DALI Lektor 5.1 review

The picture doesn't quite tell the whole visual story here. The Dali Lektor package is a combination of speakers decently compact (Lektor 2 rears, Lektor sub), so-so-sized (Lektor LCR) and remarkably imposing (Lektor 8 fronts, comfortably over a metre tall) – so make sure you see it in the flesh before adding it to your shortlist.

Superficially, this is classic four-star stuff. The system is by no means badly finished, but the vast swathes of vinyl wrap are just uninspiring.

Still, the driver count is excitingly high, and squeezing a 25cm driver into a subwoofer box as compact as this one is a feat in itself.

Big and airy soundstage
The dramatic and expansive soundtrack to Up demonstrates the Dalis' strengths perfectly. The soundstage is big and airy, and it's filled in the classic Lektor fashion: with rapidity, punch and oodles of detail.

The centre speaker gives voices immediacy and brilliantly expressive urgency in moments of high crisis – it's as characterful and explicit as any of its close rivals.

Effects are moved with alacrity and sited precisely, and there's a loose-limbed, loping signature to the Dalis' overall sound that's hugely enjoyable.

Chunky, full-throated and dynamically unruffled, it liberates details as effectively as James Bond liberates ladies' undies.

Bass lacks composure
That fifth star has gone somewhere, then – specifically, it's disappeared in the smokescreen created
by the Lektor subwoofer's low-end control.

The happily long-striding sound of the rest of the frequency range is looser here at the bottom end than is ideal, and the relative lack of tautness and control makes bass sounds spongy when they should snap like the rest of the information.

It's this compromise that relegates the Dali Lektor 5.1 to a four-star position. In all other respects, though, this surround package is little short of compelling.

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