Wharfedale Diamond 8.3 Floorstanding Loudspeakers, Pair (Black Ash)

Other products by Wharfedale

Product Details

Product Manual [248kb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 8.5 x 32 inches ; 25 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 56 pounds
• Shipping: This item can only be shipped to the 48 contiguous states. We regret it cannot be shipped to APO/FPO, Hawaii, Alaska, or Puerto Rico.
• ASIN: B00005IA32
• Item model number: Diamond8.3Black
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #129,433 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 1, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Hands-On Review

Wharfedale's Diamond 7 series was a marvel of quality and affordability. With the Diamond 8s, however, the UK speaker manufacturer took both characteristics to the next level, enhancing sound quality and improving on the speakers' looks while keeping the prices remarkably affordable. The floorstanding Diamond 8.3 (also available in maple) is a typically solid entry, taking the punchy and dynamic 8.2 bookshelf design and giving it greater mass and accordingly deeper bass. The speakers derive extra low-end heft from their ability to push air from their tuned, front-panel ports.

Our listening revealed taut, punchy sound with dramatically smooth midrange frequencies and detailed but never excessive or harsh-sounding treble. So you'll hear all the nuance of sticks on cymbals, but the crashing won't rip your ears off. Fittingly, voices and acoustic instruments sounded especially lush and realistic owing to the 8.3s' beautiful midrange, while the bass ran surprisingly deep for speakers using only a single 6.5-inch woofer each (the rated frequency response is 40 to 20,000 Hz).

The speakers owe a lot of their clarity and openness to their textile tweeters and woven Kevlar woofers. The tweeters are 1-inch silk-dome, ferrofluid-cooled drivers powered by a strong, neodymium magnet for speed and accuracy. Kevlar is said to be self-damping, a fact that would grant the woofers high rigidity and easy movement--a terrific recipe for dynamic sound from even wimpy amplifiers. And, indeed, it doesn't take much to make these speakers sing. Anything from 20 watts-per-channel integrated amplifiers to 85 wpc surround receivers will make a good fit, though be warned that the speakers are rated for use only to 120 wpc.

An especially choice feature of the 8.3s is their dual, gold-plated speaker terminals, which let you power each driver independently if desired, a process known as biwiring. (The speakers come with jumpers to allow standard wiring; remove the jumpers to biwire.) Whether you use separate mono-block amps for each speaker or merely use your receiver's A and B speaker outputs to power the tweeters and woofers, respectively--with set A for the tweeters, set B for the woofers--extra cable required!--you'll hear a little extra clarity, openness, and even frequency extension since the amplifier is focused only on a given driver's needs at any given moment. (Think: division of labor.)

The speakers' low end was not as rich, powerful, or as even as you'd find in a more expensive speaker with additional drivers or more sophisticated engineering (Wharfedale's wonderful Emerald 97, for instance)--but for at this price, the performance is exceptional. We recommend placement at least one foot from any room boundary, and the closer you can get to putting three feet between the 8.3s and your walls, the better, in our experience--though the port's front-panel positioning allows closer wall placement than would a rear port.

Each of the speakers in the Diamond 8 line uses the same tweeter and cone material for perfect timbral matching, so you can use the 8.3s for either stereo or surround-sound applications, enlisting Diamond 8.1s or 8.2s as surround speakers and the Diamond Center for a center-channel speaker.

--Michael Mikesell

Pros:

• High value
• Genuinely good, balanced sound overall
• Attractive design
• Excellent midrange reproduction (voices, etc.)
• High sensitivity/easily driven
• Biwirable for cleaner sound

Cons:

• Slightly tubby bass

What's in the Box
Two speakers, speaker grilles, speaker-terminal jumpers (for non-biwired applications), wood-plate "feet," a user's manual, and warranty information.

Product Description

The Diamond 8 series is the result of over three years intensive research and development into virtually every aspect of acoustic design. Firstly, the tweeter in all models is a 25mm textile dome, ferrofluid cooled unit powered with an ultra-strong neodymium magnet for the fastest, most accurate response International Audio Group has ever achieved. Next, the woofer cone is made from a bi-directional KEVLAR weave - self-damping in nature, reducing resonant frequencies to virtually negligible levels. The impetus for rapid movement here, is a dual layer, vented voice coil which transmits the signal information with the highest levels of accuracy. The cone is mounted on a nitrile rubber 'Flexaural surround rim'. A profiled phase plug improves the off-axis performance to project an excellent stereo image across a wide listening area.All the stereo models are front ported to enable positioning close to a back wall. Gold-plated bi-wire terminals are used for connection and you should take advantage of the increase in openness this offers, even if using an amplifier with single connections. The final test though, of any loudspeaker is not how much technology is used in the constituent parts, but how these react together to form a coherent package. It's more about the kind of music synergy that can be created between the various elements to ensure the overall result is much more than the sum of the parts.It is this elusive element, the 'musicality' that separates the Diamond 8 from all the competition and you will not believe the results.

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great speaker, great price., November 14, 2002

By	Matthew Hunter "Technology Geek" (Blacksburg, VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Wharfedale Diamond 8.3 Floor-Standing Loudspeakers (Maple, Pair) (Electronics)

For the price, I truely believe you cannot beat a set of Wharfedale speakers. I considered purchasing the 8.4 model (the only difference is a second driver on each speaker), but for the small listening area I have, one driver per speaker, coupled with a good external powered subwoofer is more then enough. So, unless you're trying to power quite a large area, you should be fine with the more economical 8.3 model. The sound from these speakers is as excellent as the marketing materials claim, and they handle a lot of power with ease. I've bought all wharedale speakers to create my surround sound environment, and I'm much happier with the result than a lot of my friends who bought much more expensive all-Sony set-ups. In fact, some of my friends with much higher priced equipment have remarked that they wished they'd heard the wharfedale setup before blowing the extra money. Definitely a great buy!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent speakers, January 12, 2004

By A Customer

I agree with James Michalak's review and give these speakers 4 stars. I was looking at surround sound speaker sets: either cubes and a sub or "real" speakers. I purchased the Wharfedale Diamond 8.3 towers, the Wharfedale Diamond centre, the Wharfedale Diamond 8.1's for the rear, and a Paradigm subwoofer.

I wanted our speakers to do double duty: movies and CD's. The speakers perform admirably in both. For the price the sound is superb; the highs and mids are crystal clear and the bass is punchy and fast.

It is true that you won't get copious amounts of bass from the 6.5 inch woofers. However, what you will get is accurate sound reproduction. Our music tastes range from AD/DC to jazz and classical. We can "crank" the volume to an almost uncomfortable level on our AC/DC and have ample bass, as can we on our classical, jazz etc. The key is to not adjust the bass control on the receiver beyond the mid or neutral point. Beyond that there is too much bass anyway. In addition, speaker placement makes a difference too. We experimented for a few days before finding the best distance from the corners and furniture.

Where the bass is somewhat inadequate is in surround sound movies, but then that is what the subwoofer is for. In the first two Lord of the Rings DVD's there are parts with deep and prolonged bass. Again the speakers can do the job, but they really benefit from the subwoofer for the lowest, house shaking lows.

In the end, you can probably buy cheaper, higher bass producing speakers than the 8.3's. However, what you gain in bass you may likely lose in accurate and clear sound. These are excellent consumer level speakers with a very reasonable price (in fact, all 6 speakers cost less than some of those cubes/subwoofer sets). If you don't want to take up huge floorspace with giant towers, but still want a quality sounding speaker, these speakers should be on your potential purchase list. The longer we have them, the better they sound.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the best speaker values available., January 9, 2003

By	Marye (Fenton, MI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wharfedale Diamond 8.3 Floor-Standing Loudspeakers (Maple, Pair) (Electronics)

By now most serious speaker shoppers have read some of the praise Wharfedale has garned regarding the retooling of its Diamond line of speakers. In my opinion, that praise has been well earned. Like all good speakers, the 8.3's posses the ability to reproduce recorded musical content accurately. However, the 8.3's ultimate strength lie in it's ability to produce a very wide and deep soundstage. Musical instruments seem to float in space without ever "wandering" or losing their correct position. Want a good demo? Listen to any track from Flim and the BB's "New Pants." Vocalists take on almost ghost-like attributes (you can hear'em, almost touch 'em, but you can't seem 'em). Dawn Upshaw's "I Could Write a Book" from her Rogers and Hart songbook is a great example of what the 8.3's can do with in this instance. You get the sense you're in a small club, maybe a table back from the stage. Close your eyes and you can see Miss Upshaw on stage. The tweeter has to take some credit here. It's capable of reproducing sound without being analytical. It simply reveals details better than many other speakers, some of which cost lots more.

I realize this is not a perfect world and the 8.3's are not perfect either. Their shortcomings? These are not big speakers. Not that big by itself means better. While they are capable of playing loud, they do have they're limits. They can be pushed too far and they're not too forgiving in this instance. To be fair though, these speakers are using only a six and half inch woofer and they do get the most from it.

Why four stars? They are not perfect, but I have to remind myself that these are really bookshelf speakers at heart and cost just [$$$]. Bottom line, used in the right location, with a good front end and not driven to extremes, the 8.3 is a winner. It's sure to deliver lots of musical satisfaction.