The first thing you notice when unboxing the Kubik One is the unusually heavy box. The device weighs almost 10 kg – I’ve simply never seen such a weighty soundbar before. Some samples, even complete with a subwoofer, weigh less, but here there is only one speaker! The weight can be explained simply – the body is made entirely of aluminum, and the soundbar itself is quite large. Kubik One looks modern: rounded edges, two separate grills (there are three standard grill colors – white, black and red, but six more optional ones can be ordered), and between them there is a thin strip where controls and indicators are located.
The soundbar is controlled either using buttons on the front panel or via its own remote control, or it can be trained from any other remote control. In other words, you can take, for example, a TV remote control and use its buttons to adjust the volume level on the soundbar. The Kubik One has a low-frequency output adjustment switch on the rear panel to tailor the sound depending on the speaker’s placement relative to the rear wall. However, I advise you to try all three modes without regard to the position of the soundbar and choose the one you like best.
The grilles are easily removable and underneath (surprise!) there are two full-fledged channels, each with its own one-inch tweeter with a woven dome and a proprietary midrange/bass driver with a 5.25-inch cone made of paper interspersed with wood fibers. In fact, the soundbar body houses two equivalent bookshelf speakers, with a built-in Class D amplifier supplying power to each speaker separately.
All ports are located in a recess on the rear panel, and only a 3.5 mm mini-jack for connecting various portable equipment is located on the front side under the DALI logo. Alas, this “cube” does not have HDMI ports. Traditionally, a soundbar is considered a device that improves the sound of a TV, and today it is accepted that it is connected through the most popular TV port, HDMI. At least that’s how most models work. It seems that DALI decided to focus on the sound part and did not drag all the electronics necessary for an HDMI connection into the speaker. There is one more digital connection left – optical. But there are some nuances here. So, two of my TVs, as it turned out, are not capable of converting the output stream to PCM. They can only provide it in AAC or MPEG format. However, the soundbar does not have any codecs at all (it only accepts PCM digitally), so a future buyer should take this into account. Check the capabilities of your TV if you plan to connect it via an optical cable. Of the outputs, the DALI Kubik One has only a linear one for a subwoofer. The power supply, which is nice, is built-in.
The soundbar can be placed on a shelf or hung on the wall. By the way, there are photographs online where Kubik One is simply hanging in the center of the wall in splendid isolation. It looks wonderful, but maybe I don’t understand Scandinavian design enough. But on the shelf the “cube” looks quite organic, especially if you choose some bright grill of cheerful colors, and it doesn’t matter at all whether there is a TV nearby or not. It turns out to be a sort of compact audio system.
So, let’s move on to the most important thing – listening. And here the highlight of the DALI Kubik One finally surfaced: it turned out that the speaker didn’t sound like a soundbar at all. It’s not for nothing that the manufacturer calls it a “universal Hi-Fi quality system”! Familiar CDs sounded exactly as they would have been played on a high-quality mini-system – high detail, good stereo image and correct tonal balance across the entire reproduced frequency range.
Judging by the characteristics, the Kubik One starts sounding from 48 Hz, and I am inclined to believe this; perhaps in my room the lower limit is felt even lower. In any case, on the killer tracks of the Safri Duo, I didn’t feel the need to add a subwoofer, although it certainly wouldn’t be superfluous for movies.
I liked the smooth reproduction in almost the entire frequency range – to some it may seem overly sterile, but everything is fair. The stereo picture and musical images are drawn confidently and clearly. In general, an extremely pleasant experience from the music.
I cannot call this device universal due to the lack of HDMI and built-in decoders. But the sound quality of Kubik One is really excellent, and if you put it at the forefront, then you will overcome the above-described shortcomings with the help of external players (or compatible TVs) that produce a PCM stream on the digital output. I can’t help but note the original design and collection of interchangeable grills – for some, these advantages may outweigh all the disadvantages.
Characteristics of Dali Kubik One
Frequency range 48 Hz – 22000 Hz
Placement on the wall, on a table, on a shelf
Woofer 2 x 130 mm, branded paper-wood pulp diffuser
Treble speaker 25 mm, soft dome
Filter crossover frequency 3000 Hz
Sound pressure 2 x 103 dB
Closed housing
Amplifier power 4 x 25 W (class D)
Stereo inputs RCA, 2 optical, mini-USB
Subwoofer outputs
Additionally Bluetooth Apt-X
Auto-on system yes
Replaceable grill yes
Grill colors Azur Blue, Lime Green, Orange, (Purple ), Misty Grey, Petrol Green
Dimensions (WxHxD) 980 x 162 x 102 mm
Weight 9.6 kg
