Like most successful businesses, the high-end audio industry is built on relationships. If there is one thing the past two-plus years of the COVID-19 pandemic lock-down have taught us, it’s the importance and difficulty of maintaining those relationships—the connections, the comradery in the absence of trade shows, those serendipitous face-to-face encounters, or just sitting down at dinner and drinks and talking shop. Zoom calls alone were helpful but barely sufficient. So, when I received an invitation to visit the DALI loudspeaker factory in Denmark, I put aside any international travel concerns, dusted off my carry-on, and prepared to hit the road. For four days in late August, a small band of eight audio journalists (including me) was reintroduced to the brand and received a crash course schooling us in all things DALI—not to mention a smattering of listening sessions thrown in for good measure. This included a deep dive into the development of KORE, the company’s first flagship loudspeaker in years.

As one of the foremost loudspeaker companies in the high end, DALI (initialism for Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries) remains firmly rooted in two-channel audio, and yet it also produces an array of floorstanding and compact speaker lines (both active and passive) that cover the home-cinema market. Its powered speakers are also playing an increasingly important role with the younger demographic. Unlike older audio enthusiasts, the young’uns prefer how unobtrusively powered systems fit into a room—they can begin streaming music with just a couple of power cords. Unbeknownst to me before this trip, DALI also has an in- and on-wall division, as well as a custom-installation department (CI).

Founded in 1983, DALI began modestly as a house brand for Peter Lyngdorf’s HiFi Klubben empire of audio shops. Today, DALI maintains offices in seven countries. Most notably, in 2018, Lenbrook Americas, distributor of audio brands NAD Electronics, PSB Speakers, and Bluesound wireless products, began distributing DALI in Canada and the United States. (DALI fittingly distributes Lenbrook products in Central Europe.) While DALI has maintained strong worldwide demand in the floorstanding and compact markets, its longer-term goals are to make a stronger impact in CI vis-à-vis the gorilla in the room, Klipsch, and the lesser gorillas, Bowers & Wilkins and KEF. Although China is currently its biggest CI market, DALI’s primary business strategy is to grow the custom-installation and home-theater divisions in the U.S.

Based in the town of Norager on the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark, DALI is executing its expansion plans both on and off campus. Our first stop was a tour of a local furniture factory (in business since 1967) that DALI acquired in 2019. Still specializing in classic Danish furnishings, its expertise made possible the enclosure development of the new flagship loudspeaker, KORE. In the future its cabinetry expertise will reduce DALI’s exposure to the supply-side vicissitudes of foreign sub-contractors. The main factory expansion includes a high-tech, robotic lacquer/paint facility. Another recent arrival is a 3D scanner and printer—technology that makes it much easier to fact-check a supplier’s prototypes. Automation has made DALI one the most efficient factories in Denmark.

“Made in Denmark, Made in Europe”

Led by Lars Worre, managing director, and Krestian Pedersen, head of R&D/New Projects, DALI brass emphasized how, in light of tenuous supply-chain issues and the skyrocketing shipping costs caused by the pandemic, key strategic issues had to be addressed. Their conclusion was that DALI should go in-house as much as possible and produce more items in Denmark and Scandinavia, especially for higher-end ranges, though entry and mid-priced series like Opticon and Rubicon will also now be fully assembled in-house.

Guided by COO Thomas Martin Holm, we were allowed to poke our noses in virtually every well-lighted nook and spotless cranny of the DALI factory and warehouse. (Note about the exceptional lighting: DALI is aware that SADS, [Seasonal Affective Disorder Syndrome] can be an issue during the shorter daylight hours of the Danish winter.) The conditions were almost on a “clean-room” level when I witnessed driver assembly, cones being glued and hand-coated, transducers magnetized, final frequency-response testing, and cabinets polished and prepared for shipping.

A massive motorized blue door led to the cabinet shop and the five-axis CNC machines and associated lacquering facility. Previously, this factory was limited to vinyl-wrapping cabinet veneers, such as those in the best-selling Opticon series, but high-tech lacquer finishing was necessary for KORE. This new facility became DALI’s biggest investment over the last four years. It also brings the popular wood-veneered Rubicon series back from China to be produced fully in-house, thus minimizing future global-supply shocks. Given that Denmark has some of the strictest emissions laws when it comes to lacquer finishes, DALI employs a UV-curing, zero-solvent lacquer that is much more eco-friendly—evidenced by the lack of any strong solvent odors. Curing is also reduced from a typical eight-week span to little more than one week. The end result is a much harder finish that has higher resistance to sunlight.

Quality-control testing was comprehensive and included power handling, torturous heat and humidity extremes (–40C to +80C), and a salt-spray test that emulates extended ocean-air exposure for DALI products that call Malibu or Monaco home. The cost of these capital investments was not revealed, but no doubt it’s a substantial outlay that should and is already yielding benefits to next-generation DALI products. A gamble? Not if you think in terms of the DALI long-term philosophy.

The KORE of the Matter

But this visit is really about two stories. The factory tour was prelude to the pièce de résistance—getting up close and personal with DALI’s new top-of-the-line model, KORE. Recently unveiled at Munich High End, KORE is all flagship, DALI-style. It marks the company’s return to the ultra-high-end loudspeaker segment. The 4.5-way, five-driver, bass-reflex design required the development of 1200 new parts from scratch and the aforementioned CNC machinery and lacquer booths. Its complex, curvilinear cabinetry also explains why DALI required a dedicated furniture factory to execute the design. In order to form the curvature of the 17-layer Finnish birch, alternate grain glue-infused enclosure, DALI required a unique wet-heat process applied from the outside in and high-frequency heating applied from the inside out. An aluminum-block heat press was created solely for this purpose.

Construction of KORE is plainly on a heroic scale. Heavily braced and compartmentalized, the resulting enclosure is a 28mm curved laminate, gloss-lacquered in Ammara Ebony veneer with a contrasting textured finish. The center of the baffle is composed of a die-cast aluminum and structural thermoset-resin—the composite materials providing a highly rigid platform for the mid and high-frequency drivers. The 75-pound, cement-based, resin-composite plinth results in a low center of gravity, providing a solid foundation for the speaker’s substantial 353-pound overall weight. Final assembly of KORE occurs in a dedicated area of the factory.

The specs speak for themselves. The five-driver array includes a pair of 11.5″ woofers, with dual voice coils and a twin-suspension motor system. The honeycomb-sandwich paper-pulp cone diaphragm is reinforced with wood fibers. The all-new 7″ midrange uses a lightweight paper-pulp diaphragm. Its titanium voice-coil former includes a new powerful Balanced Drive SMC (soft magnetic compound) motor with a neodymium magnet. The proprietary SMC process creates a motor system that is free from inherent magnetic losses, thereby lowering harmonic distortion and enhancing dynamics. There’s a redesigned version of DALI’s signature wood-fiber cone, for a more controlled breakup behavior, as well as a narrow, low-mass surround designed to minimize non-linearities. The EVO-K hybrid tweeter is an evolution of the DALI hybrid-tweeter module that dates to the 1980s. It combines an oversize 35mm dome and a new high-sensitivity version of the 10mm x 15mm ribbon. The ribbon begins rolling in at 10kHz and kicks in fully at 15kHz—essentially operating as a super-tweeter. The split crossover is installed near the tweeter assembly and in the concrete plinth. It incorporates new SMC-KORE inductors (made by Mundorf, as are the resistors), which applies the SMC technology to the core material in the crossover inductors. According to Worre, these inductors lower current distortion by up to 12dB.

Listening: The Main Event

Our group listened to KORE in two listening environments—the larger of the two spaces was equipped with all NAD digital electronics. Even in this unfamiliar space, KORE was impressive in scale, dynamic impact, and power-range muscle. Inter-driver coherence was seamless. But I still found its general sonic personality a bit hard and forced. Perhaps it was the electronics or the very large room volume they had to fill or the high playback volumes that Krestian Pedersen had selected.

In any event, later that day our group decamped to a slightly smaller, better-damped, and more intimate space, where we were joined, once again, by Lars Worre. This setup, a compact-disc front end through a Mola DAC, was driven by DALI’s own decades-old Gravity monoblocks—classic pure Class A behemoths that outputted a head-spinning 1500 watts each. Sonically, this was much more like what I was expecting from a state-of-the-art contender from DALI—a lush, slightly warm midrange with an intoxicating blend of detail and immersion that drew me ever-closer to the music. Scale was formidable, and soundstaging was expansive. Imaging was ultra-stable and focused but not laser-guided in the way of a high-performance, bass-restricted mini-monitor. Dynamic gradations were very finely resolved. Worre warned that gain levels needed to be set with caution, and he wasn’t kidding. As if he were reading my mind, the track “Lux Aeterna” from Rutter’s Requiem was cued up. I’m very familiar with this music, having listened to it in dozens of systems, and reproduction was gorgeous in every sonic respect, from the breadth of the vast reverberant acoustic, to the weight and depth of the glorious pipe organ, to the fine delineation of voices within the chorus.

Although listening time was all too brief, clearly KORE performance was in line with that of other mega-speakers I’ve experienced. Sonically formidable, yes, but still approachable. According to Worre, this was consistent with the DALI philosophy that, even as it provides a showcase for DALI technology and innovation, KORE, can actually fit the real world and accent a room’s décor without dwarfing the space. Worre also emphasized DALI’s history of applying tried-and-true design principles—principles that are applied throughout the product line to one extent or the other. Priced at $110,000 per pair, KORE seemed to me a relative bargain in today’s hyper-expensive ultra-high-end speaker marketplace. I was told that advanced orders for KORE have already exceeded expectations.

As I took leave of my gracious hosts, my final takeaway was that DALI is a company on the move, grabbing the initiative and setting its sights on new opportunities, as it leverages its Lenbrook relationship. No one has a crystal ball, but my bet is that DALI’s future has never been brighter.

Specs & Pricing

Dali Kore Loudspeaker
Frequency response: 26Hz–34kHz
Nominal impedance: 4 ohms (minimum 3.2 ohms at 72Hz)
Sensitivity: 88dB
Crossover: 390Hz, 2.1kHz, 12kHz
Dimensions: 17.6″ x 66″ x 23.3″
Weight: 353 lbs.
Price: $110,000

Dali AS
DALI Allé 1
9610 Nørager, Denmark