DALI OPTICON MK2 W HI T E PAP ER
1. DALI OPTICON MK2 – PASSION FOR DETAIL The OPTICON series has been at the heart of the DALI range for over five years and has brought exceptional DALI performance into the homes of countless music lovers and audiophiles. But the time has come for the OPTICON to benefit from some new ideas and technologies, and to be refreshed with a new aesthetic. Welcome to the DALI OPTICON MK2. Effectively updating and improving such a well regarded high performance series as the OPTICON is a careful balancing act.
2. The OPTICON MK2 Series The DALI OPTICON MK2 series comprises six models and marks the point in the DALI passive speaker range where both performance and engineering ambition take a real step up and begin to speak the language of specialist, high-end hi-fi. OPTICON MK2 also introduces the renowned DALI hybrid tweeter, die-cast aluminium driver chassis, full SMC driver pole-pieces, and in-house manufactured enclosures.
OPTICON 1 MK2 The OPTICON 1 MK2 is a compact stand mount speaker designed to be installed close to room boundaries or wall mounted in modest listening spaces. Its drivers comprise a 4¾” Wood Fibre diaphragm, SMC magnet bass/midrange unit and a newly designed 29mm soft dome tweeter derived from that employed in the CALLISTO series.
OPTICON 6 MK2 The slim, floor-standing OPTICON 6 MK2 is the entry point in the OPTICON MK2 series for the renowned DALI hybrid soft dome and ribbon tweeter. The hybrid tweeter offers a significant advance in high frequency resolution and has been improved for OPTICON MK2 by incorporating the CALLISTO derived 29mm dome alongside a 17mm x 45mm ribbon element in a re-engineered, cast aluminium faceplate.
OPTICON 8 MK2 The large-scale, floor-standing OPTICON 8 MK2 is the powerhouse of the new OPTICON MK2 series. It is the sole threeway system in the series. It combines two 8” Wood Fibre diaphragm, SMC magnet bass drivers with a 6½” Wood Fibre diaphragm, SMC magnet system midrange driver. The OPTICON 8 MK2 offers optional bi-wiring to enable its bass and midrange/high frequency sections to be connected independently.
OPTICON LCR MK2 The OPTICON LCR MK2 combines the best of all the OPTICON MK2 technologies in a low profile, wall mounted multipurpose enclosure that can work wonders in left channel, right channel and centre channel roles. The OPTICON LCR MK2 has everything covered – from conventional stereo through TV audio to multi-channel home theatre applications.
3. OPTICON MK2 Bass and Midrange Drivers The OPTICON MK2 bass and midrange drivers were designed with a consistent focus on the DALI audio principles of low-loss, low distortion and low colouration. The ideal driver plays only what the amplifier requires, with nothing added and nothing subtracted, and at DALI we strive to design and manufacture drivers that approach the ideal as closely as possible.
DALI SMC (Soft Magnetic Compound) is a coated magnet granular material that can be formed to almost any desired shape and has many advantages used in driver magnet systems. SMC’s unusual combination of very high magnetic permeability and very low electrical conductivity is exactly what is required for driver magnet systems and results in a significant reduction of electro-acoustic distortion. SMC works primarily by minimising eddy currents in the magnet system pole piece.
4. OPTICON MK2 Soft Dome and Hybrid Tweeters SOFT DOME TWEETER HYBRID TWEETER The CALLISTO derived 29mm soft dome tweeter used in all six OPTICON MK2 systems is a new design that offers significant advances over the two different soft dome tweeters used in the previous OPTICON series.
5. OPTICON MK2 Reflex Ports All six OPTICON MK2 models are reflex loaded speakers. Reflex loading employs the otherwise unused acoustic output from the rear of a bass driver to extend low frequency bandwidth and increase low frequency power handling. It achieves this by using an appropriately tuned low frequency resonance (the reflex port) effectively to reverse the phase of the rearward output of the bass driver so that it adds to the forward output.
6. MANUFACTURING IN PAIRS There’s many respects in which DALI stands out among the crowd of HiFi speaker manufacturers, but one in particular is our approach to pair matching – in terms of both acoustics and finish quality.
7. OPTICON MK2 Crossover Integrating the output of the separate drivers in a multidriver speaker system is the primary job of the crossover, but the crossover is also fundamental in defining both the wide-band and fine tonal balance of the speaker - its characteristic subjective ‘voice’. Crossovers are a DALI speciality and we habitually spend numerous R&D hours meticulously fine tuning and optimising each crossover element to squeeze every grain of performance out of each speaker system.
8. OPTICON MK2 Cabinets Manufacture of the OPTICON MK2 series has been retained firmly at DALI in Denmark. Our in-house woodworking facility handles everything from cutting and routing the MDF enclosure panels to applying the surface finishes and constructing the enclosure carcasses. Driver and crossover installation and final test and quality approval on each and every speaker is also handled on our own assembly lines.
9. OPTICON MK2 Update Summary • Fresh and elegant aesthetic with new satin white, satin black and tobacco oak finish options matched with new furniture grade grille fabrics. • New Woofers and Midrange drivers with SMC technology and DALI EPICON derived Wood Fibre Diaphragms. • New, larger diameter in-house designed and manufactured soft dome tweeter derived from the DALI CALLISTO. • Hybrid, soft dome and ribbon tweeter on the OPTICON 6 -, 8- , LCR- and VOKAL MK2.
Technical specifications OPTICON 1 MK2 OPTICON 2 MK2 OPTICON 6 MK2 Frequency range (+/-3 dB) [Hz] 62 - 25.000 59 - 25.000 49 - 30.000 Sensitivity (2.83V/1m) [dB] 85 86.5 88 Nominal Impedance [ohm] 4 4 4 Maximum SPL [dB] 105 107 110 Recommended Amplifier Power [Watt] 25-100 30-150 25-200 Crossover frequency [Hz] 3.000 2.
