Dali’s Sonik floorstanders, side by side. Here is the flagship Sonik 9 alongside the Sonik 7 and Sonik 5, showing what your money buys at each step.

The Sonik 9 is the flagship of Dali’s Sonik range, and it is built to dominate a large room rather than blend into a small one. It takes everything the range does, the Clarity Cone drivers, the SMC magnet technology and the hybrid tweeter, all trickled down from Dali’s flagship Kore and Epikore models, and scales it up: three 7-inch woofers where the Sonik 7 has two, in a full-height cabinet designed to fill medium and large spaces with authority. It is a genuine full-range floorstander at an accessible price, equally at home with two-channel music or as the front channels of a home cinema.

Brief product overview

A 2.5-way-plus-half bass-reflex floorstander with a Hybrid Tweeter module combining a 29mm low-loss soft-dome tweeter and a 17 x 45mm planar magnetostatic ribbon element, and three 7-inch wood-fibre Clarity Cone bass and midrange drivers built exclusively for this model, with larger diaphragms, powerful double-magnet SMC Essential motors and extra dynamic headroom. The hybrid tweeter extends response to 30kHz with air and detail, and the three woofers reach down to 34Hz, with the reflex cabinet tuned to 35Hz. Frequency response runs from 34Hz to 30kHz, sensitivity is 90dB with a 4-ohm nominal impedance, and Dali recommends amplification from 50 to 300 watts, with the SMC motor giving a smooth, amplifier-friendly impedance curve. It measures 1,126 x 318 x 376mm and weighs 24.6kg each, in four finishes with magnetic grilles.

How it sounds

The Sonik 9 delivers bass you feel as much as hear, the three 7-inch woofers moving real air, yet it stays composed, detailed and refined rather than merely loud. The hybrid tweeter gives the top end an airy, transparent quality that the soft-dome-only models cannot match, and the whole speaker has the dynamic headroom to handle large rooms, complex music and film soundtracks without strain. Reviewers describe it as combining muscle with refinement, thrilling and physical but never coarse. At 90dB into 4 ohms it is easy to drive thanks to the smooth impedance curve the SMC motor provides, so it works with modest amplifiers, but its scale and headroom reward a powerful, high-quality one.

What we’d partner it with

The Lyngdorf TDAI-1120 is an inspired match, and its room correction is the reason. It is a compact digital streaming amplifier delivering 120 watts into 4 ohms, which is what the Sonik 9 presents, with Lyngdorf’s RoomPerfect technology, one of the most effective room-correction systems made, which matters greatly with a large flagship floorstander whose bass interacts strongly with the room. Streaming covers AirPlay 2, Roon Ready, Bluetooth and network playback, and reviewers have found the little Lyngdorf makes even far more expensive speakers sing. Good alternatives from brands we carry are streaming integrateds from Bluesound, Onkyo and NAD.

For vinyl, the TDAI-1120 has a built-in moving-magnet phono input, so a turntable connects directly. The Pro-Ject Debut Reference 10 is a serious deck to pair with a flagship speaker: the top of the Debut line, with a hybrid carbon and aluminium tonearm and the Pick it PRO Balanced moving-magnet cartridge, which runs straight into the amplifier’s phono input.

On cabling, use a well-made speaker cable of appropriate gauge for the run; AudioQuest and Chord are the cable brands we stock.

Who shouldn’t buy it

If your room is medium-sized, the Sonik 7 shares the same hybrid tweeter with two woofers rather than three and will suit the space better without overloading it. If your room is smaller still, the Sonik 5 is the compact floorstander in the range. And while the Sonik 9 is easy to drive, it is a large speaker built for scale, so it is wasted in a small room and best given the space and the power it is designed for.

The Sonik 9 weighs 24.6kg each, so positioning is a two-person job; fit the supplied feet or spikes and level each cabinet. The reflex ports fire from the rear, so leave space behind the speakers, ideally 20 to 120cm from the rear wall in a large room. Set the TDAI-1120 up through the My Lyngdorf app, and run RoomPerfect using the supplied microphone once the speakers are positioned, as it is central to what the amplifier offers and makes a substantial difference with a speaker of this reach. For vinyl, connect the Debut Reference 10 to the phono input using its RCA output and connect the earth lead; the Pick it PRO is a moving-magnet cartridge, so no external stage is needed.