DALI Rubicon 2C (aktive) vs Rubicon 2 (passive) vs KEF LS 50 wireless

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me to advise him on choosing a hi-fi system. Important for him: he wants to listen to music in the whole room, not just in one sweet spot, he wants to stream and he wants to hook up his CD player and TV.

DALI is currently selling off a surplus of the active Rubicon series in Europe and is offering a discount of almost 40 %.

DALI is known for its speakers with wide dispersion characteristics, the DALI Sound got the wanted connectivity and you can easily add a lot of streaming with BluOS.

We compared the DALI Rubicon 2C (offer price €2,999, regular: €5,446) with the KEF LS50 Meta Wireless (€1,999) and the passive Rubicon 2 on a Lyngdorf TDAI 1120 (as a set with cables and remote approx. €4,399).

Some observations:

Spotify played via bluetooth sucks.

Tidal sounds better than Spotify.

Tidal sounds better via BluOS than via Tidal Connect and significantly better than via Airplay. The difference was clearly audible even to my non-audiophile friend.

The DALI Rubicon 2C sound better than the KEF LS50. They have a tighter bass and the vocals are more pronounced. The Rubicon 2 Cs are more dynamic, very precise, organize the instruments and have significantly deeper soundstage.

Our audition pieces were: Paul Simon, Graceland: Diamonds on the soles of her shoes. The National, Trouble will find me: Sea of Love. Peter Gabriel, So: Sledgehammer. J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concertos (BWV 1050) by Akamus, Isabelle Faust, Antoine Tamestit. Bach: St John Passion (BWV 245) by Akamus, RIAS Kammerchor.

The KEF did Paul Simon well and The National okay. With The National they had problems arranging the voice and instruments properly. With the larger works, the KEFs were beyond their capabilities at some point: while the Brandenburg Concerto was somewaht okay, it became clear that the DALI was better at separating the female and male German voices and, as before, the orchestra's instruments were also more neatly arranged. The KEFs were no longer able to separate everything so precisely, it became muddy.

The really amazing surprise, however, was when we had the passive Rubicon 2s demonstrated on a Lyngdorf TDAI 1120 (without RoomPerfect): the stage was much wider, the vocals clearer and everything was even more dynamic. I would have expected the DSP and the amplifiers tuned to the drivers in teh active Rubicon 2C to achieve the best result.

My friend and I had an exciting afternoon.

He hasn't bought anything yet and wants to listen to the Dynaudio Focus 10 again, but is leaning more towards the Lyngdorf/DALI combination.I also found the Rubicon2 very impressive and am considering buying other speakers (currently: Graham Audio LS 3/5, DALI Menuett SE alternating with a Lyngdorf TDAI 1120). My speakers are more or less perfect fo nearfiled listening but are a bit too good for me. I might audition some Sonus Faber as well.