Dali Rubicon 8 - The Listener Matters


I got a chance to listen to these speakers not to long ago, and I thought they make the perfect example of listener / speaker synergy. While many people talk about neutrality, few know if they are listening to neutral speakers without measurement gear, and fewer still might like it.

These speakers are not at all neutral. The smiley faced curve was incredibly obvious to me upon first listen. The store owner loved them, and indeed, his favorite headphones were tuned the same way. Far too bright for me.

Take a look at the frequency response measurements:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/dali-rubicon-8-loudspeaker-measurements


The reviewer outside of Stereophile who called them "neutral" was smoking. But are they "bad" speakers? Not to my mind, no. They are ideal for low volume, background listening and HT with room correction, and for those who know they have high frequency hearing loss. Also, reggae. The worst that I can say about them is that casual, quick listen may lend the listener to think they have more detail than other speakers, not knowing he’ll be exhausted listening to them for too long.

Don’t come to me and call them revealing and neutral though, I’ll laugh in your face.
erik_squires