DALI KATCH

We worry a little when we’re sent pricey Bluetooth speakers for review, our experience being that part of the high pricing is often hot air — it’s $700 so it must be great, eh? Not always, no. On the other hand we also find that units from real hi-fi companies are less prone to such underperformance, and of course DALI (Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries) qualifies big-time on that count, after 30 years of hi-fi speaker design. This is the company that recently won Sound+Image’s award for Best Loudspeakers up to $10,000 with its thrilling Epicon 6. Can it deliver similar performance value at such a smaller size and price?

EQUIPMENT

Well my, it’s certainly impressive when you lift it from the packaging. The Katch is wide at 27cm, but slim, less than 5cm deep, and while we regularly use the adjective ‘well-built’ for a unit with solid construction, this is a level above — it’s well-built, with a luxuriously-finished extruded aluminium body, front and rear baffles made from a solid polycarbonate ABS plastic with attractive hexagonal-grid grilles front and back. The unit under review was what DALI describes as