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First Look: Dali Mentor Menuet

First Look: Dali Mentor Menuet

This little sweetheart measures a mere 10 inches and nearly the same deep but it’s another beauty from a company  that takes the prosaic wood enclosure and with a couple curves  and bevels and flourishes  seemingly reinvents the tried and true speaker cabinet.
In this instance the curved, minimalist front baffle forms a solid, highly rigid, and acoustically inert platform for the two drivers. Dali has installed rubber gaskets that not only secure total air-tightness but also decouple the drivers from the cabinet, minimizing the transfer of vibrations. First Look: Dali Mentor Menuet

A schematic of the interior of the Menuet reveals a flared and upward angled port which has been airflow optimized. The immediate benefit is minimized turbulence, practically eliminating port noise. The angle allows for a longer port than would otherwise be possible, resulting in a lower tuning frequency.

[Below is a detail of the soft dome tweeter]First Look: Dali Mentor Menuet

The Menuet shares tweeter technology with other DALI speakers, and is based on an oversize 28 mm voice coil rather than the typical 25mm. Thus lower power compression is an added benefit.  With its powerful motor system it also means better power handling, The magnet in the motor is stated to be among the strongest neodymium material available. And power handling is further improved by the use of an aluminum heat sink on the back of the magnet system. Dali points out that the tweeters dome diaphragm material is very lightweight which allows Dali to build a dome diaphragm substantially larger than the average 1” dome without sacrificing speed.First Look: Dali Mentor Menuet

Dali’s 4.5” woofer incorporates wood fiber in the cone material that add stiffness to very light paper cone membranes, ensuring non-uniform break-up characteristics within the material. Derived from its flagship Euphonia models the wood fiber technology has proven to be a key in reproducing the finest details and dynamics in the music with very low loss of information.First Look: Dali Mentor Menuet

The well finished back panel is a trademark of Dali. Note the port angled downward above the binding posts. I’m currently breaking them in but it’s easy to hear from the outset that living with the Menuet will be a breeze. Though a little tight sounding right now, the even tonality, smooth treble and warm mids make this mighty might a genial guest in my listening room. Designed to be close to a back wall, on a shelf or even wall mounted I’ve currently got them on a sturdy pair of stands a couple feet into the room-probably too far to derive the bass reinforcement they need but once the break-in process has concluded I’ll begin experimenting with placement.

Specs & Pricing
Two-way, stand- or wall-mount, dynamic, bass-reflex loudspeaker
Driver complement:  One 4.5** woofer, one 28mm tweeter
Frequency Response: 59Hz-25kHz
Sensitivity: 86dB
Nominal Impedance: 4 ohms
Recommended Amplifier Power: 20-100 watts
Dimensions: 5.9** x 9.8** x 9**
Weight: 8.2 lbs (net each)
Price: $1500<o p=””></o>

Tags: DALI

Neil Gader

By Neil Gader

My love of music largely predates my enthusiasm for audio. I grew up Los Angeles in a house where music was constantly playing on the stereo (Altecs, if you’re interested). It ranged from my mom listening to hit Broadway musicals to my sister’s early Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Beatles, and Stones LPs, and dad’s constant companions, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. With the British Invasion, I immediately picked up a guitar and took piano lessons and have been playing ever since. Following graduation from UCLA I became a writing member of the Lehman Engel’s BMI Musical Theater Workshops in New York–working in advertising to pay the bills. I’ve co-written bunches of songs, some published, some recorded. In 1995 I co-produced an award-winning short fiction movie that did well on the international film-festival circuit. I was introduced to Harry Pearson in the early 70s by a mutual friend. At that time Harry was still working full-time for Long Island’s Newsday even as he was writing Issue 1 of TAS during his off hours. We struck up a decades-long friendship that ultimately turned into a writing gig that has proved both stimulating and rewarding. In terms of music reproduction, I find myself listening more than ever for the “little” things. Low-level resolving power, dynamic gradients, shadings, timbral color and contrasts. Listening to a lot of vocals and solo piano has always helped me recalibrate and nail down what I’m hearing. Tonal neutrality and presence are important to me but small deviations are not disqualifying. But I am quite sensitive to treble over-reach, and find dry, hyper-detailed systems intriguing but inauthentic compared with the concert-going experience. For me, true musicality conveys the cozy warmth of a room with a fireplace not the icy cold of an igloo. Currently I split my time between Santa Fe, New Mexico and Studio City, California with my wife Judi Dickerson, an acting, voice, and dialect coach, along with border collies Ivy and Alfie.

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