The idea that bigger is better does not necessarily hold when it comes to loudspeakers. Some large speakers are capable of such prodigious low-end output that they can overwhelm a room. This was something Jason Thorpe experienced when he auditioned the DALI Epikore 11 ($60,000; all prices USD for a pair), the first model to be released in the Danish brand’s premium Epikore series.
Jason’s review of the Epikore 11, published last March on SoundStage! Ultra, earned the speaker our Reviewers’ Choice, Recommended Reference Component, and 2024 Product of the Year awards. As much as he liked it, Jason felt the Epikore 11 was a little too large for his modest-sized listening room: that the pair loaded that room in a way that elevated the low end and that they looked very big in that space.
Enter the Epikore 9, which Jason reviewed on SoundStage! Ultra at the beginning of this month. Smaller and cheaper than the Epikore 11, the Epikore 9 was introduced last October along with the Epikore 7, smaller still, and the stand-mount Epikore 3. Epikore-series models incorporate technology trickled down from DALI’s $120,000 flagship Kore loudspeaker, exhibit the same build quality and styling, offer the same finish options, and employ the same drivers.
The Epikore 9 and 11 are “essentially the same speaker,” Jason writes, except that the 9 has two fewer woofers. While the Epikore 11 has four 8″ woofers, the Epikore 9 has only two: one positioned near the top of the front baffle, the other positioned more conventionally low on the baffle. Of course, with two fewer woofers (and therefore a slightly different crossover topology), the Epikore 9 can’t deliver quite the same bass that the Epikore 11 can, but it can be much smaller—it is almost a foot shorter (width and depth are identical)—and significantly cheaper, retailing for $40,000. Aesthetically, in a midsize listening space, the Epikore 9 would likely be the more room-friendly of the two.
A 6.5″ midrange driver and an EVO-K Hybrid tweeter array (a 1.4″ dome tweeter working with a 2.2″ × 0.4″ magnetostatic super-tweeter) reside between the two woofers in the Epikore 9. This tweeter array is the same one used in the Kore and, like the midrange and woofer drivers, is found in all members of the Epikore series.
In his review of the Epikore 9, reflecting on his audition of the Epikore 11, Jason writes that the bass was “so well behaved, so tight and defined,” that he could listen to it “with unqualified pleasure.” He concedes, however, that in his midsize listening room, the bass generated by those eight 8″ woofers was “a bit much.” When he set up the Epikore 9s at a neighbor’s place to first break them in before starting his audition, Jason noticed that “the bass was at least as elevated as it had been with the Epikore 11s,” something he attributed to a 50Hz bass mode in that space. That raised a concern that the Epikore 9s’ bass might also be too much for his listening room. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. When Jason brought the Epikore 9s back to his home and set them up with a Hegel Music Systems H30A amplifier, they “filled the space with deep, rich, appropriately sized bass.”
Jason began his critical listening with a CD-resolution Tidal stream of “Yatzar” and “Lilin” from John Zorn’s The Circle Maker, songs he deems to have “the best-recorded acoustic bass” he’s heard. He writes that “through the lower midrange and into the bass, the Epikore 9s accentuated the leading edge of each note, giving it power and majesty” and of perceiving an “instantaneous response on the first microsecond of a bass note: a response that almost seemed to rise and overshoot the transient.” And after listening to “Hazor,” from the same album: “When Marc Ribot comes in with his crisp, surf-klezmer guitar, he’s backed up by an electric bass, and here the Epikore 9s captured the full, rich, juicy sound of that bass, giving it appropriate woodiness and low-end extension while keeping a tight rein on the leading and trailing boundaries.” DALI’s claim of a −3dB point at 29Hz seemed reasonable to him. That’s not quite enough to qualify the Epikore 9 as a full-range speaker, where bass extension reaches down to 20Hz, but it’s close.
Playing a DMM vinyl pressing of The Who’s album Who’s Next, Jason recounts, “‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ rocketed out of the Epikore 9s with incredible depth and a dynamic, larger-than-life scale that quite literally took my breath away.” Then, turning his attention to the Steven Wilson remix of Larks’ Tongues in Aspic from the King Crimson 1972–1974 box set, on vinyl again: “when it all breaks loose in ‘Easy Money,’ Robert Fripp’s biting guitar sizzled across the room, with the correct amount of sting, but without any grain or unintended distortion,” adding, “the Epikore 9s portrayed difficult high-frequency instruments like Fripp’s guitar with a complete lack of strain. . . . These were clear, effortless highs; refined, sophisticated highs.”
Jason also praised the 9s’ imaging capability, which was not much different from that of the 11s—not surprising, given the similarities between the two. When listening to “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part Two,” from the same King Crimson box set, he observed that “the Epikore 9s threw a massive soundstage. . . . with superb front-to-back layering.” Images were realistic in size and well defined. Jamie Muir’s percussion instruments were easily distinguishable from one another.
The Epikore 11 earned all three SoundStage! Network awards: Reviewers’ Choice, Recommended Reference Component, and Product of the Year. It’s too early to determine whether the Epikore 9 will be a recipient of our 2025 Products of the Year award, but it received a Reviewers’ Choice award at the time the review was published and has now earned a Recommended Reference Component award, an auspicious start. In his concluding remarks, Jason writes, “The Epikore 9 could well be the perfect speaker. At least it could be for the listeners in my neighborhood,” a reminder that in a mismatched room, a bigger speaker is not necessarily a better speaker. In some rooms, the Epikore 9 will perform better than the Epikore 11.
Manufacturer contact information:
DALI A/S
Dali Allé 1
Nørager
Nordjylland 9610
Denmark
Phone: +45 9672 1155
Website: www.dali-speakers.com
