Наушники — DALI IO-6

The IO-6 is an over-ear Bluetooth design with ANC, and together with the IO-4 it marked the first step by DALI, a Danish company with four decades of loudspeaker work, into personal audio. Lenbrook Americas announced the pair for the US market on 30 October 2019, with deliveries starting in November 2019. The IO-6 was priced at USD 499, while the IO-4 at USD 399 drops noise cancelling in exchange for a 60 hour battery. In the current IO line the IO-6 is the entry model, below the IO-8 and IO-12.

Key specs that matter

Each closed circumaural cup holds a custom 50 mm driver with a free-edge paper fibre cone and an optimised neodymium magnet system. DALI quotes 10 Hz to 20,000 Hz within 3 dB and a nominal impedance of 25 ohms. Wireless reception runs on Bluetooth 5.0 with AAC, aptX and aptX HD. A 1,100 mAh lithium-ion battery supplies as much as 30 hours of playback, and a full recharge through USB-C takes 2.5 hours. Noise control offers three settings - ANC, an ambient hear-through mode and ANC off. Colour options were Iron Black and Caramel White.

Engineering and use context

DALI based the driver on the paper fibre diaphragms used in its own loudspeakers and designed the magnet system for low distortion. The closed cups provide passive noise isolation, and the active circuit is tuned to suppress low-frequency noise on top of that. Ear pads are memory foam under a soft synthetic leather cover, which moulds to the head for fit and seal. Three main control buttons are integrated into the right ear cup, voice prompts confirm operations, and two multicolour LEDs on the same cup show status. The supplied travel case holds the headphone together with a USB-C cable and a 3.5 mm jack cable.

Pairing

DALI designed the IO range primarily for Bluetooth listening from phones, tablets and laptops rather than as a wired headphone, yet it keeps two cable inputs. Beyond charging, the USB-C socket accepts digital audio, so a Windows or macOS computer can stream music at CD quality straight to the headphone. An analogue jack on the left cup accepts a wired signal from a player, headphone amplifier or aircraft socket. When the headphone is switched off, it still plays in passive mode over that cable, so a flat battery does not end listening.

Alternatives

The DALI IO-12 sits at the top of the same headphone range, adding an SMC magnet motor, Bluetooth 5.2 with aptX Adaptive and a response rated to 48,000 Hz.