Dali Epicon 8 Floorstanding Loudspeaker

Dalí Epicon 8

The top model of the EPICON series, the floorstanding speaker EPICON 8, not only impresses with its elegant appearance with an extremely expressive, detailed and natural sound at the highest level. The EPICON 8 captivates the listener with soft tones with a multifaceted and spatially finely structured sound image, but can also stage louder and impulsive music very powerfully and grippingly.

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The top model of the EPICON series, the floorstanding speaker EPICON 8, not only impresses with its elegant appearance with an extremely expressive, detailed and natural sound at the highest level. The EPICON 8 captivates the listener with soft tones with a multifaceted and spatially finely structured sound image, but can also stage louder and impulsive music very powerfully and grippingly.

EISA, an association of 50 entertainment electronics trade magazines from 20 European countries, was so enthusiastic about the new DALI flagship that they just presented the EPICON 8 with the EISA award as the best high-end product of the year 2012/13. Quote from the laudatory speech: "The loudspeaker builds up a broad spectrum, lavishly designed with details and fills even large rooms with music in a fascinating way."

Linear drive magnet system

One of the technological highlights of the EPICON series is the linear drive magnet system. It is used in all woofers and mid-range drivers and is based on the powdery magnetic material SMC ('Soft Magnetic Compound'). The use of SMC brings many advantages, but above all the distortions in the magnetic drive caused by mechanical losses are reduced considerably. SMC's unique ability to combine high magnetic conductivity with very low electrical conductivity (1/10,000th of iron) enabled the development of an excellent loudspeaker drive without the disadvantages previously accepted. The distortions and thus the discolorations in the sound reproduction could be significantly reduced.

The technical information on the EPICON series, the white paper, explains in detail how the properties of a loudspeaker in terms of hysteresis, current linearity and voice coil inductance can be optimized with SMC. You can download the whitepaper further down on this page in the download area.

Hybrid tweeter

In the interests of the most transparent and realistic reproduction of even the most subtle high-frequency details, the EPICON series is equipped with the unique DALI hybrid tweeter module. This tweeter design was also used in our earlier high-end series - but we developed a completely new dome for the EPICON models. The new module consists of a 29 mm, particularly light dome membrane and a 10 x 55 mm ribbon tweeter. The combination of a dome tweeter with a ribbon tweeter represents the ideal solution for reproducing high frequencies.

Both tweeters are very well protected against any interference coming from inside the cabinet. The dome and the ribbon share a common, extremely stable base plate made of die-cast aluminum and each have their own housing. This ensures that the sensitive tweeters are not exposed to any disruptive resonances.

A particularly low resonant frequency, high resilience and exceptional reserves for high sound pressure and extreme excursions are the properties of our particularly large dome tweeter. With the EPICON 8 it starts slowly at 3.1 kHz. The dome then works up to its transmission limit well above 20 kHz without being faded out by the crossover. Thanks to an ultra-thin magnetic fluid for cooling, the dome has a very high saturation limit, which significantly increases its resilience. At the same time - especially at very high sound pressure levels - the voice coil movement is excellently controlled. The dome material itself is very light and so thin that the coating contributes a large part to the structural rigidity of the cone.

The ribbon transmits an extremely wide frequency spectrum and has a superb radiation of very high frequencies. Its range of use begins above 10 kHz, but the ribbon reaches its full potential between 15 kHz and well over 30 kHz, i.e. well above the audible frequency range.

woofer

Two 200 mm woofers provide the EPICON 8 with a profound bass foundation. They work so powerfully that a separate subwoofer is no longer required, even in larger rooms or at higher playback levels. The 165 mm cone placed at the upper end of the baffle acts as a midrange driver and, like the two bass drivers, has the revolutionary DALI-exclusive Linear Drive Magnet System.

The latest generation of wood fiber membranes has a new impregnation with a special coating that takes place after assembly. Wood fibers stiffen the cone membranes, which are made of very light cellulose. This structural reinforcement has excellent properties in every respect and also reduces the so-called bursting of the membranes, which causes disruptive partial vibrations.

In order to be able to carry out this process - like the entire production in general - within very narrow tolerances, the introduction of in-house production of loudspeaker chassis was an important step. The woofers of the DALI EPICON series were not only developed in the Danish DALI company headquarters, they are also manufactured there!

Multi-layer housing

Each side panel of the EPICON 8 consists of six individual layers of MDF boards glued together. These are firmly anchored to a 63 mm thick, multi-layered MDF rear panel. In order to maintain control even at the lowest frequencies, the rear panel of the EPICON 8 is 10 mm thicker than that of the EPICON 6 and EPICON 2. The ultra-precise recesses and bores for the bass reflex openings and connection panels on the rear of the housing are created with CNC milling.

The 33 mm thick two-layer front wall ensures that the energy mobilized by the drivers is also used acoustically and is not lost in the form of cabinet vibrations. The curved shape of the front wall also contributes to providing the most stable and torsionally rigid acoustic platform possible.

Inside, the housing of the EPICON 8 offers two equally sized chambers for the two woofers and another separate chamber for the midrange driver. The two bass chassis each have an identical but completely independent volume. Thanks to its own sealed housing, the midrange driver is also able to reproduce the particularly critical mid-range frequencies in the range of the human voice without any disruptive influences from the other drivers.

The two associated bass reflex openings can be found on the back of the housing in close proximity to the woofers. The reflex tubes are curved outwards at both ends to avoid disturbing turbulence. The hard-wired crossover is also fixed in its own housing on the bottom of the housing - and is therefore not exposed to the dynamic changes in air pressure within the bass reflex housing chambers.

The division of the housing into several separate, completely separate volumes contributes just as much to the unique sound experience of the EPICON 8 as the carefully positioned housing braces or the consideration of the DALI principle of ensuring optimal timing and unhindered airflow in every respect.

The housing surface consists of real wood veneer, which has been varnished a total of ten times. Each individual layer is hand-polished between work steps to achieve a deep, high-gloss and elegant surface. A tenfold coating with a thickness of around 2 mm also ensures a particularly hard-wearing finish. The openings for drivers, reflex openings and connection terminals are cut out after the painting process to ensure a precise assembly.