In the world of very high-end audiophile speakers, there are plenty of options for the well-heeled audiophile buyer. The Dali EPIKORE 9 speakers are the third from the top in the Dali loudspeaker product line. It is a four-way floorstanding speaker that is designed to compete with the best of the best in terms of higher-end audiophile speakers. At $40,000 per pair, the competition is as tough as any review that we’ve ever published here at FutureAudiophile.com. There are killer options in this price range from the likes of Bowers & Wilkins, Wilson Audio, Estelon, Magico, YG Acoustics, Stenheim, and easily a dozen other worthy competitors.
With the Dali EPIKORE 9 loudspeakers, you get a bit of a race car approach to design and value. While there are prettier and way fancier speakers at this price range, not very many have so much resources pointed at the actual performance of the speakers. These speakers are born with a mission. That mission is to reproduce recorded music as it sounded live or in the studio, and they take no prisoners to get to that level of performance. Do they live up to this ambitious audiophile goal? Finding out is my job (and why I love being an audiophile reviewer), so let’s dig into this one …
What Makes the Dali EPIKORE 9 Floorstanding Speakers So Special?
- There is no detail too small or not important enough to have escaped serious consideration. Often when we talk about details, we are talking about being able to hear the speakers in different ranges. What really stood out to me with the Dali EPIKORE 9s was you had incredible details in all ranges.
- The finish on the speakers looks magnificent. This should come as no surprise. These speakers are hand-built in Dali’s facilities in Denmark, and it shows. The materials are of the highest quality, and it is easy to see that these speakers are a labor of love. The EPIKORE 9s are going to look luxurious in any room they are placed in.
- By borrowing the mid-range technology from the KORE speakers, you get a wide midrange. The EPIKORE 9 shares the same SMC (soft magnetic composite) Gen 2 materials from Dali’s top-of-the-line KORE speakers. If you look closely at the drivers, this is the design you see on the driver.
- The EPIKORE 9s crossovers are simply seamless. In the time I spent with these speakers in my reference system, no matter what type of music I threw at them, from jazz to classical to industrial to electronic to rock, at no time was I able to notice the hand-off between drivers.
Why Should You Care About the Dali EPIKORE 9 Floorstanding Speakers?
The Dali EPIKORE 9 speakers are for the advanced audiophile who is looking for their forever speakers. At $40,000 per pair, you should expect to have a full-range, dynamic speaker capable of reproducing literally any genre of recorded music with that goosebump-level emotional response. The Dalis deliver, but so do many others at this high level of performance, as they compete with the best of the best in the world of audiophile loudspeakers. The audiophile who makes the investment in the EPIKORE 9 speakers from Dali is looking for performance first. Not that the Dali EPIKORE 9 speakers are anything short of elegant-looking, or built without insane tolerances, but there is more to the raw performance of the speakers than the ancillary goodies (think: being able to paint the speakers in Lamborghini “tennis ball green” PPG paint). The Dali EPIKORE 9s are for people who know what they like sonically and don’t invest in speakers because of industry hype. These are serious loudspeakers for informed, enlightened buyers, aka our readers.
Some Things You Might Not Like About the Dali EPIKORE 9 Floorstanding Speakers
- In this price range, it would be nice to have more color choices. This is by no means to say that the color choices that Dali made for the EPIKORE 9 are bad, because they are not. However, when you are spending in this price range, you might be looking to match your gear to a specific color palette, and these speakers will not offer you that level of customization.
- The size of the speakers can be limiting. If you have a large room dedicated to your audiophile hobby, this likely isn’t a big issue for you, but in a less than perfect room, as I sadly have, speakers this big are tough to move around in terms of wear, as well as weight. Then again, at these prices, you can have your dealer do the initial setup with you sitting in the hot spot and with a smile on your face.
Listening to the Dali EPIKORE 9 Floorstanding Speakers …
I wired up the EPIKORE 9s with an Anthem STR preamplifier and an Anthem MCA 225 Gen 2 amplifier, along with a Bluesound Node (2024), for streaming, and my Pro-Ject X1 B turntable for vinyl playback. All the interconnects in this set up are with Wireworld cables.
I started with a Nine Inch Nails track titled “The Great Destroyer” from their 2007 album “Year Zero.” This is what I think of as the start of Trent Reznor’s more theatrical period (he won his first Academy Award three years after this release). This is a concept album, and it was originally considered for a television series by HBO, but ultimately the show never came to light. This is an industrial track made up mostly of electronics, with even the real instruments engaged with some level of computer enhancement. “The Great Destroyer” offers a lot to pay attention to, with loads of dynamics, and it will really test the crossovers, especially as the track hits the midpoint and becomes especially chaotic. But with this, you really get a feel from what the Dali EPIKORE 9s can do. You have points where it feels like you’re chasing the music from left to right and up and down on the speakers as it shifts from deep bass in the left channel over to the right, and then up through the octaves and back down, constantly shifting back and forth between the two channels. All the details that are in the music are on full display for you to hear. I was especially impressed by how detailed the low end was, as you could hear multiple tones, where other speakers might leave you hearing mostly just the boom. There also wasn’t a point where it felt like you were noticing the signal being handed off between the different drivers, as the crossovers worked flawlessly.
Whenever I am reviewing something on vinyl, I love digging up Ludovico Einaudi’s “Elements” (on vinyl) from his 2015 album of the same title. This track is performed by Einaudi, along with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. Einaudi is a modern classical composer whose music often feels like it is part of a soundtrack, even when it isn’t. This track works great for demonstrating how much clarity the tweeters have. This is another case where the Dali EPIKORE 9s really shone. This track is full of violin work that really pushes the top end of the spectrum. Even through this six-minute track, those violins never came across feeling harsh, and the sound was always beautifully detailed. All the details of this track as it moved through the different drivers were exceptionally detailed and there was never a time when it was difficult to pluck each instrument out from the symphony.
The last track I used to test the Dali EPIKORE 9 floorstanding speakers was “The Waiting” from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers 2009 album The Live Anthology. Live albums are always great for understanding how the soundstage sounds. All the recordings on this album sounds great, as they were hand-picked across years of recordings from this legendary act. In this area, the EPIKORE 9s performed admirably. You could place the instruments on the stage, you can hear the harmonies, and you feel like you are at a Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers show. This track hits almost exclusively in the midrange, all the details are there, and I even picked up some of the more subtle details that I hadn’t in the past.
Will the Dali EPIKORE 9 Floorstanding Speakers Hold Their Value?
Dali speakers have a solid reputation and are enjoying the benefits of improved distribution in the United States. There are some sexier brand names in this lofty niche of audiophile speakers that might better retain their value, but Dali loudspeakers hold their value quite well over time. These pricey speakers will depreciate, as any audiophile speaker will over time, but not too badly, as there always will be somebody in the used market who will want a speaker that can do it all and look great while doing it, and the Dali EPIKORE 9s check both of those boxes. Our indicators suggest that your money will be pretty safe invested in these speakers.
What is the Competition for the Dali EPIKORE 9 Floorstanding Speakers?
The Bowers & Wilkins 802 D4 ($31,000) are legends, given that they are found in Abbey Road Studios and Skywalker Ranch. These speakers aren’t even the top of the line for Bowers & Wilkins but our publisher, Jerry Del Colliano, has made them his reference speakers. The revisions to the tweeter that came from past Signature Series upgrades weren’t subtle. The current versions of Bowers & Wilkins 802 D4 speakers don’t have that etched, sometimes harsh, but always very detailed Bowers sound. Reportedly, with the help of Abbey Road, the latest versions of the Bowers & Wilkins 802 D4s are far smoother-sounding on the high frequencies. They are more open and less fatiguing than past versions, and can be driven on smaller to medium-sized power amps, thus allowing for more exotic audiophile electronics selections while staying somewhat on budget.
The Wilson Audio WATT Puppy ($38,500). Wilson Audio’s famously silly-named speaker is back in the lineup. Wilson Audio’s founder, David Wilson, started with the WATT (Wilson Audio Tiny Tot), which was an awkward, somewhat triangular bookshelf speaker that never ever went on anyone’s actual bookshelf. Mr. Wilson used them as monitors for his recording. The Wilson Puppy (“woofer/subwoofer”) came about in the late 1980s and served both as a full-range extension of these legendary audiophile speakers. There were a number of draws to Wilson WATT Puppy speakers over the years (the name not being one, but audiophiles got used to it eventually) including the easy-to-drive nature of the speakers and their narrow footprint. Wilson was one of the first companies to paint their speakers in custom car colors, which made for a pair of top-performing audiophile speakers that physically and aesthetically fit into a room. After an odd move to do away with the WATT Puppy model, it is back and rocking a modern upgrade. Long gone are the Focal tweeters that defined the high end of the WATT Puppy of the past. Today’s Wilson speakers aren’t quite as ridiculously easy to drive, but they are no power pigs by any measure. Their footprint is still very attractive, as is their height. The custom colors are even better and the modern form factor has clearly evolved. Setup can be very room-specific, which is part of the allure to owning Wilson speakers.
WATT Puppy speakers to be like the Porsche 911 of audiophile speakers – a timeless classic.
The Focal Sopra 3 ($25,998) is another solid comparable at this high-end speaker price point.More than a decade ago, Focal politely stopped providing Wilson Audio tweeters for their speakers, as the French loudspeaker company was ready to go out on their own. Their Sopra line is a good match to some of the most popular speakers in the audiophile world that aren’t six figures and above. The Sopra 3 is a full-range audiophile loudspeaker with great bass, custom paint colors, gorgeous industrial design, and a comparably lower price for the category. Sonically, the Focals are very easy to drive and deliver that you-can-feel-the-sound (as well as hear it) vibe which many like. Focal’s distribution has gotten wonky in recent years, as the company has never been the same since its U.S. importer sold his business to Focal in France after they bought Naim Audio from the U.K. The dynamic, visceral and impactful sound of Focal Sopra speakers are worth traveling to hear if need be for anybody in this space. The EPIKORE 9 is another European rival to the Sopra 3. Both speakers are handmade in Europe, and will both have their own sets of fans, as they both have very different looks to them and sonic differences as well.
Final Thoughts on the Dali EPIKORE 9 Floorstanding Speakers …
Any audiophile would be happy to have these speakers in their system, with this reviewer included in that list. When these speakers get carefully placed by two people back into their gigantic and heavy travel cases, I will miss just how detailed the midrange and the low end sound. Speakers at this level can reproduce musical/sonic details that speakers costing $10,000 or less just couldn’t dream of. Do you pay for the Nth degree of performance? You sure do, just as you do with any of the amazing competitors of the Dali EPIKORE 9 speakers. That’s what the journey is about. For the enthusiast with $20,000 speakers now, who is looking for the next big step up – you may have found a thread to chase here with the Dali EPIKORE 9 speakers. They are worthy of taking a road trip or even a regional flight to go hear them, as they are just that good in terms of sonic performance.
Dali has delivered reference-level audiophile speakers that sound neutral, deliver pretty much full-range performance and have a gorgeous Scandinavian aesthetic. “Impressed” isn’t the right word, as it isn’t enthusiastic enough to describe how I feel about the Dali EPIKORE 9 speakers. They have a timeless feel, and are the type of audiophile loudspeakers that are hard to part with, because the next step up in the food chain is so big and so pricey that the Dali EPIKORE 9 speakers might be the last speakers that you buy for a long time – and that is a very good thing.
