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Dolly Cupid: A Two-Minute Review
Dali may have been focusing on the high end of the audio market lately with its various loudspeaker and headphone product launches, but with the Cuped it wants you to know that it hasn’t given up on the entry level. The company has had a lot of success with its range of affordable speakers in the past, and it wants to bring back those days.
The Cupid is a small, neat stand-mounting design available in fairly vibrant finishes (blue and yellow) along with the more usual black, white and walnut. Its compact nature means it should be easy to position, although its rear-facing bass reflex port means you can’t flip it anywhere. Although when it comes to pairing these speakers with reasonably priced amplification, unpredictable impedance and sensitivity stats don’t pose much of a real-world problem.
Dolly Copied Review: Price and Release Date
- Released on October, 2025
- Price $599 / £299 / au $599
The Dolly Coped Stand Mount Loudspeakers launch in October 2025, and are priced at £299 per pair in the UK. In Australia they are a projected AU$599, while in the United States they are projected to cost a slightly lower $599.
I think the US market is a law unto itself at the moment, and Dali is almost certainly very pragmatic in terms of any fluctuations in revenues and such.
Dolly Copied Review: Features
- 26mm soft dome tweeter
- 114mm wood fiber/paper mid/bass driver
- Rear-facing bass reflex port
These are inexpensive passive loudspeakers, so it won’t be surprising to learn that they’re not exactly loaded with features. Those features copd do it Seems perfectly fit for purpose, though.
At the front they have a 26mm soft dome tweeter sitting behind a lightly dished waveguide. Underneath is a 114mm mid/bass driver made from the same blend of paper and wood fiber pulp that the company has been perfecting for a long time. The pair is supported by a rear-firing bass reflex port. a) Contributes to an overall frequency response of 63 Hz – 25 kHz. and b) makes the Cupid slightly less appealing as a shelf-mounting proposition than it would otherwise be.
Sensibly positioned at 2.1 kHz near the crossover between the drivers. Nominal impedance (4 ohms) and sensitivity (83 dB) mean that the Caped will be a bit harder to drive than the majority of size- and/or price-matched competitors.
In theory, at least…
Dolly Copied Review: Sound Quality
- Loud, passionate voice
- Impressive grasp of rhythm
- Unusual level of animation and cartoon
You have a right to expect certain things from a loudspeaker, no matter how small and/or cheap it is. But there are a few things that will get you talking about compact, (relatively) inexpensive loudspeaker designs. What’s remarkable about Dolly Cupid is how they manage to deliver everything you need and a fair amount of what you’re just hoping for.
Listen to a 24-bit/96 kHz flak file of a Squabazz The Missing American Family Gives a strong flavor to both of these things. The tonal neutrality and even frequency response you’d expect is present and accurate, but the dynamics, and low-frequency extension and monotony are apt to fall into the capped ‘unexpected’ category.
The level of detail is decently high, and if they’re sympathetically positioned the Dalis are capable of creating a fairly large and fairly carefully controlled soundstage. Control of low-frequency activity is good, so rhythmic expression is convincing, and despite the unpredictable nature of most of the numbers here, there’s enough low-end energy available to ensure that there’s weight and punch to this caped sound.
Midridge communicates quite freely. There is plenty of room for voice during King Hannah A great swimmer To project before a similarly close guitar—these speakers can ‘close’ as easily as they can ‘stimulate’. At the top of the frequency range, while rounded off a bit in the name of ‘good taste’, it can still summon a rival at any price.
The pace level never dips (unless the recording dictates it, of course), but the beats never seem forced—they’re just pleasantly on the front foot. Yet despite an attitude that starts off as ‘interesting’, the KUPID maintains the headroom to clearly display large dynamic shifts in volume or intensity.
Music is meant to be fun, isn’t it? Well, most of the time anyway – I guess we all want to pop a bit of Elliott Smith or Joy Division. But if it’s ‘entertainment’ you’re primarily after, along with the kind of authenticity that can only come from a well-powered loudspeaker, the Dolly Coped’s sound is the sweet spot for most of us.
Dolly Coupd Review: Design
- Wide range of finishes
- Very acceptable build quality
- 245 x 150 x 198 mm (HXWXD)
There are immediately striking things about the design of the Dolly Cupid. First is the size of the cabinet – at just 245 x 150 x 198mm (HXWXD) the speakers are almost small enough to hang on a window, let alone a shelf or speakers.
Second, if your competition is one of a silk finish, well, it’s over. Sure, you can have your Cupid in the black, white or fake walnut species that my review sample disappointingly showed, but when you’ll have ‘pepper’ blue and ‘golden’ yellow available too?
As the asking price strongly suggests, there’s nothing special about the materials used here, and at just 2.9kg per speaker they’re not what you’d describe as ‘weighty’. But the build quality is spot on, and the gently curved cabinet edges offer a slightly more premium feel than the straight-edge alternatives that are more common at this price point.
The fact that the grills are magnetically attached, meaning there’s no curvature to the speaker’s front baffle, only adds to the impression of thoughtful design.
Dolly Copied Review: Setup and Usage
- Wall brackets and rubber feet are provided
- Single wire speaker terminals
- Need to run something
Where do you want to put your Dolly Coped?
If they’re going for a speaker stand, you have plenty of choice from specialist brands. If you want to place them on a shelf, Dolly provides eight small rubber feet in the box to aid decoupling. If you are hanging them on the wall, initial wall brackets are also provided.
In terms of setup, there really isn’t much to it. You have a stereo amplifier, most likely — if not, you’ll need one. Each Cupid has a pair of speaker cable terminals on the rear of the cabinet – try to keep the length of cable you use to connect each to the same length.
And, like all loudspeakers, a period of run-in is required before you hear them at their best. Dali reckons you should expect to put 100 hours on the keyboard before you know how they are. It is understood For the sound…
- Setup and Usability Scores: 5/5
Dali Copied Review: Value
When you’re looking for a compact and affordable passive loudspeaker, the Dolly Coped isn’t your only choice. But they’re more compact than most, which many will find appealing, and the combination of some dynamic finishes and relatively good-looking cabinetwork doesn’t hurt where the perceived price is concerned.
Best of all, though, and the real deal-seller, these speakers have a dynamic and engaging sound. Pair them with an affordable streaming amplifier (such as a similar Tachi Vamp), and you can create a compact, high-gain audio system for relatively little money. And that means ‘value for money’ all day in my book.
Should you buy a Dali Cupid?
Buy them if…
If you don’t buy them…
Dolly Copied Review: Also Consider
How I Experienced Dolly Coped
- Connected to a Naim Unitstar and A&R Cambridge Audio A60
- Listening to vinyl through a Technics SL-1300G turntable
- Playing a variety of music from a variety of different sources
I connected the Dali Cupid to a Naim Unitstar and also to a ‘vintage’ A&R Cambridge A60 for amplification purposes, and then used the Naim as a network streamer, a Riga Apollo for CD playback and a Technics SL-1300G (via a Lima Elements preamp) as a vinyl source.
This allowed me to listen to a variety of music in a variety of formats. And, let me tell you, over the course of a week, doing this, on and off, proved to be no trouble at all.
First review: December 2025
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