Dali Kubik One

After reading the first few responses I bit the bullet and ordered one (and an audio/optical lead. neve come across those before). But I had not considered pulling the ends off might give access to the keyhole slots.

Thank you.

Alan

Toslink (optical) has been around for about 30 years. Think the first time I saw it was on a MiniDisk unit.

A real advantage is galvanic isolation - no chance of ground loops or worse.

Have fun with lip sync though

As long as you don't send 5.1 AC3 across the link, I would expect the sending device to achieve lip sync.

You have to set your sending device to stereo LPCM to work with it, since there's no evidence of any format conversion capability.

You can do 5.1 to 2.0 conversion a couple of ways. The "lazy" way is to just grab Front Left and Front Right (devoid of bass) and send them across. The result would be tinny and gutless. Some home users manage to do that by accident (set controls to

If you use 5.1 to 2.0 HRTF, then all the input channels have a maths effect on the stereo output. Now at least there is audio content from 20Hz to 20KHz. The "image" won't be very nice, and as one review puts it, with that sound bar "a gunfight only has gun noises coming from the front, and not all around you". You can mix down and at least include the gun noises. But the placement of Left and Right, so close together, means there can't be much of an image.

I mean, it'll "sound like a TV set" :-) It's not a Dolby ATMOS with 22 speakers and a colossal DSP load.

Some of the soundbars with multiple firing angles, might be able to synthesize a wider image.

Whereas this, it's physically obvious it does surround.

Going OT for the moment, the sound "spread" from the Bose L1 PA system is nothing short of astonishing. This basically looks like a soundbar mounted straight up from the top of the bass/amp unit on the floor. It contains (iirc) about half a dozen small ellipticals pointing in slightly different directions. (I discovered this while videoing a mate of mine performing in a pub garden with just about the worst possible layout for a gig).

I did at one time have analogue (headphone output) and toslink (via a toslink to analogue convertor) going to different inputs on the Hi-Fi. Both stereo only, and selected as such on the TV. If there was any latency, not obvious.

And that is why you get a poor stereo image in the sweet spot from such things.

My mate and the people he collaborates with always do a mono mix for pub gigs, even though they may use a couple of stacks.

True. I first heard a Bose PA system in the late 60s and was very impressed - compared to the norm then. Very hairy equaliser to make those speakers sound half decent. Of course commonplace now.

Having now bought the box and found how solid and heavy it is, I realise I over-thought the problem. I made a tiny error when fitting the plugs and screws that made mounting difficult but once on, the Dali was as solid as a rock. No tweaking required. Getting it right first time I count as a lifetime acgievement.

The TV and the soundbar will have to come down (eventually) for decorating. I would like to chase a channel about 25cm long in which to place a section of trunking so as to hide the cables. I am wondering how best to terminate the two ends. A brush plate might be OK for the area behind the TV but will be to bulky for behind the soundbar. Any constructive suggestions welcomed.

Oh! One critisism. There are two adjustments to the bass available. The problem is that they are switches that are accessed from inside the connector well at the back.

Thanks for all the comments.

Alan

The options on the little Tonematch "mixer" are mind-boggling. The only downside was that, although I made up what I thought was an appropriate lead, I couldn't figure out how to pull a "line out" signal either from the mixer or the stack to run into my little DR-05. Never had a problem with "traditional" mixers that always have a couple of phono outputs.

HDMI is unnecessary for a stereo pair, which is what these are.

If they were multiple surround speakers in the bar, then yeah.

I've bought various mixers (of various sizes) over the past 30 years. None of them has had phonos for the main output - they've all had ¼in jacks

First image on google, Yamaha MG10 XU