Dali Vol. 6

The first thing that makes Dali Vol. 6 interesting to me is not simply the sound quality, but the complete lack of respect for musical boundaries. Melanie De Biasio can sit next to Jacob Gurevitsch, Madeleine Peyroux, Leprous, Apocalyptica, Stan Getz, John Rutter, Yello and Einstürzende Neubauten, and somehow the idea works. This is the sixth compilation in DALI’s series of carefully selected recordings, released in 2024 as a double CD and conceived as part of the Danish loudspeaker manufacturer’s 40th anniversary celebrations. There are 21 tracks spread across the two discs, covering jazz, singer-songwriter material, classical music, electronic music, rock and some much harder to classify territory. For me, that variety is exactly what a compilation like this needs. I do not want an audiophile sampler that sounds beautiful for an hour but leaves me feeling that I have heard the same piece of music twenty times.

Music before demonstration

Melanie De Biasio’s With All My Love opens the first disc and immediately tells me that DALI has chosen music rather than a collection of technical test signals disguised as music. The track develops slowly, with De Biasio’s voice, piano and atmospheric electronic sounds given plenty of room. What catches my attention is how little has to happen for the recording to remain interesting. Her voice has a very physical position between the speakers, while quieter sounds appear further behind her instead of simply becoming softer. On a transparent system it becomes easy to hear those different layers, but I enjoy the track because the restraint belongs to the music itself. The soundstage is impressive, certainly, but I would still listen to the song if I were not testing anything.

Mexican Margarita by Jacob Gurevitsch changes the mood completely. Gurevitsch’s guitar carries the melody while percussion adds movement around it, giving the track a much stronger rhythmic character than the opener. I particularly like the separation between the guitar and the percussion because it lets me follow either part without pulling the recording apart. The attacks have speed, but there is also body behind them, which is much more important to me than hearing every tiny detail for its own sake. A good pair of speakers should make the instruments easy to locate without turning the presentation into a diagram. Here the stereo imaging helps the music breathe, and that makes this one of the selections I find genuinely useful as reference music.

Madeleine Peyroux’s version of Dance Me to the End of Love provides another kind of test altogether. Her voice is familiar enough that I quickly notice when a system pushes the midrange forward or makes vocal texture too smooth. On this recording I like the intimacy of the presentation and the natural relationship between voice and accompaniment. Nothing needs to be oversized to make an impression. It is a reminder that vocal realism is not about making a singer sound spectacular, but about making the voice believable in size, tone and position. That is the sort of track I can use when comparing a DAC or amplifier, but again, I would rather describe it as a very good performance that happens to be revealing.

From cello to electronics

The second disc makes the range of Dali Vol. 6 even clearer. Apocalyptica’s Nothing Else Matters replaces the familiar Metallica arrangement with the Finnish group’s cellos, and the result gives the system something very different to handle. The important part for me is the texture of the instruments. Cellos need weight and resonance, but they also need definition when several lines become active together. If the lower midrange becomes thick, the performance starts to merge into one large mass; when everything is balanced correctly, individual bows and phrases remain understandable without losing the power of the arrangement. It is an excellent example of a recording where resolution matters because it helps me follow the performance, not because I am hunting for microscopic sounds.

Then there is Yello’s Rush For Joe, which moves into a completely different world of electronically created space and rhythm. With Yello I expect precise placement, sharp contrasts and low frequencies that start and stop cleanly, and this track delivers plenty of all three. The presentation can become wonderfully wide, but what interests me more is whether the sounds occupy clearly different positions and depths instead of forming one flat layer across the front wall. Bass control matters here too. More bass is not automatically better bass, and this track makes that painfully obvious when speakers or a room add too much weight. When the balance is right, the low end supports the rhythm without becoming the main attraction.

That variety continues with Kyohei Sorita playing La Campanella, John Rutter’s Pie Jesu, Heilung’s Asja and finally Einstürzende Neubauten’s Silence Is Sexy. I like that DALI has not tried to make the compilation stylistically comfortable. Some selections are immediately attractive, while others demand a little more attention, and I think the collection is stronger because of it. A demonstration disc should show what a system can do with very different musical material, not simply provide fifteen beautifully recorded female voices accompanied by acoustic guitar. There is enough of that kind of polished audiophile music already.

A CD that still makes sense

DALI deliberately issued the compilation in standard Red Book CD format at 16-bit/44.1 kHz PCM. In an age where specifications can sometimes become more important than the recording itself, I actually like that decision. A carefully produced 16/44.1 recording can still sound superb, and DALI’s selection makes that point much more convincingly than another discussion about sample rates ever could. The company also stated during the development of Vol. 6 that some selections would include recordings that had not previously been released or versions that were difficult to obtain. That gives the compilation a little more purpose than simply collecting familiar audiophile favourites onto two discs.

For me, Dali Vol. 6 succeeds because I can use it in two completely different ways. I can listen casually and move from Melanie De Biasio to Gurevitsch, Peyroux, Apocalyptica, classical piano and Yello simply because the music is good, or I can listen much more closely and learn something about a pair of speakers, headphones, an amplifier or a DAC. Voices expose the midrange, acoustic instruments reveal tone and texture, electronic tracks show bass control and stereo imaging, and the larger arrangements quickly tell me whether a system can keep complicated music organised. But none of that would matter if the compilation were boring. What I value most is that DALI has made a demonstration disc that encourages me to listen to complete songs instead of skipping from one impressive thirty-second sound effect to the next.

HiFi’ve, Ronald – Your EarFluencer