Dali Epicon 6 Review
Adhering to the consistent mission of truly restoring high-fidelity sound quality, Dali has launched the new Dali EPICON 6 speakers. The breakthrough in new technology has enabled Dali to achieve leap-forward development. Dali EPICON has also become a Dali new generation flagship product with its excellent quality.
Since its launch in 2002, Dali’s EUPHONIA series has become synonymous with classic speakers with outstanding sound quality and exquisite craftsmanship. This series of speakers revolutionizes Dali’s wood fiber cone technology, which sets the future research and development direction of Dali’s speaker products.
Relying on its nearly 30 years of R&D experience and manufacturing strength in the speaker market, Dali has perfected the latest technology and existing technology and repeated trials and demonstrations to create the EPICON series of speaker products.
The EPICON 6 speaker can be said to be the second flagship product of the EPICON series. Its majestic and shocking sound effects and lifelike sound quality have left a very deep impression on me.
Design
Although Rubicon is not a top series product, it still uses its monomers. Rubicon 6 adopts a 2 1/2+1/2 sound circuit design, each channel uses four monomers, and the original factory uniquely distinguishes the monomers, which are divided into high-frequency and low-frequency monomers.
The appearance design of EPICON 6 is noble and luxurious. The streamlined cabinet, highly polished surface, and wood grain decoration make EPICON 6 shine and flawlessly integrate with any home environment.
The cabinet occupies an important position in the entire speaker system. The first-class cabinet can provide an excellent acoustic structure for the treble and woofer. The EPICON 6 cabinet has a solid and firm structure to ensure that it provides the best working environment for the tweeter and woofer.
The front baffle of EPICON 6, the sides of the box, and the top of the box are all carefully made by the hot extrusion process. This process can reinforce the box as a whole and significantly reduce the resonance effect of the cabinet. In addition, because the surfaces of the box are not parallel to each other, they cannot reflect sound waves, completely eliminate the influence of standing waves, and get a clean and natural voice.
Each surface of the EPICON 6 box body is made of 6 layers of MDF glued together and is firmly fixed on the 53 mm multilayer keel. The keel material is MDF.
The double-layer front baffle is 33 mm thick, which can ensure that the bass and tweeter are transmitted in the form of sound energy instead of vibration release energy. The shape of the front baffle is beautiful and smooth, further creating a first-class acoustic environment.
The outer surface of the box is made of solid wood veneer, and ten painting processes are used. The surface of the box body is manually polished after each painting process to ensure that the surface presents a deep and elegant luster. After ten spray painting processes, the thickness of the paint surface reaches about 2 mm, which further ensures that the strength of the cabinet structure can withstand the test of time.
Inside the Speaker
The internal design of the EPICON 6 cabinet is ingenious. The interior of the cabinet is composed of two parts, and two woofers can be tuned separately. There are two sound pipes on the back of the speaker, and the crossover connecting the cable is located in the compartment at the bottom of the box to ensure that the variable sound pressure in the box will not affect the work of the crossover.
The supporting structure of EPICON 6 also adopts a meticulous design. Under the guidance of the design concept of comprehensively improving the accuracy of the playback time, Dali tried every means to ensure the free flow of airflow, which played a decisive role in improving the acoustic effect.
Dali EPICON 6 always ensured the most direct and close connection between the woofer and the sound tube during the design process. The higher the time accuracy of the speaker, the faster the transient response. Dali is very careful in the numerical control processing of the front baffle so that the airflow behind the woofer is smoother. Such a detailed adjustment fully embodies the principle of Dali’s low-loss design.
The magnetic & Circuit System
For many years, Dali has always been unique in the field of magnetic circuit system design. The original intention of EPICON 6 is to challenge the highest standards of similar products in the existing market, so a revolutionary magnetic circuit system design is adopted. This new solution, which Dali has spent a lot of development time, uses a number of new materials and innovative processes.
Dali’s R&D engineers are not satisfied with standard simulation procedures and existing measurement systems on the market. Although there are many mainstream finite element design programs such as COMSOL in the field of magnetic circuit design, the Dali design team is still based on independent development for the research of music systems.
Dali has invented and used a new material, which has electromagnetic properties and is more advantageous than iron material. Soft magnetic composite (SMC) is the latest material invented.
Because this new material involves the most cutting-edge manufacturing process, Dali’s R&D team has broken through the limitations of the traditional speaker industry and chose to engage with a European professional company.
The non-conductive nature of the soft magnetic composite (SMC) material eliminates the electromagnetic induction caused by the change of the magnetic field in the magnetic field. The soft magnetic composite (SMC) material can make the magnetic circuit system produce linear magnetism, which will ensure that the voice coil inductance can always remain stable without losing the overall performance and quality of the speaker.
When the current passes through the winding coil, magnetic flux is generated in the magnetic field. The magnetism of the iron components is affected by the frequency to obtain a more pleasing sound performance.
Compared with earlier products, the latest magnetic circuit system has dramatically improved the sound quality and performance of the EPICON woofer through a series of tests.
Sound Performance
Since Epicon 6 uses a hybrid tweeter module with an aluminum ribbon tweeter, it is an evolutionary improvement of the sound image. Of course, I have to try its high-frequency performance first.
I first used the “Homage” violin played by James Ehnes. I heard a soft, delicate, high-sweet violin with plenty of moisture, a bright luster, and an obvious vibrating violin. That is a lovely violin sound. The sound grain of the accompaniment piano is not sloppy, closely following the flying speed of the violin, and it can also show a good sense of piano entity under high-speed sweet playing. On the one hand, I heard the sweet and delicate violin from this CD and experienced a rapid transient response.
After listening to a few strings, I also found that Epicon 6 is very powerful in resolving instruments. Listen to Telarc’s “Royal Strings” (CD 80562). This CD is composed of some adaptations performed by the String Orchestra formed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Epicon 6 replays these strings clearly and detailedly, with clear resolution and a velvet texture.
Even if the performance is very light, subtle, and quiet, the string instruments can still present a good resolution. What’s even better is that the analysis of the bass strings is also very clear. It can be seen that the quality of the wood fiber woofer of Epicon 6 is indeed good. I think that such performance is its strength and its selling point.
I’ve heard the violin and strings instruments, so it should be time to test the human vocals. I listened to Anne Bisson‘s “Blue Mind”. I enjoyed the sweetness, freshness, and agility of Epicon 6 emanated from the piano. The heartiness is manifested by the voice of Anne Bisson, while agility is the quick response of the bass and the drum.
You should know that the 6.5-inch midrange unit of Epicon 6 covers 700Hz-2,550Hz, which can completely cover the female voice frequency range and the voice sounds loose. From “Blue Mind”, I heard that Epicon 6’s performance on the bass drum performs very well, clean, cohesive.
Epicon 6 also has a unique feature, that is, turning the volume down, and the details of the sound and the liveliness of the music are not compromised at all, which is still very good. Obviously, the monomers used in Epicon 6 have excellent agility, and the details will not be lost in a whisper.
For example, when listening to Telarc’s “Super Bass 2” at a low volume, the texture of the playing, the bounce of the sound, and the up and down of the scale are still so clear. When listening to Kari Bremnes’s “Svarta Bjørn”, the rolling and elasticity of the drum sound at low volume are still so real. In a very quiet residential area, if you can hear all the music details at a low volume, there is no need to speak loudly.
Conclusion
After this review, Rubicon 6’s high, medium and low tri-band performance is outstanding, giving me a great impression. It is enough to become one of the most competitive speakers at the same price. DALI should really be taken seriously by all audiophiles.
Dali Epicon 6 Specs
- Frequency Range (+/-3 dB) [Hz]: 35 – 30,000
- Sensitivity (2,83 V/1 m) [dB]: 88.0
- Nominal Impedance [ohms]: 5
- Maximum SPL [dB]: 110
- Recommended Amplifier Power [W]: 50 – 300
- Crossover Frequency [Hz]: 700 / 2,550 / 15,000
- Hybrid tweeter module, Super high freq. driver, Quantity: 1 x 10 x 55 mm
- Hybrid tweeter module, High frequency driver, Quantity: 1 x 29 mm
- Low frequency driver, Quantity: 2 x 6?”
- Bass Reflex Tuning Frequency [Hz]: 32.5
- Magnetic Shielding: No
- Recommended Distance From Wall [cm]: > 25
- Dimensions With Base (HxWxD) [mm]: 1062 x 320x 459
- Dimensions (HxWxD) [mm]: 1025 x 232 441
- Weight [kg]: 30.0
