DALI Katch One soundbar, Iron Black

Product Information

Squeezing multi-room smarts into a compact bar, the Ray is a tempting accessory for owners of other Sonos speakers. Bearing the usual hallmarks and styling cues of Sonos kit, the Ray’s premium build belies its relatively accessible price tag. An important part of the visual design is the three stylish mounting solutions that ensures the KATCH ONE has a look for everybody. The swatch of acoustic cloth across the front is interrupted only by the IR sensor for the remote control. It’s a tidy, coherent looker than manages to look a little more stylish and a little less functional than the norm. DALI Katch One Features — Plenty of ways to get audio in, whether it’s HDMI or aptX Bluetooth Soundbars are slim, often rectangular, speaker systems with drivers positioned side by side that are designed to slot underneath your TV or to be fitted neatly to the wall. With front-facing drivers, even basic, budget soundbars typically offer more direct and clear audio than a TV.

As a piece of design the Katch One is beautifully simplistic in its look. It should seamlessly fit into any interior design without drawing massive amounts of attention to its self. It’s been a fair while since DALI launched a soundbar (the ‘also a full-on audio system’ Kubik One was the company’s last toe in the water) – and at first glance it might appear that the Danish specialist has simply spent time carefully stretching one of its highly regarded Katch wireless speakers. You know how Mercedes turns one of its saloon cars into a diplomat’s limo just by making it much longer? A bit like that. Undeniably elegant when wall-mounted with the dual leather strap, the KATCH ONE is equally at home sat on a shelf or furniture - thanks to the supplied real wood feet. Or, should space be an issue, the KATCH ONE can be mounted in close proximity to the TV using the keyhole mount on the rear. FLEXIBILITY Bass is simultaneously deep, substantial, nuanced and textured, while treble is bright, spilling into hardness only when you wind up the volume. Add voice assistants, clever controls and multi-room into the mix and the Arc shapes up as a true all-in-one soundbar for fans of the Sonos ecosystem. Katch One fancies itself a whole audio system, of course, and a switch to a CD of Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Fever To Tell (via one of the optical inputs and dealt with by the DALI’s DAC) establishes its credentials. ‘Wide’ mode doesn’t help the music’s coherence much, but switch to ‘focus’ and the whole presentation becomes far more convincing.Whenever a soundbar does have height drivers, it's important to remember that you'll get better results if you have low ceilings to bounce the sound off and that the top of the soundbar needs to be uncovered and placed clear of the TV screen. We do provide installation options for built-in appliances providing it is simply a case of fitting the appliance and furniture doors. Any additional work to the kitchen units or carpentry work required will need to be completed at the customer’s expense. The Dali KATCH one is, in our humble opinion, exactly what it should be, a soundbar that can be integrated as simply and easily as possible into any living environment, leaves a very elegant impression, guarantees easy operation and delivers impeccable TV sound, no more, no less. Dali Speaker A/S itself does not promise anything else, does not talk about a home cinema solution, does not lure with anything bombastically exaggerated, but simply presents what the Dali KATCH one can actually deliver, TV sound, but in such a way that it sounds very appealing and flawless.

Switching between inputs, adjusting volume and so on can all be taken care of using the controls on the soundbar, but there’s also a little remote that controls every function. That includes the DALI’s two sound modes: ‘wide’ and ‘focus’.The two different sound modes "Wide" and "Focus" are designed to let the KATCH ONE perform with the widest selection of movies, documentaries, news, and music. "Focus" offers a focused and very linear audio reproduction, while "Wide" offers a wide, impressive and very dynamic audio rendering - bringing a room-filling, surprisingly powerful experience. The Katch One can be placed on a flat surface or wall-mounted. A third, more stylish, option is to hang it from a TV using the included leather straps that also serve to hide any cables running to the soundbar. The placement of woofers is optimized for wall-mounting, so the best placement option is against a wall to achieve the intended bass response. Along with its four shallow-depth 3.5-inch woofers and four 4.5-inch steel cone passive radiators, the Katch One has two 0.8-inch soft dome tweeters placed close to the outer left/right edges that provide a beautifully spacious soundstage.

Featuring a chic, compact design, the wall-mounted leather strap truly completes the look and feel of the KATCH ONE. This solution elegantly hides the cables running from the TV to the KATCH ONE, keeping everything tidy, while the fabric front’s excellent acoustic properties ensure no audio detail is lost. We reserve the right to refuse installation should our engineers think that the existing electrical or plumbing points are unsafe and in need of maintenance or if they are unable to install to existing furniture.

What's the best soundbar in 2022?

There is little more frustrating than not being able to hear dialogue when watching a TV show or movie, but inevitably, varying levels of speech clarity combined with how busy the soundscape is and the overall style of the mix can mean that whispery, mumbly vocals hinder even a top-quality, room-tuned soundbar.