Q Acoustics 2020i vs Wharfedale Diamond 220 sound signature

[paulzhere]

Hi all

This is a just a curiosity-driven post. I own both the Wharfedale Diamond 220s and the Q Acoustics 2020is. Both are mounted on pairs of Norstone Stylum IIs. I use my Denon X4000 to drive them. I found a curious thing when I was A/B testing both the speakers. They seem to have completely different sound signatures. The Wharfedales seem more open and have an extremely wide soundstage. Whereas the Q Acoustics are not that open and wide but more "full-bodied" -- maybe more bass, not sure. Whereas the imaging of the Wharfedales are more open, the Q Acoustics seem a bit centre-heavy in comparison. I prefer the imaging of the Wharfedales to the Q Acoustics but I can perfectly see why someone else would prefer the other way round. Both are excellent speakers in my opinion and hard to beat at their price point. It's just the difference in their sound signature that captured my attention.

I was wondering what causes this much amount of difference? Is it because of their different off-axis behaviour? Is it because the Q Acoustics have a sharper fall off-axis than the Wharfedales? Also is there a general consensus (among audiophiles and also others) as to which sound signature is better or more preferred? As I already said, just curious.

Thank you all
Paul

PS. Just to add that both of them are in-phase -- I checked and double checked and are Audyssey XT32 calibrated. The difference is noticeable with or without Audyssey/Dynamic EQ engaged.

 

[speakerman39]

Paul, the differences will be in the final tuning of both speakers. I also would think that the Diamond 220's would, at the very least, be much more comparable to the 3020's. Actually, the 220's would be somewhere in between the 3020's and the Concept 20's. Thanks for the comparison as your findings may be helpful to others out there.


Cheers,

Phil

 

[zieglj01]

As stated above, you should be comparing them to the QA 3020 speakers -- I have owned both the 2020i and the 3020 -- the 3020 is in a higher league

 

[KEW]

I was wondering what causes this much amount of difference? Is it because of their different off-axis behaviour? Is it because the Q Acoustics have a sharper fall off-axis than the Wharfedales?

Also is there a general consensus (among audiophiles and also others) as to which sound signature is better or more preferred? As I already said, just curious.

This is just my opinion, but I believe you are correct in attributing this characteristic to he dispersion.

I don't know of any general consensus. I generally prefer the speakers with the wider soundstage (as long as good imaging is maintained). However, if we are talking about the same thing, try listening to something like a trumpet or trombone and see if the 2020's don't beat the Wharfdales or at least hold their own!.
IME, a brass instrument which is directional is more realistic with a more directional speaker (make sense?). Of course, the Wharfedales are likely do everything else better, but the 2020's have a decent reputation, so, I think, stand a chance of beating the Wharfedales for this specific sound.
Here's a trumpet/trombone heavy blast from the past you can use to check it out:

 

[yepimonfire]

This is just my opinion, but I believe you are correct in attributing this characteristic to he dispersion.

I don't know of any general consensus. I generally prefer the speakers with the wider soundstage (as long as good imaging is maintained). However, if we are talking about the same thing, try listening to something like a trumpet or trombone and see if the 2020's don't beat the Wharfdales or at least hold their own!.
IME, a brass instrument which is directional is more realistic with a more directional speaker (make sense?). Of course, the Wharfedales are likely do everything else better, but the 2020's have a decent reputation, so, I think, stand a chance of beating the Wharfedales for this specific sound.
Here's a trumpet/trombone heavy blast from the past you can use to check it out:

I think the real issue when it comes to imaging is two channel stereo in and of itself, relying on two speakers to portray the illusion of a 3 dimensional sound stage. A wide dispersion speaker relies on room interaction to artificially expand the sound stage. The problem with this is that it's very room dependent. I find I get much better results with controlled dispersion in a moderately treated room using upmixing algorithms such as Dolby surround to extract the natural ambiance already folded down into the stereo mix. This allows both pinpoint imaging and a wide expansive Soundstage.

Of course this is simply my opinion based on my own experience.

Sent from my LM-X210(G) using Tapatalk

 

[paulzhere]

Thanks for the insights. I shall try doing an A/B comparison with @KEW 's trumpet track.

I agree with @yepimonfire that the room has a big role to play in the stereo imaging as well as almost every other attribute of audio quality. I also think that @speakerman39 is right about the final tuning of the speakers. I used to do a lot of mixing on Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) and one of the ways to create a "surround" or a "reverb" effect was to duplicate the track, pan one hard left and the other hard right, and put an ever so slight delay on one of them, that is let one play slightly after the other...

 

[yepimonfire]

Thanks for the insights. I shall try doing an A/B comparison with @KEW 's trumpet track.

I agree with @yepimonfire that the room has a big role to play in the stereo imaging as well as almost every other attribute of audio quality. I also think that @speakerman39 is right about the final tuning of the speakers. I used to do a lot of mixing on Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) and one of the ways to create a "surround" or a "reverb" effect was to duplicate the track, pan one hard left and the other hard right, and put an ever so slight delay on one of them, that is let one play slightly after the other...

Dolby prologic II and Dolby surround intelligently pull that delayed reverb, which is out of phase to the dry signal, into the surrounds and heights if using dsu, which is much more realistic sounding. When does reverb come from only the front of the room in real life? Never. As someone who has attended plenty of live symphony orchestras, I can tell you that DPLII and DSU recreate the original acoustic space almost perfectly, stereo, does not.

Surround sound upmixing does a much better job of recreating the depth of the soundstage and allows one to reduce the effects of the room on imaging (which may or may not help/harm it) out of the equation. Toole has often vouched for multi channel music, even if it is derived via upmixing, for this and many other reasons.

It's too bad that discrete surround music is pretty much dead except in film and TV soundtracks, but at least DSU manages to get very close. I've done a few comparisons with the 5.1 soundtrack contained on the special features disc of Inception and the difference between the discrete recording and the stereo track upmixed is fairly small.

Sent from my LM-X210(G) using Tapatalk

 

[paulzhere]

Dolby prologic II and Dolby surround intelligently pull that delayed reverb, which is out of phase to the dry signal, into the surrounds and heights if using dsu, which is much more realistic sounding. When does reverb come from only the front of the room in real life? Never. As someone who has attended plenty of live symphony orchestras, I can tell you that DPLII and DSU recreate the original acoustic space almost perfectly, stereo, does not.

Surround sound upmixing does a much better job of recreating the depth of the soundstage and allows one to reduce the effects of the room on imaging (which may or may not help/harm it) out of the equation. Toole has often vouched for multi channel music, even if it is derived via upmixing, for this and many other reasons.

It's too bad that discrete surround music is pretty much dead except in film and TV soundtracks, but at least DSU manages to get very close. I've done a few comparisons with the 5.1 soundtrack contained on the special features disc of Inception and the difference between the discrete recording and the stereo track upmixed is fairly small.

Sent from my LM-X210(G) using Tapatalk

Thanks for the response. I too like the surround effects on my Denon X4000. The Jazz club effect is pretty neat for jazz (although maybe a bit overdone). The PLII is nice too but I can't help getting the feeling that my surrounds sound too loud in that mode (also in the multichannel stereo mode). I did a bit of reading and found that apparently Audyssey does set the surrounds hotter then the fronts so as to "bring out" the surround information in a 5.1 or 7.1 channel mix. But that has a negative effect on modes like the PLII since it makes the surround too hot for those modes. Of course bringing down the levels of the surrounds is a solution but then by how much... (?)... My X4000 doesn't seem to have the DSU mode (?)

 

[yepimonfire]

Thanks for the response. I too like the surround effects on my Denon X4000. The Jazz club effect is pretty neat for jazz (although maybe a bit overdone). The PLII is nice too but I can't help getting the feeling that my surrounds sound too loud in that mode (also in the multichannel stereo mode). I did a bit of reading and found that apparently Audyssey does set the surrounds hotter then the fronts so as to "bring out" the surround information in a 5.1 or 7.1 channel mix. But that has a negative effect on modes like the PLII since it makes the surround too hot for those modes. Of course bringing down the levels of the surrounds is a solution but then by how much... (?)... My X4000 doesn't seem to have the DSU mode (?)

DSU is the plii replacement as part of Atmos. Try using the movie mode. I think it works better for all content, including music. DSU is a lot better than PLII ime.

Sent from my LM-X210(G) using Tapatalk

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Thanks for the response. I too like the surround effects on my Denon X4000. The Jazz club effect is pretty neat for jazz (although maybe a bit overdone). The PLII is nice too but I can't help getting the feeling that my surrounds sound too loud in that mode (also in the multichannel stereo mode). I did a bit of reading and found that apparently Audyssey does set the surrounds hotter then the fronts so as to "bring out" the surround information in a 5.1 or 7.1 channel mix. But that has a negative effect on modes like the PLII since it makes the surround too hot for those modes. Of course bringing down the levels of the surrounds is a solution but then by how much... (?)... My X4000 doesn't seem to have the DSU mode (?)

If you’re using dynamicEq, that’s one reason the surrounds are hotter. That is a pet peeve of deq and therefore my preference for a long time was just to run the subs a little hotter after running Audyssey.(that way my surrounds weren’t over done) You can also adjust the offset for Deq as well, although I’ve gotten inconsistent results due to source material. Still experimenting...