The Assembly Process

You should really have a friend present while assembling the DK-02, but assembling everything on your own is possible if you are patient and savvy enough. The first step requires you to place the bottom plate onto the feet. The plate is held in place with numerous screws and still flexes a lot on its own. Next, Lian Li suggests you install their optional headphone holder onto the side of your choice. Here, the manual suggests the wrong type of screw, but I did manage to snag the right ones along the way. The last step, before standing the unit up, is to attach the rear of the case, which gives it the structural integrity it needs.


Next, put the front's beam in place, which also ensures that there is no unnecessary movement of the feet, toward the front of the DK-02. At this point, one can already see the chassis taking shape. You have to place another layer of aluminum you secure with a lot of screws on top of this contraption. The plate only serves to add stability and to give you a nice uniform window to look through once the glass panel is in place. But before you do so, you have to put four rubber pads into the cutouts as the large glass panel will rest on those.


Thankfully, Lian Li ships the system's drawer completely pre-assembled out of the box. You just need to clip it onto the two rails. Once in place, the keyboard tray may be attached onto the drawer at various intervals.


The last step that remains is to put the tempered glass panel on top. Once in place, the chassis is essentially complete. At this point, I have to mention the biggest issue with the DK-02: its center of gravity. As you can see, I placed a monitor on its glass top as a weight, as I would not have been able to pull the drawer out without the chassis tipping forward otherwise. Sure, this issue may resolve itself with a heavy monitor arm, but at worst, this €1100 table and all its contents could fall forward if the drawer is opened all the way, not only hurling everything including the glass top to the ground, but also posing a serious risk to small children who may end up wanting to climb or pull up onto the table to take a look at the cool system inside.

Outside Looks

The headphone rack also doubles up as a little storage space into which you could place your keyboard or magazines, for example.


The drawer's front holds the I/O for both systems. Each set consists of four USB 3.0 connectors, the audio plugs, and the mandatory power button. Lian Li also included a slimline optical bay for the smaller system, but omitted one for the main system to the right. It would have been nice for each system to have its own optical drive.