Dali Kubik Wireless Loudspeaker System

Around 15 years ago, the PC industry spawned something called ‘multimedia speakers’, a whole new breed of box purposed for delivering music from computers that had previously remained silent. Now, a couple of decades and a new millennium later, the specialist hi-fi industry has got wise to this wheeze and has offered its own variations on the theme. Spurred on by the explosion in portable iDevices, serious manufacturers have provided transducers that will hook up to just about anything, yet sound a whole lot better.

Kubik wireless loudspeaker system

Into this segment slots the new Dali Kubik loudspeaker package, a clever system that offers superlative connectivity and flexibility, able to make music from your iPod, Bluetooth or digital music source. It consists of the Kubik Free active master speaker and the Xtra passive slave. The active box sports an onboard Class D amplifier offering a claimed 50W per channel.

The speakers themselves use Dali’s design best-practice; they’re a two-way design with 160mm wood fiber cone mid/bass drivers and a single 25mm soft dome. The bottoms unclip to reveal the rocketry; there’s an umbilical cord to link the two speakers together only on the Xtra, but the Free has the aforementioned power input and audio input rocketry, too.

Free for all

To the side of the Free, there’s an on/off switch that doubles up as a mute and volume up/down, and a source selector. There are further controls on the back, and a bank of white LEDs on the front bottom section to denote the source selected. In use, you plug the connecting lead in-between the two speakers, and the mains lead in; then you toggle between inputs. My iPad recognizes the Dali’s as a Bluetooth device immediately, and pairs up within about 30 seconds. The grilles are removable, and come in a range of colors – including those big-selling primary ones of red, white and black.

The active box sports an onboard Class D amplifier offering a claimed 50W per channel

Fed a high-quality line or digital source, this system sounds very strong – aside from a slightly thicker bass and a tad less high treble, you could mistake it for a good passive stand mounted. Feed it some big sounding pop from Mark Ron son, and it’s in its element – with a punchy, bouncy sound that powers the song along on a wave of adrenaline. The system goes loud and doesn’t show any sign of break up at high volumes, which is something you certainly can’t say about cheaper designs. Treble is crisp and decently smooth; again there’s a conspicuous lack of nastiest, and the speakers make an agreeable pair. Via Bluetooth, things get less energetic, and sound more plodding, but they’re still perfectly listenable.

Bass is slightly boom; it’s not bad, but it’s not totally linear. And neither does it go down particularly low, but then again you wouldn’t expect it too. Rather, the Dali’s do enough to get the basics right, and don’t draw attention to their vices. Further up the midland, they’re clean and project well; if anything they’re a little on the warm side, which is a refreshing change from many tinnitus-inducing multimedia boxes, and the treble again is couth, although not brilliantly spacious right up top. Overall, they sound clean, refined and punchy, and are a fine listen considering their price and obvious flexibility. The very best results come in via the stereo RCA inputs with a high-end CD player as a source, but none of the inputs let the side down too much.

Rise to the challenge

My iPad recognizes the Dali’s as a Bluetooth device immediately, and pairs up within about 30 seconds

A thoroughly modern multimedia loudspeaker package, this combo covers all bases; it sounds good and is versatile, well made and attractive to look at. Don’t expect it to perform quite as well as passive hi-fi speakers, but do expect convenience on another level to conventional hi-fi separates. Its real joy is being able to play music out via your computer, tablet or phone at the press of a button, yet feed this Dali package with a good wired source and it rises to the challenge.

Details

·         Price: $1045.7 & $482.6

·         Website: dali-uk.com

·         Our verdict: 4.5/5