Small Speaker, Big Value
OVER THE PAST 25 years, the Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries company has grown from a small and relatively obscure maker (in the U.S. market, at least) to a much more major player in the world’s crowded loudspeaker arena. The Danes’ latest move toward the broader marketplace is the Oberon series, an affordable range consisting of two towers, two bookshelf/standmount models, one on-wall, and one center-channel—all two-way, vented-enclosure designs. We sampled a system comprising two pairs of the smallest bookshelf model, the Oberon 1 ($599/pair), for fronts and surrounds, the Oberon Vokal center speaker ($549), and the SUB E-9F ($799), a compact powered subwoofer with a 9-inch driver.
DALI’s top claim for the new family is that it extends its proprietary SMC woofer design to an accessible entry level tier. SMC (soft magnetic compound) is a non-ferrous magnet material that’s deployed in the Oberons as a sort of pole-piece “cap.” Its prime virtue is said to be a substantial reduction in net woofer distortion (especially third-harmonic) by reducing the mechanical errors induced in more conventionally conductive iron (ferrite) magnet materials, including hysteresis and eddy-current nonlinearities. DALI also employs a slightly larger tweeter (roughly 1 and 1/6 inches in diameter versus the more typical 1-inch than many similar two-ways, including Oberons further up the same range, two of which employ larger mid/woofers.)
