I have a pair of Dali Helicon 400s purchased on Audiogon. I absolutely love them. I cannot immagine them being too large for a room though. I have a medium size living room and they are great. I had B&W 804s and had to get rid of them as they were too harsh to live with although they sounded great in the store before buying them. The Dalis are not too bright although I turned the treble down 2 db and the bass up 2 db to suit my tasts. The bass out of these speakers is great, punchy and accurate. The ribbon and dome tweeter combination are etherial. Spanks the normal B&W tweeter and should easily equal the Diamond B&W series. I back the Helicon 400s full bass up at the lower spectrum when playing music with a relatively cheap but beautiful sounding and acoustically matching Dali SWA8 8 inch sub. My 10" 1250 Watt HGS Velodyne Sub did not blend in well for music and stood out no matter where I put the volume. Not so with the Dali SWA8 which filled in the lower bass wonderfully and in a transparent way. Although the Helicons are not terribly efficient, a 100 watt or higher audiophile grade high current amp will make them shine. My Denon with 135 watts per channel however distorted the bass while my HK cheap 120 watts per channel 2 channel amp drove them nicely and sounded like different speakers. Apparently Denon over rates their wattage relative to HK and Rotel. The Rotel 100 Watt rated Amp weighs more than 20% more than the HK and by reviews outperforms the HK so it or anything with more high current power should definately work extra well with these speakers. By my tasts (and I don't like being needled by exaggerated highs) the Helicon 400s are not bright but rather warm and revealing. However, I turned the treble down 2 db and was then happy and they did indeed sound ever so slightly too bright before then. In other words, even though slightly bright (not harsh) they are close enough for minor adjustment to make them sound wonderfully open and revealing without any unatural or annoying highs. The midrange is warm and slightly forward the way I like my midrange. I strongly recommend these speakers. For the price, they are diamonds in the not so rough. By the way, they are incredibly beautiful with the Rosenut my speaker color of choice. Given the money, I would choose the Helicon 800s but with a good sub, the Helicon 400s come very close. Close enough to wonder about spending $2,000 more for sure (or perhaps I should say $2,000 more less the cost of a sub) since with the Helicon 800s you won't need one.
