Dali Epikore 9 loudspeakers
It has been over a year since I reviewed the Dali Epikore 11 but the impression those speakers made was very strong and as soon as the Danish speaker specialist released the next model down in the Epikore range I was on it like a rash. The Epikore 9 is a substantial floorstander in its own right, standing 1.3m (4’ 3.5”) high plus spikes, and weighing 64kg (141lbs), this is essentially an Epikore 11 with fewer bass drivers; two instead of four. It is a superbly executed and finished loudspeaker with a beautiful high gloss walnut veneer cabinet, but could it be as good as its big brother?
On paper there is little to suggest otherwise, it has the distinctive hybrid tweeter which combines a 35mm soft dome with a 55mm long planar tweeter to produce high frequencies, with the dome coming in at 3.1kHz and the planar driver gently rolling in above 10kHz in order to maintain consistent dispersion. A copper cap on the pole piece of the dome tweeter reduces eddy currents in the magnet and the planar has a high power neodymium/iron/boron magnet with built in heat sink.
The midrange and bass drivers are powered by second generation SMC magnets, these differ from traditional solid magnets by virtue of being made of individually coated granular pieces that are compacted together and formed into the required shape. The benefit of this approach is that it reduces electrical conductivity in the magnet which in turn reduces eddy currents. The latter have a braking effect on the movement of the voice coil, reducing its free movement and thereby introducing distortion. SMC reduces this effect by half over the entire operating range of the driver, a measurable benefit that must also account for the very high quality of sound produced by the Epikore 9 and 11.
Dali have produced an extensive white paper which details SMC (soft magnetic composite) and the reasons for its superiority over conventional magnetic materials, but a demonstration at the High End show in Munich last year conveyed one aspect of this simply but very effectively. A Dali engineer dropped a ferrite magnet into a copper pipe and then an SMC one, the fact that the piece of ferrite took significantly longer to fall through the pipe than the SMC illustrated just how much braking effect the copper has on the two materials. In a drive unit a copper voice coil moves in a magnetic gap usually created by a ferrite magnet (neodymium in some instances) so, if the demonstration does not over simplify, it reveals why SMC is so effective and leads one to wonder why it is not used elsewhere.
The drivers on the Epikore 9 consist of a 6.5 inch midrange and two 8 inch bass units, all three have wood fibre cones and the mid is embossed to increase stiffness. The latter also incorporates rings within the magnetic system that increase inductance linearity and a titanium voice coil former chosen for its high stiffness to weight as well as extremely low electrical conductivity. Larger 38mm versions of these formers are also used in the bass drivers, with ventilation holes for increased airflow which reduces thermal compression; the tendency for drivers to compress when driven hard.
The cabinet’s elegance disguises a complex curved enclosure with separate compartments for the midrange and bass drivers, you can see a cutaway of the Epikore 11 cabinet in our review and one must assume that the Epikore 9 is much the same albeit without the top and bottom bass compartments. This also reveals the bracing inside that adds extra stiffness to the intrinsically inert curved shape of the cabinet. The whole speaker sits on four machined aluminium outrigger feet that extend its footprint and have spikes fixed in, these are adjustable but are not designed to be removed. For those with non carpeted floors Dali provides a set of receptors. I am not keen on spikes so took the liberty of using another Danish product, Ansuz Darkz feet, in place of the outriggers.
The Epikore 9 has two pairs of chunky cable terminals for bi-wiring and supplies cables rather than plates to join them for single wiring; as cables tend to sound a lot better than plates this is a good move. If they could reduce the metal in the terminals that might also help but then they wouldn’t look so bling.
Sound quality
I have to admit that expectations were raised for the Epikore 9 as a result of the experience with the Epikore 11s and this plus the fact that they had not been run in made for an underwhelming first impression. However, after a few weeks things had become significantly more interesting and I was starting to really enjoy pretty much everything that I played through them. I used my 150W Moor Amps Angel 6 power amp for the majority of the listening but also dabbled with other amplifiers, however the Moor is the best amp I could muster and it delivered some spectacular results with a speaker that is not particularly power hungry. The 88dB/4 Ohm sensitivity figures don’t look all that easy but the Epikore 9 must have a benign load as I got decent results with a fairly low powered Rega integrated as well.
The Epikore 9s manage the trick of being both highly revealing of whatever you play without exposing the limitations of lesser recordings in a critical way. This is a difficult act to pull off, most speakers lie in one or the other camp, they are either ruthless to the point where only the best recordings sound spectacular, or fudge the issue to the extent that everything sounds similar. The majority of speakers we look at on the Ear are in the former camp to some degree, the more forgiving of them often delivering the best compromise of ultimate potential against real world usefulness. The Epikore 9 manages to produce high transparency to the signal without emphasising limitations in an unpleasant fashion.
Electric guitars can sound viscerally real when well captured as is the case on Ramblin’ by the Ginger Baker Trio but trumpets never scream in the way that so many speakers make them sound. A visitor who has highly regarded speakers of a similar price to the Epikore 9 was very impressed with this degree of grain free transparency, remarking that it was more realistic than he was used to and inspiring an interest in trying some Epikores at home.
There are some recordings where the limitations become apparent, Phil Collin’s hit Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) sounded good in karaoke in The Fall Guy movie but the original has so much ‘80s synth and the most ridiculous gated snare sound that it’s pretty well unlistenable even through a speaker like this. But another track from that era, Great Southern Era by Icehouse while suffering from similar production foibles was much more presentable. With more appealing material, in my book at least, the Epikore 9s really excel thanks to remarkably articulate and musical bass and the smooth linearity of the system as a whole, Hendrix’s Axis Bold as Love on vintage vinyl delivered bass that surprised me with its power and dexterity and Veedon Fleece didn’t get shouty when Van Morrison pushes the tape to its limit.
Even something as raucous as the Police’s Message in a Bottle sounds brilliant, their hits often sound good in the car but rarely do so on a good system but this one really hit the mark via the Dalis. You get all the energy and brilliance of musicianship, the drumming is particularly inspiring, without the abrasiveness that so many speakers emphasise in the recording.
The Epikore 9 lets you know all about the quality of performance and recording regardless of origins and revelled in the sound produced by my Rega Naia turntable to the extent that one whole evening was given over to this source. Going back to a pretty spectacular streaming system made it obvious that vinyl still rules. The Rolling Stones’ Can’t You Hear Me Knocking is a track I usually play for the riff alone, but here the whole song had my full attention, these speakers do make the utmost of whatever you play which means hours of musical pleasure rediscovering gems in the collection.
Digital can also sound superb via the Epikore 9s, especially pieces like Says by Nils Frahm (Spaces) where the bass grows quietly but steadily to create an emotional swell that carries the listener away into a veritable sea of tranquillity. Here the quality of low end on these speakers is very much to the fore, the subtlety they bring is as good as you get through the midband and something that few speakers can match.
If you want physicality and nuance the Epikore 9s are very hard to beat, and if you want this at high levels they are magnificent. I’m not the head banger I once was but do enjoy high volume if the sound is clean and these Dalis deliver all of that and more. Stevie Ray Vaughn’s version of Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) proves this with gusto, the power of the bass matched only by the brilliance of the guitar, and here you get a wall of sound that is totally coherent and extremely involving.
When Dave Berriman reviewed the smaller Epikore 7s last month he pointed out that the bass output was higher than is the case with a lot of loudspeakers and as a result room acoustics are more likely to play greater a part in the end result when it comes to low frequencies. In my timber frame room it’s rare to find a speaker where the bass is overpowering and that was not the case here either, the absence of brick and stone means that low frequencies are not reflected too obviously and both Epikore 9 and 11 sound really well balanced so long as you leave 50cm between them and that wall. Those with more solidly constructed spaces and limited space might not have it so easy.
Conclusion
It should be noted that the Epikore 9s do proper hi-fi stuff like imaging immaculately as well, reproducing depth and placement of musicians with ease. In fact this is one of their strongpoints and an area where source components really vary when making comparisons. It’s quite interesting comparing products through them because every little thing is clear, in many ways these Dalis would make a great reviewer’s speaker even if they are not so easy to move.
However, their primary purpose is to make music accessible and enjoyable, to deliver the signal with the minimum of colouration. In this respect the Epikore 9s are among the very best loudspeakers I have had the pleasure of living with, they don’t quite have the ease of the Epikore 11s but are both smaller and less expensive. I could live with either and will cling onto the Epikore 9s for as long as I can. They do everything so well that it’s very easy to sit back and enjoy the music and that, after all, is what this game is all about.