Ed Selley
Hi-Fi Editor
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Where can I get a pair of Dali Katch g2 for £300 a pair?£300 for a pair, done deal, but pricey at the cost, bet they do sound great though based on review only as not heard them...
You can'tWhere can I get a pair of Dali Katch g2 for £300 a pair?
just quoting the AVF review of the G1 Katch: “The Katch is fitted with both a pair of 21mm soft dome high frequency drivers and a pair 90mm low frequency units, which are powered by a pair of 25 watt amplifiers. As you might imagine, these can’t all fit on one ‘side’ of the Katch so instead they are arranged on either side to give a complete arc of sound. This means that the DALI is a stereo product but from a single point and with one channel notionally arranged behind the first.According to Dali's website, the original katch has two tweeters and two woofers, so not the same if your review states a tweeter and a woofer...
Most of what you need to know is in the manualsI would get a pair if I lived in a camper van/motorhome or if I sell my current systems. I could charge them from solar and enjoy decent sound quality if they are comparable to a budget separates system.
How does the sound quality compare to a budget separates system, using e.g. Denon dm40 and Dali Spektor 1 or QA 3010i or Bronze 50...
What battery does it have, how many cycles, how do I know how much battery life is left (is there an indicator) and is it replaceable and not too costly to replace?
According to Dali's website, the original katch has two tweeters and two woofers, so not the same if your review states a tweeter and a woofer...
How does the sound quality compare to a budget separates system, using e.g. Denon dm40 and Dali Spektor 1 or QA 3010i or Bronze 50...
I would suggest you listen to it before judging.I think it's way overpriced for what it is, £330 each or £660 a pair for stereo. A mono speaker with a small battery, no SMC, no wood fibre cone. , sound quality that may not come close to a cheap system.
Been looking for a Chromecast, as it happens. For a garden setup. Could I? Happily ping you some cash for it, too.I nearly bought one of these a few years ago, the first gen, but the specialist retailer I sometimes buy from recommended the Dynaudio Music 3 and I'm really grateful they did because the Music 3 sounds amazing.
The problem with the Music 3 when first purchased, up until a year or so ago, was it wasn't capable of utilising Spotify Connect. So, I purchased one of them Chromecast things. An update since means the music Chromecast purchased is no longer required.
If anyone buys a Dali Katch G2 and requires the Chromecast music dongle, I'll send it on if you pay for the post. No good to me, I'd like to help somebody else out, happily.
I know I reboxed it and put it safe, just don't know where 'safe' is, off the top of my head. So, please bear with me.
Sorry @binkobonko I didn't get a notification of this post. I've since seen your PM and will reply accordingly.Been looking for a Chromecast, as it happens. For a garden setup. Could I? Happily ping you some cash for it, too.
Picked up one of these today.
I do really like it, I’ll definitely keep it, and I’m really impressed with it, for what it is, and at its price point.
But that does need to be placed into some kind of context.
Is it an enjoyable listen? Definitely yes.
Does it allow all the fun and character of the music come across. Oh Yes!
Could this replace a proper budget stereo system? Absolutely not.
Using Tidal from my iPhone, I started off with some Stevie Wonder. ‘Sir Duke‘ and ‘I Wish’. What struck me from the off, especially in comparison to my Audio Pro C5, which it was anticipated this would replace, was how much more detailed this is. In terms of detail, you give nothing away here to a conventional system. There’s no shroud or mist over the music: every little thing is laid out before you. it renders John Powell’s “Chicken in the Pot” from Solo, A Star Wars story incredibly well: layered, detailed, clear and clean. Excellent. Really!
And the sheer speed and propulsive energy. Wow! This thing has rhythm in spades. And this is probably my Audio Pro C5’s major Achilles heel: it had plenty of bass weight, but it just didn’t transmit the energy and fun of the recording, so what the DALI can offer is precisely what I was looking for. Fun and speed are high priorities for me regardless of price or purpose.
Well recorded funky music: Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire’s ‘September’, ’Siempre me quedará’ by Bebe, are all lapped up with gusto by the DALI.
I then tried Röyksopp’s ‘Skulls’. It was great, but this is where its perfectly understandable limitations did show. There’s only so low this little thing can go in comparison to a more conventional set of box speakers. And certainly my Audio Pro C5 could go lower and deeper. But despite that limitation, which would I prefer listening to? The DALI. No contest really. Of course, the RRP is somewhere north of the C5 so it’s not an especially fair comparison.
I then tried some orchestral music: John Williams’ Solo: A Star Wars Story OST, and the very testing track ‘Marauders Arrive’. It copes with this surprisingly well. Again, it loses the lower octaves, but it’s detail, resolution and speed that save it: it manages to play the music without this becoming an unintelligible mess. Placing a little closer to the rear wall does help give a little more reinforcement. Its EQ2 bass boost setting doesn’t help. It does boost the bass, but just makes everything sound muddy: it clouds the midrange quite badly, so if you do want a little more bass, just place it closer to a wall instead.
I ought to mention tonal balance though. In the alkali / acid scale of warm to forward, the DALI is definitely forward of neutral to my ears. And its sheer detail may make certain kinds of music, especially electric lead guitar, or badly recorded rock grate your teeth somewhat. It loves bass guitar mind: Marcus Miller’s ’Water Dancer’ sounds superb through the DALI: you truly hear every bass note. I would say this track shows off the DALI’s abilities in its best light.
For the type of music I enjoy, it’s spot on though. And for me, the energy and speed and joy factor is worth paying for a little bit of tonality, on a system like this. I would be less forgiving of a more expensive system. The fact that a bluetooth speaker can transmit such joy at all is worthy of considerable credit.
So tonally, I’d say that my Audio Pro C5 is definitely on the alkali warm side and may suit you better if you were into poorly recorded rock. The DALI is slightly acidicly forward, so suits my taste in jazz, funk, disco, OST’s and electronica, which all tend to be pretty well mastered.
If you were after something more neutrally balanced tonally, I’d go for the Ruark R1 mk4 and save yourself some cash. And this may suit you better too if you were after something you might be listening to all day. I have a Ruark R1 at work and it’s very well suited to this: its not fatiguing in the slightest. But the Katch might be a little tiring after an hour or two with so much detail being rocketed in your direction.
If you were asking yourself, “could this replace my mini system with stereo speakers?”, I would say no. Look at Ruark MR1‘s little powered speaker pair for that. Add a little sub and you could get some astonishing performance out of them.
if you were thinking of getting two DALI Katches for a stereo pair, again, I think you’d ultimately do better with the Ruark MR1’s and a subwoofer.
But I wanted something more easily portable so I could use it for holidays and weekends away in addition to using in the kitchen, and for that the DALI Katch G2 is spot on, especially as its so thin and much less boxy than the Audio Pro.
There is a danger when reviews use superlatives with speakers like this, that you can get carried away and fail to consider the caveat “for a system like this.” If you keep your expectations reasonable for the price and size of this product, then I doubt you would be disappointed.
I got one of these yesterday too. I was looking for something with a much better battery life than my current B&O A1 (gen 1) for my travels with decent sound quality. For the most part it does not disappoint.
First off - of the two EQ settings indoors, warm is more neutral sounding to me than DALI’s neutral EQ. The neutral setting is bright with lower to mid treble elevated approx 2-3dB and with less bass output than warm. This suits lower listening levels and gives a false sense of clarity at higher volumes but it is just a bit too hot for me and grates after a while. Warm is less fatiguing to my ears so far.
Bass is surprisingly OK for a speaker this size but the inbuilt bass limiter is fairly aggressive when you go past low level listening. I set at a moderate level last night and it couldn’t make its mind up - it sounded like someone was fiddling with the bass every 20 seconds or so and bass ‘weight’ would fade out and back in again.
Midrange is sublime and relatively uncoloured. Pairing it with some iPlayer stuff in warm EQ via my iPhone showed just how good it was with speech - body and warmth with no peaks and siblance. There was no latency either and audio & visual were in sync.
Build quality is very high. Feels solid with no rattles even at high volume - and it does go loud! As loud as it is this is at the expense of bass as the limiter kicks in to stop it disintegrating into a mess of distortion.
Cons - no two way Bluetooth and mic so no hands free / conference calling or communicating battery charge to the phone. No charging via USB so you have to also carry the charge plug when travelling. Limited to two EQ presets - you cannot create your own profiles. Feature wise score is therefore a 5 from me - basic.
Overall it is undoubtedly a good speaker (if you accept the obvious limitations that speakers of this small size bring and appreciate what engineers have achieved through compromise) and I will be keeping it for sure.
8/10 from me overall.
HB
They are similar in sound to a degree but the DALI is more even in it’s overall tone (in warm EQ) and sounds more controlled with a slightly tighter and less flabby sound. However, you can tweak the A1’s sound to your personal preference to some degree using the B&O app. The DALI does go a fair bit louder though.Really interesting as I have a B&O A1 second generation which I like a lot but I’m tempted by this. How would you say the Dali compares to the B&O?