Ok,
As you may have guessed already from the title i am going to review my pair of Wharfedale Diamond 9.5 rosewood speakers which i have now owned for about 1 1/2 weeks. First impressions i have given already in another post so i thought i would complete the review since nothing much is around on the website on the wharfedale range.
Firstly the specs which come straight from the wharfedale website.
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Bass 6.5 "
Midrange 6.5 "
Tweeter 25mm tex
Power 30-150W
Nominal Impedance 6ohm
Sensitivity 88dB
Frequency 30-24k @ -6dB
Crossover 140Hz, 2.2kHz
Frequency Fb 35Hz
Dimensions 223x900x301(height on spike & plinth 950)
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K now that the formal stuff is out of the way we can move onto something a little more interesting. At this stage i would also like to say that this for the first time completes my 5.1 home theater setup and i officially have surround which makes some of the music dvd's and movies i been playing lately x3 better!!! ( even my mum thought so who usually is not that much of a fuss pot and dad was blown away when they were over in the weekend, guess who is now also in the market for 5.1 lol)
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Cost:
Well apparently the retail price in NZ$$$ is meant to be $1200 however i got them for as little as $550 which is a really good discount and to put things into perspecitve since most people around here will understand the US$$ better,
$1 (NZ) = $0.68 (US)
So for the price i paid i had nothing to complain about and it was too much of a good opportunity to pass up, even for a student who is broke (especially now) granted i finish University in a month and then starting work (daunting thought i know).
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Cabinet Build Quality:
Since the veneer on these ranges is synthetic, well i guess for the price what can you expect it is fairly easy maintenance. When i got the speakers and unpacked them for the first time i noticed some strange white marks all around the cabinet which quickly vanished after a little attention from a general wood cleaner, must have been from the storage or something but now they look great it also added a little bit of shine to the whole cabinet.
Cabinet is made very well, with a really cool curve in it which you may be able to make out from some of my pics. I am getting kind of bored of alot of the standard designs (big boxed) you know i like them a little smaller and sleek looking, they are nice to look at and it must also sound good. Is that too much to ask for? well i dont think so and wharfedale have hit the spot with the diamond 9.5 curves.
Veneer join lines exists but only on the edges of the cabinet so are virtually not noticeable. Now to move onto one of the most sexiest parts of the speaker the cable connector to put it bluntly and i am sure there is a technically correct term for it but it currently does elude me
Gold plated connectors are they are bi ample capable, to my supprise in this price range both the Dali and Jensen (Australian speaker brand i have also tried out) dont have this option. Speaker terminals (ah ha i think i got the word for it this time) are vertically aligned as shown in the picture but are all angled of from one another, kind of hard to explain which makes it harder for stray wires to short out the speaker terminals which is quite a cool thought. That is obviously only an advantage of you are not using banana plugs.
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Speaker Drivers:
Kevlar
enough said !!! they look down right mental, maybe they can even stop a bullet
. Anyway thats only for the bass and midrange driver. The tweeter is a fabric cone which is very very cool as opposed to just a plastic one (initial excitement still not worn off).
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Placement:
Well while i am still learning alot about this, i found place about 30-40cm from wall is not bad (but i have very little room to play with in a small (i mean really small appartment). I put the floor spikes on to help remove vibrations being delivered into the floor and distorting bass. Which is now clean and sharp.
Currently the seperation between speakers is bout 3-4 m and i am sitting about 2 meters from each speaker (i know this is not ideal but space constraints dont allow for anything bigger, doing the best with what i got).
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Test Music:
Music DVD: The Eagles: hell freezes over, which might i add is an absolutely brilliant music DVD when being listened too in DTS, and Cat Stevens the Majikat tour (1976) and Genesis in Rome. All 3 music dvd's i bought just for testing the speakers and the new 5.1 setup ,which sounds wicked with all 3 dvds playing using DTS. Anyway the wharfedale 9.5 did the job brilliantly with great stereo seperation and got the apartment pumping (aswell as the neighbours
). The sound is really something to be reconed with, granted its not as pure as the $20000 B&W 800 series speakers i heard the other day but there is a slight price difference between the 2 aswel isnt there.
Because previously i was using a pair of bookshelves for the main speakers and a sub for bass extension with the cross over set at 200Hz (the highest i was able to set it too, since the bookshelves SUCKED at bass) i lost alot of the bass spacial information since it was coming purely from just the one source. Anyway this is not longer a problem the diamond 9.5 grabs the bass by the ears and violently throws you back into your chair or couch in my case
(in a nice soothing way that is).
Test Movies:
Well i really like playing Transformers as there is heaps of bass
and yes the neighbors probably hate me for it. But the sound was very clear and even just the opening scene where the producer plays his clip was wicked
.
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Final Thoughts:
Ok, i absolutely love these speakers they sound great. Granted if you have a bigger wallet than me (trust me thats not hard to achieve
) then i would recommend going for a higher range wharfedale. But if you are only getting into hi fi or are on a student budget (like me) then this one will not leave you going home dissapointed. A class A+ speaker when considering the performance to cost ratio. I know i wont be needing to upgrade for a while
!!! oh who am i kidding (Going all Hi Def next, Blu ray player and DDHD and DTS HD capable receiver)
Anyway i find them great, there are several other speakers out there which i have seen and tested that dont even come close to the performance which the diamond 9.5 have, a must to test for anyone in the market.
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On that note i am off to start studying for my test on digital filter design tomorrow night
. Hope it was informative, i think this is the longest review i have ever written.
PS feel free to leave some comments (i do hope my pictures got attached correctly) on how i could possibly improve future reviews, when i get some money together i am sure there will be some more coming, so the misses does not go after my head again.
