Dali's premium wireless headphones want to offer "hi-fi for your head"

Dali is taking aim at the premium end of the wireless headphones market with its latest pair of over-ear cans, the IO-8. Priced at £599 / €599 / $900 / AU$999, the new over-ear headphones are set to find themselves swimming with some of the biggest sharks in the water, including the five-star Apple AirPods Max , the Focal Bathys and the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 . What, then, are the IO-8 offering to set themselves apart from the pack?

The IO-8 have been designed by the same team that came up with Dali's high-end Kore range of loudspeakers , and promise to deliver high-quality sound via both a wired and a wireless connection. The new headphones feature 50mm full-range drivers with paper-fibre cone diaphragms to deliver, in Dali's words, "true hi-fi speakers for your head" which offer a "natural, relaxed sound brimming with detail".

Dali also claims that the IO-8 have been made using the same design and sound principles that made into the brand's recent Rubikore series of loudspeakers – that's a good sign, as we highly praise the Dali Rubikore 2 standmounts in our review from a month or so ago.

As with the higher-end Dali IO-12 headphones, the cans' sonic profile can be adjusted thanks to two sound modes. There is a 'hi-fi' sound profile for a purer, more authentic listen, claims Dali, while a 'bass' mode offers more lower-end heft for a punchier performance. As you would expect at this level, the Dali over-ears offer standard active noise-cancellation alongside a Transparency mode for letting surrounding noise in.

The new premium headphones offer up to 35 hours of wireless playback with ANC switched off; this falls to around 30 hours when noise cancelling is deployed. Those are solid numbers, beating the 20 standard hours offered by the AirPods Max and the 30 hours granted by the Focal Bathys. The Bluetooth codec support is impressive, too: the IO-8 offer standard AAC alongside aptX, aptX HD for supporting audio up to 24-bit/48kHz and aptX Adaptive which handles 24-bit/96kHz and lower latency rates from your device.

The headphones use real leather earpads, and radial brushed and anodised ear-cup surfaces. Those ear cups offer control over functions such as volume, playback, taking calls and adjusting noise-cancelling and sound modes. You can also listen to the headphones wired, with a USB-C cable and 3.5mm stereo mini jack offered in the box.

The DALI IO-8 are available now in two finishes – iron black or caramel white – and are priced at £599 / €599 / $900 / AU$999.

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