Dali Kupid

Design

• Wide range of finishes
• Wall brackets included

When you’re paying £299 for a pair of speakers – even speakers as helpfully compact as the 245 x 150 x 198mm (HWD) DALI Kupid, you can’t really expect much where materials are concerned – sure enough, there’s nothing all that special about the way these speakers feel.

The standard of construction is perfectly fine, and the little curve at the cabinet edges and the magnetically attached grilles do present a slightly more upmarket appearance than you might anticipate.

The Kupid do set themselves apart, just a little, in the variety of finishes in which they’re available. My review sample showed up in walnut – the least inspiring – but the alternatives of white, black, golden yellow and chilly blue add a welcome touch of visual pizzazz.

And the inclusion of some rudimentary wall brackets means your choice of finish can be even more widely admired than if the speakers were on a stand or a shelf.  

Specification

• 26mm soft dome tweeter
• 114mm wood-fibre/paper mid/bass driver
• 63Hz – 25kHz frequency response

Just as with the design, it doesn’t do to expect a whole lot of features from your affordable passive standmounters. Because this is DALI we’re dealing with, you can at least be sure the few features the Kupid have are perfectly fit for purpose.

From the top, the front baffle features a 26mm soft dome tweeter sitting behind a gently dished waveguide, and below it there’s a 114mm mid/bass driver made from the same paper-and-wood-fibre material the company has been using for quite some time now in some quite expensive designs.

This line-up is bolstered by a rear-firing bass reflex port that helps the Kupid achieve a frequency response of 63Hz – 25kHz, and also ensures you need to think about positioning more than you would if it were forward-facing.

Crossover between the drivers is sensibly positioned at around 2.1kHz. Nominal impedance, at 4 ohms, and sensitivity, at 83dB, means these speakers are, on paper at least, just a little trickier to drive than most of their size- and price-comparable rivals.

Sound Quality

• Quite surprising punch and dynamism
• Confident rhythmic expression
• Entertaining and vigorous attitude

In some ways, the Kupid are no kind of surprise – after all, they’re the product of a company that has an excellent track record in this area of the market.

So the levels of insight and detail retrieval they exhibit when playing a 24-bit/96kHz FLAC file of Fanfare for Effective Freedom by Horse Lords is impressive but hardly startling – and the same goes for the tonal balance and impeccable integration of the frequency range.

We’ve all been primed to expect this sort of even-handed and properly controlled presentation by numerous DALI designs over the years.

An overall sonic attitude of energy and engagement doesn’t come from far out of left field, either – DALI is a company that understands that music is to be enjoyed just as much as it is to be appreciated, and that entertainment is not to be sniffed at. So the Kupid are a lively and vibrant listen, more the happy to engage on the most basic (for which read compelling) level. 

The size of the soundstage these speakers can create is slightly less predictable, though. DALI is one of the few loudspeaker brands that suggests its speakers sound best when pointing dead ahead, rather than toed in a little towards your listening position – and they certainly focus and image really well. The scale of their presentation is impressive, and the control of the stage layout means even quite complex recordings are easy enough to follow.  

And the sort of low-frequency punch and all-points dynamism the DALI can generate is, frankly, something I didn’t see coming. The unpromising numbers don’t translate, inasmuch as the Kupid don’t prove in any way problematic for an appropriately priced amplifier to drive, and while they certainly don’t reach as far down the frequency range as some price-comparable alternatives they have real solidity and straight-edged attack to their low-end presence.

They hit solidly, but with plenty of tonal and textural variation – and they observe the onset of bass sounds so carefully that they express rhythms with real positivity too. And when it comes to letting the shifts in volume or intensity – especially intensity, in the case of Horse Lords – shine, the Kupid breathe deeply enough to make these variations obvious.

It’s worth noting that all of the above only applies after a good long period of running in. Like pretty much any passive loudspeaker, the DALI Kupid need to be working for a while before they start to sound how they actually sound – but unlike quite a few alternative designs, the Kupid take a good while to reach ‘operating temperature’. DALI reckons you should budget for 100 hours or so before your Kupid really start to sing. 

Should you buy it?