BBC speaker(Falcon I suppose) and compare them with the Dali Menuet SE I dare you!
Horrible binding posts, 4 of them. Yuck! Nevertheless, I'm sure these Dali's will be satisfyingly sounding loudspeakers for the long term - unlike most of their short term attention grabbing opposition. Dali gets the balance right, just like Bose.
Absolutely love this channel!! It's obvious you both have had a long friendship and the shows come across really well with a warm and friendly atmosphere! I could listen to you both for hours!! Thank you!!
I just bought Rubikore 6 and very happy with the sound
Been running some Rubikore 6s for about a week now. To say I’m impressed is an understatement. Incredible.
I am so in Love With this speakers. The tweeter is awesome 😊. My Future Speakers....
"I think they're genre agnostic"."What does that mean?" " I don't know". Enjoyed that little back and forth.
Hello Dali.😊
Brilliant Riff as always, thank you gents. 👌🙏
I also can say that the new rubikore absolutely sound fantastic. They sound natural but yet exciting and slightly warm and full. Heard them first time on Munich high end show and they were in my top 3 of all speakers there
The rubikore 2 were in your top 3?
Rhe rubikore 8@@darrenlomax1283
Lovely to see you again, gentlemens 😊
Likewise!
I now have RUBIKORE 6s. Wow. If Mike likes the 2. He’ll be blown away by the 6s. But before testing they MUST have 50hrs+ run in. At about 60hrs the bass gets SO deep... and SO tight!
(Also the RLJ album is superb. How, at 59, had I missed it!!???)
Hi fellas!
An interesting video to be sure! IMHO, the DALI sound has always been a one of ease, unforced beauty. They don’t exaggerate any particular part of the spectrum but they’re not exactly neutral either. Listening to spoken word will reveal that. I agree with Mike on this one and in many ways, these are the ideal premium home speaker - they look fantastic, they’re made to a very high standard and they play everything well enough to please a large majority of listeners.
If incisiveness or spaciousness are your top priorities, there are better options. If to-the-point / no-nonsense midrange is your priority, there are better speakers again. But the DALI’s many qualities seem to be in balance and so, they do not disappoint in any musical genre and they delight with most of them.
The DALI is what I envision seeing when entering a living room of a modern upper-class European home. If they were a car, they’d be a Saab 9-3 Turbo. Elegant enough to be parked in front of a fancy restaurant and quick enough to have a good deal of fun on a Saturday morning.
Now, please roll on the MiniDisc review! 😊 I, of course, realise that in order to keep the channel alive, you can have only so many retro riffs and have to review the new stuff, but to be quite honest and yes, I am selfish, I enjoy the retro stuff as much as anything else you’ve done and probably more. It puts things into perspective to know that David’s reference system is based on things that have not been made in years. I have to ask myself, has the technology really moved forward so much and if it has, are we enjoying our music more than we used to as a result of that? Studies seem to prove otherwise and in fact, general studies done on various aspects of modern music suggest we have gone backwards.
I don’t want to derail what I just wrote about the DALI or your fine video but gentleman, I recently had a chat with a friend of a friend who is a recording and mixing engineer for the biggest recording studio and label in my country and the ex-Yugoslav region, and he mentioned that on average, a modern pop song has between 100 and 120 tracks! The lead vocal alone can be spread across 5 or 6 tracks! One dry, one with reverb and compression applied, one with some other kind of processing to make the voice sound like a whisper because apparently, that adds depth to the recording etc. Imagine what they do with a piano! I am certainly not going to criticise anyone but I think that has to be the reason why so much of modern music sounds overproduced. It doesn’t cost anything to add additional tracks in whatever software they’re using so they just do it. In the past, it did cost - quite a lot - those big Studer tape machines running at 30 ips burned that 2’’ tape like there was no tomorrow and you could only fit 24 tracks, each 25 minutes or so in length, onto a tape a kilometre long. Like one fellow on some forum said one time - I was hired just to tender the machines and splice the tape! Now, please don’t misunderstand - I am younger than both of you by at least 15 years - but there’s a lot to be said about discovering new music through new formats or even just by listening to radio. You learn more about the stuff and understating how things were recorded, which instruments were used and who played them, does make you a better listener. Though I play a guitar and keyboards myself, buying a genuine Hammon B3 with a Leslie wouldn’t make me Jimmy Smith! By the same token, buying the priciest HIFI stuff will not make anyone a better listener.
Ah, yes, please do a MiniDisc video!
Sorry about the long post but your brilliant video deserves an equally brilliant response! 😊
Cheers!
Thanks, so many points. We may do a dedicated episode just to address what you've said.
I was lucky enough to watch Steve Levine (Culture Club producer, and many, many more) in action recording a film soundtrack just a few years ago.
It was amazing the number of takes he did with one violin part - and he'd use the first 4 bars or one take, then the second 4 bars, of another, until he made it perfect.
It was incredible to watch but I couldn't help think it's not a real performance, it was so technically perfect, it was artificial. And that was before AI arrived!
Personally I love rock and pop recorded from the mid 1960s to the late 1980s, when studio techniques weren't insane, it was largely analogue and computers didn't rule the roost!
MD video is coming soon but we're trying to put up some of the videos we had left over from the summer. In this one I am still recovering from a cold I got at the end of August!
@@MrVinylista Hi David and thanks so much for the reply! I am sorry to hear about the cold. My immune system is shot - I got Covid for the second time this year and still haven’t recovered.
I know exactly what you mean by ‘artificial’. Somewhere along the line, the musical component got lost. You can have great musicians in the studio and with well-budgeted productions, they typically are, but playing along to a recoding and with actual fellow-musicians in the live room are two completely different things. Sometimes, the overdubbing doesn’t ‘jive’ and the music feels disjointed and as a result, it fails to connect with you as a listener.
You are absolutely right on the older recordings and like you, I have great love for classic pop and rock music. Many people know, just by relying on intuition, that modern music sounds inferior to something that has been recorded two or more decades ago. The recording process has become too convenient today - you can spend a couple of hundred Euros and get a whole recording package, including a keyboard. In the sixties and seventies, the studio techs were lucky if they had motorised faders to automate some of the levelling during mixing, otherwise a lot of very well-timed running would be required. In the eighties, studios would actually hire techs just to program the synthesizers, the Yamaha DX7 being particularly popular and notoriously difficult to program. Knopfler even gave special credit to the programmer on the 1982 Love Over Gold album. Today, you don’t even need to pay attention to proper microphone placement because it can be corrected in post-production! The recording engineer for the 1982 Thriller had the ribbon microphone set at an angle to extend the HF - because the diaphragm itself isn’t massless and having the mic at an angle flexes it just a bit, naturally extending the HF! All of this must seem incredibly archaic today - as though you are a professional athlete running a 100-metre race at the Olympics and safe in the knowledge you can just restart the race whenever you want to, you don’t give a toss about how you do. In the past, your entire life as an athlete would boil down to those ten short seconds.
Perhaps you are right and this would make for an interesting video. Though I meet an occasional toddler in the comments - they’re typically the rude, opinionated ones - I believe your viewers are generally mature (or just older!) folks and they might appreciate something a bit different. I certainly would.
I will certainly be on the lookout for the MD video - whenever it comes, it will be a treat and a delight to watch.
Greetings from Croatia!
Most Dali I've heard emphasise the upper mid/treble, generally treble. I saw one measured recently. And guess what. Emphasised treble. Done in a way that some people will like of course, might sound more airy and crisp without piercing at "reasonable" volumes
Mike - Internally DALI stands for 'Don't Angle our Loudspeakers Inwards'! LOVE Dali to death. Currently running Opticon 6s and an Audiolab 9000A, but going to upgrade to Rubikore 6s soon.
I have a pair of Dali Rubicon 6s floorstanders, and absolutely love them (got an ex-display pair from Richer Sounds in Bristol for an absolute steal). Dare I say it - they have put a stop to that Endless Upgrade Vortex Of Doom that's so difficult to escape from.
Entertaining as always chaps
Yes, they never fail.
We welcome Mrs Price among the Riff Raff. Mr Price, as well!
I’ve only recently discovered DALI speakers. Love the sound and the construction is flawless - I have the Rubikore 2 in gloss maroon on DALI stands. Thanks for a hugely entertaining video and I’ll definitely keep an eye out for more Riffing from you two gentlemen! 😊😊
This was a Proper video Thank You
Great review, thanks. Thanks for calling it the back wall. It is the back wall to the speakers, and since we are focused on the speaker system, and it is the wall behind the speakers, it should be called the back wall. If we were talking about the listener, it would be the front wall to the listener. Right? No.
It falls in the category of "passenger and driver side" of cars. Imo that's a dumb way to pick a side because it depends on country. It's easier to do in relation to the person. Right/left of car, when person is seated in it.
Front wall, back wall in relation to person sitting down listening to speakers. Otherwise you get silly situations where you have front speakers on the back wall.
I have owned several pairs of DALI speakers for 20 years and absolutely love them. They seem to have no sound of their own but just play the music so natural. One question however, do you know why DALI most often present their speakers at shows using NAD electronics? Is it marketing or magic?
A number of bookshelf speakers were being demoed and thought the Dali were a clear winner.
I have Castle Harlech S1 floorstanding loudspeakers, they were the next model up in the range from the Avon's !
I still have a pair of Castle Inversions in the loft. One day they are going to get sanded down and have a driver and crossover upgrade. Probably.
A good vintage. At that time, Castle in Yorkshire were doing some of the very best loudspeaker cabinetry in the world. That accolade has sadly now moved to China.
Glad to hear that Dali cones are always interesting. I guess that means they don’t do vanilla cones then.
No, they do wood pulp paper cones for 20+ years ;-)
I heard some Dali opticon 5's in a shop demo and thought they were good value and had a nice tone in the bass. I also agree the Rickie Lee Jones album is well recorded and sounds very good.
Love the riff lads i bet the Dali's would love Amos Lee if they love rickie Lee jones
Doctor Doctor is a great song. But, Rock Bottom is THE song on the Phenomenon album!
Got a pair of Zensor Pico's on my 2nd system...are they but 10% of these?
Martin Stephenson & The Daintess, Gladsome, Humour and Blue is an absolute joy...Wholly Humble Heart is my absolute favourite ❤
Next time you riff on some Dalis (or other Danish hi fi kit), try some Faxe beer. I discovered it some years back when I worked in Denmark for a few months. Very pleasant stuff and a nice alternative to the ubiquitous Carlsberg/Tuborg.
Nice XTC callout!
'' What happened was'' Jethro lives again.
Excellent video as usual. It is strange how Dali is supposed to be the brand no one has heard of, but several of us seem to have a pair, me included! I have a pair of Oberon 5s, their entry level floor stander, and they are excellent in their sub £1000 bracket.
I am also curious about how the Rubicore 2s compare with an LS3/5a which is my benchmark small speaker.
Don’t toe them in! 😂. Didn’t you know that DALI stands for “Don’t Angle Loudspeakers Inwards?”. Anyway glad David mentions that LS3/5As should be hard against the front wall, I have my Falcon Q7s positioned Kan-style and they do sound like awesome that way.
I know what you mean about small speaker producing big sound. I think they can often do this with better imaging than floor standers and the associated problems with cabinet resonance.
Bath Ales - Gem 🍻
Great Riff. Mike, if your Quads give up the ghost again, and even if not give Martin Logan ELS speakers a go. The base units nowadays really integrate well with the electrostatic panels. I love them and use them as my main speakers. Also recently purchased a pair of Sound Artist LS3/5a’s from China. HMRC didn’t even charge any taxes or import duties and got a pair for £444. They are great value and maybe a giant slayer so why not do a Riff on them to see how they stack up against the LS5/3a’s you reviewed at £8000. Would be interesting. They are unofficial copies of the BBC speaker and sound pretty good in my book.
Afternoon gents👍👍
For all you Pub Serv B’casting fans, they have a new album out called The Last Flight about Amelia Earhart final adventure. It’s very good indeed.
Madri is indeed a British invention and has never set foot in Spain, there are rumours it is the old recipe for Carling Black Label.
Would the Dali’s work well with an Exposure 3510 or a naim nait xs3?
I am currently running small Neat standmounters with a Rega Brio and am mulling over the idea of an amplifier upgrade and a larger speaker. I have been keen on Dali’s ever since I heard the Epicon 2.
Carling was originally Canadian (nobody seems to remember this), and the brand still continues there under Molson Coors. The British Carling was marketed by Bass Charrington and eventually came under Molson Coors in the post-2000 Competition Commission-mandated disposals following the sale of Bass's brewing interests to Interbrew, later Anheuser-Busch InBev. .
There's a new PSB album out now since that one. 😊
These are the successors of Dali Rubicon 2 (2014?). Same size, maybe a slight or bigger upgrade? I’ve got the Rubicon2 since 2018 (2nd hand) together with Cambridge Audio Azur851A (amp) & 851N (pre amp / network player). For me an awesome combination.
You might once pay attention to the new Radiant Acoustic 6.2. Comparable size, a bit more expensive. Listened to these at HiFi Klubben. I guess designed by Lyngdorf (founder of Dali). Sounded bigger than the Rubicons and more refined.
Brexit or not: it’s really worth while to review non UK speakers. Thank yo! Your channel is great btw, regards from Haarlem, the Netherlands.
Thank you for the info, and greetings to our Dutch viewers. I lived in Amsterdam for nearly a year and loved it. Many years ago! Mike came to stay and didn't want to go home!
went to the Hifi klubben to check out the clarify 6.2 but came home with the Rubikore 6. My first floor standing speaker for many years
Aaaand the 12 points go to Denmark !!!
Evening folks
Chaps, could you do a (unbiased?) Riff on Mrs. Price's Naims please? The Dalis might be a good match for them? If I moved into a smaller home and my beloved Epos 14's are a tad dominant, I wonder if these Dalis would fit the bill? A NAP 250 or 135's with them in place of my 140 plus my Hi-Cap/32.5 , I'd like to hear that.
Yes, I think the DALIs would be considerably better than the ES14s.
I love the Eposes, they're an iconic speaker, but haven't aged particularly well.
A NAP250 with its great current drive should be a good combo, and its liveliness would pep up the DALIs, too.
It's worth getting an old Naim amps serviced by the factory, by the way. Not particularly expensive to do, and it should restore their performance to new.
@MrVinylista Thanks for your reply David, although I'd maybe feel slighted if a lesser man than yourself said that my beloved ES14's "haven't aged particularly well" ! 😢 Are you referring to appearance or performance?
Coincidentally, I saw a second hand 250 the other day £660, but no box or anything, & it seemed to be in only 'OK' condition, so I'll hold out for an immaculate pair of boxed olive 135's with receipts etc. and I'd get them fully serviced, as you say. As they will be my 'final' upgrade with some inheritance money, they'd need to be the cats pyjamas.
I'm more than happy with the Epos (what a beguiling midrange from a dynamic 'speaker), but a smaller living room might disagree, in which case the Dali's aren't THAT expensive if it means my system will be 'complete' - to my ears anyway. The Dali's look gorgeous too! I wonder if my Heybrook stands (HS1?) would compliment them well?
@@domo3552 No offence meant. I really like the ES14, but it is 'of its time' in terms of its power handling, dynamics and bass grip. Very nice midband though and a thoroughly musical speaker. I think you'd find the DALI will do a lot of what the Epos does but with more power and detail. A good choice re: the 135s. True classics that stand up to modern scrutiny surprisingly well - when properly serviced, of course.
PS - your Heybrook stands should fit the bit perfectly.
@@MrVinylista No offence taken of course 🙂.
Encouraging words, thanks, as I am fearful of losing the Epos' 'musicality' (BTW, Mike & yourself use that term almost apologetically in your Riffs, well you shouldn't as it is the most important quality isn't it?) which I put down to their (superficially?) simple but well engineered design. The Dali's are definitely noted as the potential successors to the Epos.
Thanks for the informative Riff, as I follow for the entertainment & as an enthusiast, not as someone on the look out for the next purchase, but this one's got me thinking?
How do they compare to the Rubicon 2 speakers? Should I upgrade or keep the Rubicons?
Are they good for listening at lower volume or they need to be turned up a bit louder?
Yes, very fine sounding at lower levels.
Handsome looking speakers to my eyes, and really good to see two pairs of binding posts for the bi-amping brigade. Added to my expanding wish list.
They are pretty
Who, Mike and myself, or the DALIs? 😎
@MrVinylista looking at my 2002 hi fi world the year's have treat David well but I do like those red cones
Doctor Doctor, what about Rock Bottom, one of the great solos !
Beers, not cars. That's the way to go chaps.
So where would you put them against bookshefs you reviewed recent:
1. Quad revela 1
2. Pmc prodigy 1
3. B&w 607s3
4. Atc scm7
5. AE 500
6. Neat majistra
1. Quad revela 1 - Rington's Earl Grey
2. Pmc prodigy 1 - Red Bull
3. B&w 607s3 - Americano
4. Atc scm7 - Espresso
5. AE 500 - Darjeeling, without milk
@@MrVinylista This is genius... the best way ever to review Hi-Fi. We should do this on every Riff.
Which Nagaoka are you using, Mike?
Come on now you guys should really try a couple of speakers from ‘direct to the public’ hifi sellers- surely David can divert some funds from Strereonet and Mike can flog his Lexi’s and buy a pair of Radiant Ascoustics Clarity 6.2 , and down the track a pair of Burchardt E50 ( some homework for you both to do !)
Thanks for the tip. Will investigate.
Any thoughts about the Rubicore 2 vs the Mofi 8 driven by the MF A1(new)
I just ordered a pair of these Rubikore 2 so I guess we will find out. These will replace my LS50 Meta. I had the Rubicon 2 before the Kef.
Its is getting expensive following this channel. First I bought the A1 then this damn thing. Both products is very good and I am very happy with them. Cheers!
It's Bud-WHY-zurr... it's an American brand and absolutely we refuse to honor the enunciations or inflections of ANY language or culture that gave us ours 😉
Didn't the Danes give us Carlsberg Special Brew 🍺
A bum's drink.
@@robertleitch2016 My staple diet as a student in the mid 1980s. That and lentils!
@@MrVinylista John 11:35. And not just him...
Can't get over the reddy brown bass drivers, which strongly suggest a deeply unpleasant bowel condition to me. Also, I want to thank you for calling the rear wall the back wall when everyone else except me calls it the front wall, which is just daft. Of course it's the back wall. It's behind the speakers.
Haha, those DALI drivers actually remind me a late 1960s Rolls Royce car dashboard - lovely wood veneer with a satin varnish!
Its the front wall. Its in front of you
@ColocasiaCorm But it's behind the speakers. So it's the behind wall. And as "behind" is a bit rude, we call it the back wall.
Unless your speakers are omnidirectional, in which case direction is arbitrary and meaningless, so it becomes the "near" wall.
Really, it's all very simple.
But what about electrostatic panel speakers, you may reasonably ask. I would suggest the term "retro-parallel".
And then we come to the thorny issue of backpacks..
My wife asserts the front of the backpack is called the "back", because it goes against your back. If it wasn't for the vows we would be divorced by now..
So, what is the wall behind you called? It's called the back wall. The wall in front of you is the front wall. But it is wall behind the speakers, so it is the back wall to the speakers, right?
And don't the Danes produce Bang and Olufsen?
There's also Gryphon, if you're feeling flush.
What I am really curious about : how do these speakers compare with all the various BBC L 3a etc speakers in the market
Personally I think all these various BBC speakers are seriously overpriced (not to mention :a hype) Now this would be interesting :
to compare the most expensive BBC speaker(Falcon I suppose) and compare them with the Dali Menuet SE
I dare you!
Proper binding posts!
And by coincidence in Madrid as I type this whilst visiting my daughter who lives here. Not a sign to f Madri beer here. Everyone drinks Mahou.
LEGO is Danish
And Lurpak butter.
@ And Dynaudio speakers, and Scanspeak, Vifa, Peerless drive units. Bang & Olufsen is Danish. Ortofon pickups are Danish.
Horrible binding posts, 4 of them. Yuck!
Nevertheless, I'm sure these Dali's will be satisfyingly sounding loudspeakers for the long term - unlike most of their short term attention grabbing opposition.
Dali gets the balance right, just like Bose.
Agreed with your comments until you mentioned Bose!