Wharfedale 9.0 Bookshelf Speakers - Premium Audio Quality

Product Information

Each component is designed as part of a whole, without a single 'off-the-shelf' part. Every part interacts simply and effectively with the rest, to produce a sound that is detailed, refined and supremely natural.

While such character might have initial showroom appeal, it can become wearing after a time and is not what hi-fi ought really to be about. The bass port fires downwards into a small air gap between base of the cabinet and the plinth belowOne trade-off of not having a dedicated self-powered sub is that the system needs a little more power from the amplifier, say around 100 W/channel (ignore the maker's fi gures here), but this is a ballpark fi gure for even relatively inexpensive multichannel amplifi ers these days. Otherwise you'll fi nd the system easy to confi gure. I noted that the speakers have somewhat broader dispersion that usual, and this means a much larger sweet spot where several listeners will hear good sound, not just in a single listening sweet spot. The Wharfedale diamond 9.1 speakers can be bi-wired, which means you can connect more audio speakers to your hi-fi system. This will assure a separation of the single paths to the high and low frequencies resulting in cleaner and more precise sound. In terms of the most fundamental types of music, videos, and movies, this is where the speakers continue to surprise us in relation to their true cost. Even better, you can connect it to an amplifier to slightly boost the treble. The Wharfedale Diamond 9.0 sound incredibly clear and clean when you’ve done that.

For those considering buying speakers from Wharfedale, but aren’t exactly sure of the Wharfedale Diamond 9.0, there is a list of similar models. As an extreme example, consider an auditorium, and you set up a PA with two 4" speakers. How well is that going to fill the room. Now consider the same room with 400 4" speakers; how is that going to fill the room. The Wharfedale Diamond 9.0 are speakers designed for offices and smaller rooms. The truth is that those speakers are capable of punching out some warm tones, but it’s not substantial enough for all music genres. Some bass-demanding music genres might feel a little bit unbalanced and it may be missing a punch. Looking at the drivers, we have the 130mm Kevlar bass/midrange unit and 25mm textile tweeter, which is another reason why the 9.1 is able to produce an enthralling balanced sound.

But, you get more of everything with the Diamond 9.1, and not for a whole lot more money. The Diamond 9.1 and now the new Diamond 10.1 are world famous speakers. Excellent sound quality and value ... for the money. It is important to keep the "for the money" aspect in mind. More money will buy much better speakers than the Diamonds, but that "more money". In the time domain, the Wharfedale's step response (fig.7) indicates that both drive-units are connected in positive acoustic polarity. A slight ripple can be seen in the tail of the woofer's step, which, as the speaker's waterfall plot shows (fig.8), is associated with two resonant modes: one at 2930Hz, and one that correlates with the peak between 1 and 2kHz on which I commented earlier. Otherwise, this plot is extremely clean in the treble, again supporting BJR's comments about the Diamond 9.1's excellent tweeter.