Dali Sonik 5 5.1 review

Building a speaker package around two different five-star models doesn't guarantee success, but it's certainly a promising start.

And that's what we have here. The Dali Sonik 5 5.1 package, which replaces the Award-winning Oberon 5 5.1 Speaker Package, uses a pair of five-star Sonik 5 floorstanders at the front and a pair of equally acclaimed Sonik 1 standmounters as surrounds.

They're joined by the Sonik Cinema centre speaker and Dali's long-serving Sub E-9 F subwoofer, which first launched back in 2013.

We already know the Sonik 5 and Sonik 1 are excellent, and the Sub E-9 F has proved its worth over the years. But how well do they work together, and can the Cinema centre maintain the same high standard?

Price

Buying the components separately in the UK would cost you £2396, but retailers such as Richer Sounds are doing a package deal that drops the total price to £2199. As we’ll see, that’s excellent value for the performance on offer.

While we’ve not been able to find any such packages in Australia, the total cost to buy the components separately is AU$4596, which again looks like very good value, essentially being a close-to-direct currency conversion from the UK price.

It’s a different story in the US, where again there are no pre-bundled packages, and the cost of buying the speakers separately will set you back $4800. If we were to simply do a currency conversion on the UK price, the US price would be around $3000.

While the package is still a compelling option at $4800, such is the level of performance it offers, it’s not the no-brainer bargain that it is in the UK and Australia.

Design

The first thing that strikes you about this package is how compact each component is. The Sonik 5 floorstanders are delightfully dinky, measuring just 83cm once the spikes are attached.

They’re relatively narrow, too, and while their surprisingly diminutive form might immediately make you question their ability to produce satisfying cinematic scale (something we’ll get to in the Sound Quality section), it also makes them vastly more living room friendly than typical floorstanders.

The Sonik 1 surrounds have the same 16cm width as the floorstanders, but they’re just 21cm deep and 28cm tall. They’re not so small as to be confused for ‘lifestyle’ speakers, but for proper hi-fi speakers, they’re decidedly bijou.

These compact dimensions make the Sonik 1s easy to find space for on a shelf, and there are even eyelets on the back so they can be hooked onto wall screws, though a pair of solid stands will get you the very best performance.

The E-9 F is very small by subwoofer standards, too, which is great for flexibility over positioning, if mildly concerning from a bass depth point of view. We’ll get to the sound it produces below, but it is worth noting that the E-12F, a larger subwoofer with a larger driver, is available in the same range, should you have the space and bass demands to warrant it.

Given the sizes of the other speakers, we were slightly concerned that Dali might have gone tiny with the centre. Instead, proportionally speaking, it feels like the most substantial speaker in the system.

This is a good sign as far as we’re concerned: with so much audio going through the centre channel, most notably the all-important dialogue, it’s vital that the centre speaker is a serious bit of kit, rather than the afterthought it occasionally appears to be in some packages.

Unusually, the centre speaker uses a pair of elongated reflex ports on the front, flanking the trio of drivers, whereas the Sonik 5 and Sonik 1 use the conventional circular variety on their rears.

The front-facing ports make the Cinema centre more comfortable right up against a wall, which is where it may well find itself. The rear-ported speakers, though, benefit from having just a little room to breathe – about 10cm from a wall in the case of the little Sonik 1, and around 40cm for the Sonik 5.

If they’re much closer, you may find that bass is a little exaggerated – a good AV amplifier will be able to compensate for this at least to a degree, but it’s best to get the placement as correct as possible.

Speaking of which, Dali recommends that the Sonik 5 are positioned facing directly forwards, rather than toed-in a little as is the norm for stereo speakers. We found this advice to be well worth following when testing them as a stereo pair in our hi-fi room, but in our AV room, where we tend to position front left and right speakers a little further apart, we find that a minor amount of toe-in provides an excellent stereo image with music without compromising the width and openness of the cinematic soundstage.

As well as having living room-friendly dimensions, the Sonik speakers have a very living room-friendly design, with straight edges and a smooth MDF finish.

Four colours are available – white, black ash, walnut and the natural oak of our review samples – with the wooden speakers having a clean front panel that complements the subtle grain of the rest of the cabinet. The slightly beige colour of the front panels of the speakers in our oak package won’t be to everyone’s taste, but in the right room the speakers will look lovely.

The one shame is that the E-9 F subwoofer is only available in black or white, so if you choose the walnut or oak finish for your speakers, you will have a subwoofer that doesn’t match. That won’t be an issue for those who plan to hide their sub out of sight, but a consideration for those who expect to position it on show.

Features

Every speaker in this package uses the same driver technology, which is a good starting point for achieving a cohesive surround sound presentation.

Each has a 29mm woven-fabric soft-dome tweeter, while the 13cm mid/bass drivers use a combination of paper pulp and wood fibre. The Sonik 5 floorstanders and Sonik Cinema centre each have two of these mid/bass drivers, while the smaller Sonik 1 make do with one.

Those mid/bass drivers also incorporate Dali’s patented Soft Magnetic Composite (SMC) technology in the motor system, which the company says reduces distortion by combining very high magnetic conductivity with very low electrical conductivity.

Each speaker uses a two-way crossover, and sensitivity is relatively consistent across the range: 88dB/W/m for the Sonik 5, 86dB/W/m for the Sonik 1 and 89.5dB/W/m for the Sonik Cinema. All have a nominal impedance of 6 ohms, so the specifications suggest no obvious obstacles to partnering them with a suitable AV amplifier.

There’s just one pair of speaker terminals on each model, so bi-wiring isn’t an option.

The E-9 F subwoofer has a 23cm driver powered by a Class D amplifier rated at 170W RMS, with a quoted frequency range of 37-200Hz.

Sound

It’s hard to resist the draw of Sinners when testing a new piece of home cinema kit, but we skip past the usual genre-bending performance by Sammy and kick off with the intoxicatingly wild Rocky Road To Dublin section.

There’s excellent detail as Stack and Sammy drag another poor soul out of the club, while the first lines of Remmick’s song echo airily across the room, as if travelling over open fields. There’s no sense of individual speakers producing the sound; instead, the perfectly matched speakers place effects exactly where they should be.

Despite the lack of upfiring or ceiling speakers, the Sonik package manages to place effects such as rolling thunder high in the space, while sending sounds convincingly behind the listening position, too. Adding dedicated height speakers and additional rears for a full Dolby Atmos system would increase immersion further, but this cohesive, room-filling 5.1 package already delivers impressive scale.

That cohesion isn’t just spatial; it’s tonal, too. When the song kicks in fully, the subwoofer does a terrific job of integrating the thumping drums while giving them plenty of power and texture. Unsurprisingly, given the size of its driver, the E-9 F doesn’t produce the deepest bass, but it compensates with impressive rhythm and expression. It never sticks out in the way some larger, less sophisticated subwoofers can, either.

These qualities are further illustrated by our usual bass stress test: the opening of the second chapter of Blade Runner 2049, which can turn many a subwoofer into a sobbing, distorting mess. The E-9 F again doesn’t dig as deep as a larger sub might, but it produces more depth than you’d expect from its size, remaining composed while gamely delivering the rhythm within the dense low end.

The Sonik Cinema centre speaker is excellent, too. Like the other Sonik speakers, it combines dispersion and directness expertly, giving dialogue a lovely focus without drawing attention to the speaker itself. Dialogue is detailed, with the low-level dynamic subtlety needed to convey emotional inflection and the tonal expression to make each character’s voice sound clear and natural.

Subtle, refined and composed it might be, but the Dali Sonik package is also capable of thrilling dynamic shifts. The opening race in F1: The Movie is packed with bombastic moments, which the system reproduces with terrific authority while remaining composed throughout.

We already know the Sonik 5 floorstanders are excellent with music, and they prove it again when we switch from surround sound to lossless stereo.

Playing Feeling Like a Stranger by Midnight Faces, we’re struck by how the speakers combine spaciousness with stereo focus. The instrumentation has room to breathe, while the vocals remain clear and direct. The gentle sax is a delight, too, with a lovely balance of airiness and tangibility.

My Curse by Killswitch Engage demonstrates the speakers’ ability to marshal a bludgeoning metal composition without letting it become mushy or suppressing the soaring vocals. The Mother, from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’s haunting score for The Road, meanwhile, is delivered with all the subtle detail of the analogue-style recording intact.

Verdict

The Dali Sonik 5 5.1 package is a superb all-rounder.

Regardless of the movie we’re watching or the track we’re listening to, it delivers a beautifully cohesive performance, combining smooth openness and detailed directness with impressive scale. Nothing sticks out, nothing feels out of place, and the system handles everything we throw at it with effortless composure.

Few speaker packages offer such a comprehensive blend of talents, and the fact that the Sonik 5 does so at this price only adds to the achievement.

At this level, it’s among the very best we’ve heard – and it gives packages in the class above a serious run for their money.

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Design 5
• Compatibility 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Bowers & Wilkins 606 & 607 S3 speaker package

Also consider the KEF Q Concerto Meta 5.1 Speaker System

Read our Dali Oberon 5 5.1 Speaker Package review

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