For a bit of country, I cued up “Crazy Love” from Lady Antebellum’s Ocean. The vocals were beautifully rendered with sparkling guitars, clean drums, and rich fiddle. Listening with ANC on and off, the tonal balance was much the same either way, but the level was slightly lower with ANC on. PA20, PA21, PA22, PA23, PA24, PA25, PA26, PA27, PA28, PA29, PA30, PA31, PA32, PA33, PA34, PA35, PA36, PA37, PA38, PA39, PA40, PA41, PA42, PA43, PA44, PA45, PA46, PA47, PA48, PA49, PA50, PA51, PA52, PA53, PA54, PA55, PA56, PA57, PA58, PA59, PA60, PA61, PA62, PA63, PA64, PA65, PA66, PA67, PA68, PA69, PA70, PA71, PA72, PA73, PA74, PA75, PA76, PA77, PA78, PA79, PA80 The DALI IO's are designed and developed in Denmark - build on custom solutions by DALI. And this makes all the difference! The IO's large class-leading custom 50 mm paper fibre driver creates the most natural, transparent and authentic DALI sound - with low distortion and colouration - while reproducing music exactly as the artist intended.

Controls are situated on the right earpad. The central surface is a button for play/pause while the top and bottom sections are individual buttons for volume up and down. DALI is absolutely up to date when it comes to ANC and Bluetooth. The noise cancelling is very effective, while hardly affecting the sound quality. In our experience at highest sound quality Bluetooth can, however, be a double-edged sword, as then the connection is often unstable. Whenever possible use a cable, preferably with a Audioquest Dragonfly in between to enjoy music. This works for up to 60 hours of runtime without and 30 hours with ANC, which is at the limit of what is possible today. The charging time is pleasantly short at about two hours. The headphones are relatively lightweight too, and that helps ensure that the headphones remain comfortable over longer periods of time. SoundOverall, to my opinion and preferences I feel the iO-6 excels well in the genre of Classical, 50/60’s jazz, 70-80’s pop, vocal jazz. However, if it’s more current EDM and R&B, I feel a pair of headphones with more expressive sub-bass to be more suitable.

Headphones are essentially a pair of small loudspeakers mounted on your head. They are your personal set of portable hi-fi speakers that enable you to take that authentic DALI sound with you wherever you go. As for the midrange, the iO-6 is second to none in the current wireless headphone range. Vocals are simply crystal clear and very refined in reproduction. Especially in vocal jazz, the texture reverberation of vocals can be discerned clearly. In practice, the IO-6 convinces most with its sound. Indeed, you are rewarded with detailed, balanced and transparent reproduction, which is further improved in mobile operation by noise-cancelling due to an improved signal-to-noise ratio.

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Elsewhere the design features a large 50mm driver which uses a paper fibre cone. Dali opted for this size as a larger driver helps to lower distortion. The headphones also feature damping material found behind the tweeters of some Dali loudspeakers. So you can’t really blame Danish loudspeaker specialist DALI for wanting a piece of the action. After all, if a company with the history of Bowers & Wilkins can get a piece of the global headphones sales pie, why not DALI? It has also been commented on the forums, there have been quite a few comments that bass is more impact with ANC on. For as far as I’ve been able to discern, I don’t think this means there’s more bass quantity, however with the ANC on, clarity of the bass is more clearly heard and therefore sounds more impactful. The large diameter driver ensures linear operation with minimum compression. This, together with the well controlled breakups of the paper fibre cone diaphragm means that even the most minute music details stand out crystal clear. It also means that the sound never gets tiring, even after