Customer Reviews

Wharfedale Diamond 8.2 Bookshelf Loudspeakers (Black Ash, Pair)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was a bit worried when I ordered the Wharfedale Diamond 8.2's based solely on written recommendations from here and from the web. Any concerns I had disappeared the first moment I heard them. They give clean musical sound with a transparency and realistic soundstage I didn't think possible from such an inexpensive speaker. The sound just 'pops' on these babies and you'll hear things that never made it to your ears before. I'm running them with ancient Carver equipment (TFM-25 amp, CT-17 Sonic Holography Preamp tuner) that has never sounded sweeter. The sound is clean and strong throughout the music range. These speakers handle high volume room filling sound cleanly and yet play great at low volume as well. An unbeatable sound/price ratio, I highly recommend the Wharefdale Diamond 8.2s.

Ive been a music producer, record executive, and pop music critic. besides all that i've been a music fanatic since i got my first transistor radio in 1965. i need superb speakers! after shopping around brick and mortar stores, and having been flummoxed by high prices, too many options, and imbecilic sales people i came to Amazon and began reading reviews. then i ordered these fantastic speakers. i cannot over state how happy i am with them. it's just a wonderful experience... even listening to records i have heard thousands of times. i didn't want huge speakers dominating my living room (actually my wife didn't want that), but i NEED a clear vibrant bass sound. i like to hear clean high frequencies, but i don't want shrill fake treble. in the studio, we would use Yamaha NS-10's for the final mix. they offer a completely faithful, no-frills, replication of the recorded music. but they sound was so faithful that it was, well.... boring. these wharfedales are EXCITING. they are ALIVE. despite their small size they have full, warm,. round bass tones. even with my relatively low powered Denon 80 watt amp. one recommendation... plug your speaker wires into the Bass inputs in the rear of the speaker. there are two alternative plugs and when i switched to the bass inputs, the speakers realized their full potential. what a deal, too!

These speakers are phenomenal. I spent months researching speakers, listening at local hifi shops and reading reviews from London to Tokyo. After all is said and done, I think these beauties sound as well as any midsize (large bookshelf) speaker I heard. They are also an incredible bargain! I paid [price] + shipping from [store]. Beside the incredible sound the diamond 8.2's are very attractive. I have decided to save up for the larger 8.4's speakers and use the 8.2's for rear surround in my home theater system. If you are looking for rich sounding speakers that are still affordable, then consider these.

p.s.
at the minimum bywire these speakers to boost tonal quality. The speakers come with directions on what to do, its worth it.

These remarkable and inexpensive speakers have an innate ability to sound "right" playing jazz (vocal and instrumental), popular music, as well as a wide range of classical music. In particular, I enjoy the degree of truth these speakers convey when reproducing the sound of a well-recorded piano. Great depth and presence with a rather narrowly-focused soundfield. These speakers offer terrific value-- another example of what British design and Chinese manufacture can achieve.

These are great little speakers. The wife didn't want the tower speakers so I "settled" with these little gems. I am not an audiophile, but I really do enjoy the sound of these speakers. For the size, they really do produce a great sound. Highly recommended.

I got my 8.2's today. They have a yellow 6.5 inch Kevlar cone with rubber surrounds, a 1" silk dome tweeter with ferrorfluid, and about a 2" front firing port. These Diamonds look very nice and are solid and they even smell good, lol.Now for the sound. A few years ago I bought a pair of [price] JL Audio 6.5 componets for my car that had silk tweets that I fell in love with. From now on it's silk or no sound. The 8.2's sound just like my JL's, clean, crisp and clear and I don't even have an e.q. or crossover hooked up to them like I did in my car. lol. As far as bass, its tight, warm, and smooth. I listen to Hendrix, Bjork, Korn, Outcast, Rage, Beck, Marley, NIN, and it all sounds fn nice. What really supprised me was how good country music sounds on them and I dont even listen to that stuff. Anyway, movies sound great too and I want to get another pair for surrounds. Add a M&K sub and its on!, though the mids on these Diamonds go down into the 40hz range!lol. Get em and you'll love um and if not, you can always return um, right! THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN LOOSE IS BY NOT BUYING THEM!

I bought these speakers as a Christmas present to myself last Christmas, and they partner a Cambridge Audio A500 Integrated amplifier, connected to it using Gale XL315 speaker cable, and are sitting atop of Atacama SE1000 speaker stands. The amplifier is connected to my PC and a Sky Digital receiver, so I am being a little criminal with the source at the moment.

I mainly listen to trance music, but have listened to all kinds of music at some stage. As you will gather from the previous paragraph, they are also in use for watching TV and movies.

So, what do I think of these speakers? Absolutley superb is what I think of them. Its at times quite hard to believe that the sound is coming out of two relatively small boxes.

These speakers have a "large" sound. What do I mean by this? Basically, I mean they sound like larger speakers. Like floorstanders if you will. The amount of bass that comes from these speakers is surprising, it hits quite deep, and the quality is simply excellent for a bookshelf speaker.

Elsewhere, the speakers have beautifully crisp, smooth, silk dome tweeters, which are never bright or tiring, but are very revealing for the price of these speakers. Hence they are very unforgiving of badly recorded material. However, give it well recorded material, and it simply beggars belief that music coming from such good value speakers can sound like this.

Add to this, the speakers have Kevlar 6.5" woofers, providing the bass and mids, and the speakers seem to have quite a prominent midrange, which for me equates into quite a lively, exciting sound.

Overall, I am simply blown away by these speakers, they simply flatten any speaker that costs the same price, no doubt about it whatsoever. At double the price, I would of been happy, but at £135s, I am delighted.

For a long time I had a very low opinion of this speaker, having only heard at a friend's house who runs them off a very cheap Pioneer 414 receiver and has them positioned quite poorly. After discussing these speakers on an Internet audio forum (ecoustics dot com) I finally decided to borrow them from my friend for a week and hooked them up to my digital Panasonic sa-xr55 and then to my NAD separates.

VOILA!!! It was really like day and night compared to how they sounded in my friend's living room. Both my Panny and NAD are light years better than his one hundred thirty dollar Pioneer, and these Diamonds blossomed. Excellent imaging, warm lush midrange (vocals), solid bass, and nice big soundstage. In short, they had the presence of an entry-level floorstander but the midrange delicacy of a fine bookshelf speaker. The tweeter was not quite as precise as my Ascend Acoustics speakers' during treble peaks at high volumes (above 90db) but the Ascends are by far the best bang-for-your-buck audiophile speakers out there.

I suspect that a lot of the poor reviews around here came from people with similarly crappy receivers who are relatively new to audio and don't understand proper speaker placement and room acoustics. See, the Diamonds are 6 ohm impedance and low 86db sensitivity so they do need more high quality current than your typical 8 ohm, +90db mass-market speakers.

Note I did not say "watts per channel" since most manufacturers today hideously overinflate their RMS numbers especially for their cheap entry level models. (Harman Kardon, Marantz, and NAD are the most honest; Sony, Onkyo, and Yamaha are the least.)

Another key point is that like most audiophile speakers, these Wharfedales are not deliberately designed to accentuate the bass and treble while rolling off the midrange (the V-shaped equalizer curve commonly found in most kids' systems) like the kind of speakers commonly found in boomboxes and mini-stereos that are aimed at kids who usually listen to rock, rap, and dance music often in compressed MP3 formats or off FM radio. Audiophile speakers are aimed more at people who listen to jazz, classical, instrumental, or vocal-dominated music which all benefit from a more neutral frequency response.

So if you're looking for speakers to blast AC/DC or Snoop Dog, I'd recommend JBL or Cerwin Vega instead. If not, these Wharfedales are an incredible steal at this price and should provide you with years of enjoyment. (You won't enjoy taking the grills on and off but very few people ever do that anyways, so relax.)

Well..Got these bad boys for Christmas (on sale for 199!). Wow- my jaws dropped when I opened the box- they are very cool looking. Even my girlfriend agreed these are the coolest speakers. My apartment looks so hifi now ;-) The sound is amazing!! Especially in DTS!! Music is outstanding! From Creed to JayZ to Massive Attack- just pure hifi quality. Be sure to biwire them and have sufficient power! I'm driving them through the outstanding Kenwood VR-410 reciever. Also- the 8 Series Center is excellent. Very impressed- excellent job Wharfedale! Very happy!!

I'm test driving these speakers right now, with
a very worn copy of Steely Dan's Gaucho. Even if
you don't like the Dan (heresy!) the quality of
sound from these speakers cannot, MUST not, be
denied. They are fantastic, and I'm using an
old Sony boom box, worn as much as my poor Gaucho
tape, to power them. My new receiver, a fine
Harman Kardon, is on the way. I'll be
combining this with an as of yet undetermined
tape/cd/dvd/ ensemble. In addition, I will
apply a pair of Wharfedale Atlantic 100's which I've
been running off the boom box for a month or so
now. The result is hard to comprehend, I suspect it
will be most excellent!