freakin' Wharfedales...

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zed32

zed32

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so after having my Wharfedale Diamond Pro 8.2 active monitors for about 3 days, the tweeter buzzes on the right side. it's really freakin annoying, especially since i've really gotten into a certain project that i'm trying to work on. i didn't even do anything to mess them up, i was working on a mix and then noticed distortion in the tweeter. it gets worse with volume.

so now i've been having to try and get my guitars dialed in on the left speaker, then move them back to the right side and try to guess how the levels are thru the massive distortion coming from the tweeter, then double check on the headphones. it's a painful process, and really fucking annoying.

after reading about them on this website, i don't quite understand what all the hype was about? they are OK sounding speakers, but i'm not so sure if they are as great as some people might say. of course i'm a bit biased now that one of the speakers has inexplicably ceased to function properly. i'd say for the price, look elsewhere.

so now i think i'm stuck with these stupid broken monitors, unless somebody wants to make me an offer on them so i can go buy something else...they will probably wind up collecting dust in the garage or something.

:mad:

i guess the lesson learned is that it's better to wait and buy something good than to go with what's cheap. :( :o
 
There was somebody around here dick riding those pretty hard a while back because he was selling them. I think a lot of the good "word" came from him.

Also, for a lot of people at homerecording.com, these are their first "good" monitors. So the while Wharfdales seem nice compared to the book shelf or computer speakers that they were using before, in reality they are still rather far down the monitor food chain. You always have get a sense of the experience level of the folks making the comments, in order to keep their remarks in proper perspective.

I think you have definitely learned your lesson--save up for better quality. It's *always* worth it! :D
 
SonicAlbert said:
There was somebody around here dick riding those pretty hard a while back because he was selling them. I think a lot of the good "word" came from him.

Also, for a lot of people at homerecording.com, these are their first "good" monitors. So the while Wharfdales seem nice compared to the book shelf or computer speakers that they were using before, in reality they are still rather far down the monitor food chain. You always have get a sense of the experience level of the folks making the comments, in order to keep their remarks in proper perspective.

I think you have definitely learned your lesson--save up for better quality. It's *always* worth it! :D
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yeah, these are actually my first "not supremely shitty" monitors, and they sounded OK for one day (WAY better than what i had before), and now they suck. and even before i noticed the distortion in the tweeter, i was somewhat disappointed in the sound, especially what seemed to be a pretty large lack of low frequency response for a 6.5" speaker and a general harshness in the upper mids.

what sucks is that now i'm probably gonna have to go out and get some other sub-$400 monitors to use in the mean time, so i probably would have been better off just waiting and throwing down $800 or so for something thats actually decent. :(

i'll probably get some of those Tascam VL-X5, or maybe some KRK RP5 or 6 or whatever Banjo Mart has in stock. :( i just can't go back to my old speakers now, after plugging them in for like a minute, i'd honestly rather mix on those busted ass Wharfedales.

i shoulda checked Gearslutz first!!! :o
 
I think the Diamond Series are great - But I always doubted the "Pro" actives...

I just can't see how it's possible to make an unusually high quality speaker at that price and *then* throw amplifiers in them - while essentially keeping the same price point.

Sumthin's gotta give...
 
zed32, my experience with the wharfedale service center was excellent. give them a call and i'm sure they'll get you going with a new tweeter.

i used a pair of 8.2as for a while (following the hype here) and in the end they did not work well for me. for my needs, the wharfs left me frustrated with their lack of bass, lack of highs, and forward mids. other folks here seem to be happy with them.

maybe you can get a refund on the wharfs? i'm using a pair of arts and have put in quite a bit of time with them now. i highly recommend them for anyone on a tight budget. you've probably read here that they are clones of the yorkvilles. look for reviews of the yorkville ysm1. those tascams look promising but i've only found one person pushing them and he is a dealer. another low budget set that i'd look at in that price range is the behringer 2031a "IF" you have a local dealer that can handle any warranty issues.
 
Flangerhans said:
Perhaps you could replace the tweeter....
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yeah, but then what's the point if that one's gonna end up exploding too! :eek:


if i can get a replacement tweeter i guess i'll give them another shot though...


so much gear, yet so little money... :o


i might look into scoring some cheap passive monitors locally, just to have a backup set in case the Wharfies decide to blow up again.
 
Well, I'm probably the last guy you should listen to about monitors. My feeling is that they are important, but you are best served by listening to a number of different systems once you have a good mix going, to optimize your sound's performance across a wide number of end users. I don't want to say what I use, but they are cheap and sound like it, chosen solely due to their detailed midrange. Once I have something going on these, I go to my car stereo to see what it sounds like in a real world situation, then a sony boombox, then laptop speakers. If it works across all these, I've got something workable.
As far as blowing up new tweeters, you may be well served by careful attention to your crossover, and limiting your monitoring levels somewhat, until you can afford more robust equipment. I find it important to listen to a mix at many different levels, as the bass response particularly is tricky to get right unless you are very familiar with the translation across different systems. Louder always sounds better, so if I have something that sounds adequate at mid level, it will usually be even better with good volume.
Sorry to be so verbose here, I'm in correspondence mode today.
 
Flangerhans said:
Well, I'm probably the last guy you should listen to about monitors. My feeling is that they are important, but you are best served by listening to a number of different systems once you have a good mix going, to optimize your sound's performance across a wide number of end users. I don't want to say what I use, but they are cheap and sound like it, chosen solely due to their detailed midrange. Once I have something going on these, I go to my car stereo to see what it sounds like in a real world situation, then a sony boombox, then laptop speakers. If it works across all these, I've got something workable.
As far as blowing up new tweeters, you may be well served by careful attention to your crossover, and limiting your monitoring levels somewhat, until you can afford more robust equipment. I find it important to listen to a mix at many different levels, as the bass response particularly is tricky to get right unless you are very familiar with the translation across different systems. Louder always sounds better, so if I have something that sounds adequate at mid level, it will usually be even better with good volume.
Sorry to be so verbose here, I'm in correspondence mode today.
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yeah thats pretty much exactly what i do. i use my car as my second set of monitors haha. i'm so used to how all my favorite music sounds in there, so it's a good reference.

and i did not abuse these monitors in any way! for the first day or two, all i did was play music from my CD collection through them in order to give them some break-in time, and i did it at a very reasonable volume. it wasn't until i actually sat down to start mixing on them that i noticed the distortion in the tweeter, and even then, it was at a low volume. i had a guitar tracked panned hard right and solo'd, and i could hear the tweeter buzzing. i had it at a very low volume too, because by the time i get home from work, eat, shower and all that, it's already late and i don't wanna piss off the neighbors. it's possible that the distortion could have been there from day 1 and i just didnt notice it, it's kind of hard to pick the noise out when theres a full mix playing, but it's definitely there. certain things will make it buzz real good, like acoustic guitar for some reason.

so i don't think i blew them up myself because i never got to crank the suckers, plus it's just one side that crapped, so it's probably a defect. i'll try contacting Wharfedale on Monday to see what i can do about getting me a new tweeter.

i did a search a while ago on "wharfedale tweeter" and it looks like i'm not the only one having problems with these monitors! :eek:
 
Hey, sorry to imply that you blew them up with excessive volume levels. From my experience, that's the usual cause of tweeters going out, I've certainly popped a few in the past. If they came pre-blown, that just plain sucks. Crossover can sometimes beat up a tweeter, but since they are active, it doesn't seem likely as this is usually pre-set to some degree. Hope you have luck in getting them all better, though, maybe a new tweet will be a little better with the QC and work out.
 
I'd at least swap them with the other monitor and make sure its not the amp distorting. That wouldn't take too long, but 3 days that sucks..there's so much of this early fail stuff these days, many brands.

I got a cup of coffe the other day, the cup and lid material was so thin, I wondered how far willl they go before the stuff is so cheap it like leaks and collapses as a person holds it!!

long time ago I had some B&W303 passives, man, they were the best built speaker I think I've seen....frkn allen screws everywhere (not glue)...just a piece of art.
 
i think i might grab a pair of KRK ST6 passives and a decent amp instead of spending $300 on another set of cheap active mo's. that way i can always upgrade to better passives in the future. i'll probably keep the wharfedale's anyway if i can fix em. then i have to get some type of monitor switching device! damn gear, for everthing you buy, theres 3 more things you need.
 
Swap out the tweeters you have. If the problem follows the tweeter, then a new tweeter is called for. If the problem remains with the box, its the power amp or crossover.

Diagnose your problem, then call customer service.
 
IAG customer service called me today and they will be sending me a replacement tweeter within a few days. I was actually pleasantly surprised by their service, even though it took them a week to contact me, the problem was resolved rather painlessly.

i'm 95% positive that it's the tweeter and not the amp. the buzzing noise seems to be frequency dependent. also, when volume is increased, the distortion doesn't get louder, it just seems to smear up a broader frequency range. if it was a problem with the amp, i would imagine that the distortion would increase in volume as the source level increased. either way, they are sending me a replacement part so i'm happy with that.
 
Zed32, I have a pair of the Wharfdale 8.2A monitors. As others have said, they're not very far up on the monitor food chain, but they meet a price point and have reasonable performance. I think it's fair to say that they don't suck, but I don't fool myself into thinking that they're any shit hot equipment, either.

At any rate, just as with any other monitor, you eventually have to knock what you mix with those monitors against other playback systems in the real world.

Mine have been dependable and noise-free since I got them, about 1-1/2 years ago, I think. I crank 'em pretty hard from time to time, too.
 
Zaphod B said:
Zed32, I have a pair of the Wharfdale 8.2A monitors. As others have said, they're not very far up on the monitor food chain, but they meet a price point and have reasonable performance. I think it's fair to say that they don't suck, but I don't fool myself into thinking that they're any shit hot equipment, either.

At any rate, just as with any other monitor, you eventually have to knock what you mix with those monitors against other playback systems in the real world.

Mine have been dependable and noise-free since I got them, about 1-1/2 years ago, I think. I crank 'em pretty hard from time to time, too.
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yeah like i said before, these are a step up from what i've used in the past, and i'd rather mix on the broken Wharfedales than on my old monitors! it'll be nice to get these things up and running 100% so i can at least get used to how they translate. looking forward to fixing them...
 
zed32 said:
i'll probably get some of those Tascam VL-X5, or maybe some KRK RP5 or 6 or whatever Banjo Mart has in stock. :( i just can't go back to my old speakers now, after plugging them in for like a minute, i'd honestly rather mix on those busted ass Wharfedales.
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i have some vl-x5's which i like (step up from my old m-audio sp-5b's), but i mix most on my sennheiser hd-600's (i know some will say that's stupid) and then check the mixes on the tascams.
i'm looking to add a set of the cheaper blue sky 2.1's-- either the mediadesk 2.1's which have gotten lots of good reviews/message board buzz, or the new exo's which are going to sell for $350
 
so you feel that headphones are more accurate than the VL-X5?



i was considering heading down to Banjo Mart and testing out some $800-1200 range monitors next weekend, and then buying them from AMS using the ez_payment plan that they have so i can stretch my budget with my credit card. i know i probably shouldn't, i don't need to go into debt THAT badly, but i'm considering it haha....maybe just bite the bullet and go for some BM5A's or something. i'm bidding on some passives on ebay, and if i can't score a decent pair of passives by this weekend, i'll probably go out and test drive whatever actives banjo mart has in stock. so i'm gonna try JBL LSR4326P vs Dynaudio BM5A vs Event ASP6/8 vs Mackie HR824/624 vs KRK V6/8. i really don't care about brand name or size, i'm just gonna go with whatever i like the best...mainly i'm looking for something that will help me take the guess-work out of the lower frequency range, which is my main problem these days when it comes to mix translation.

kinda stupid i know, since the Wharfedales are probably gonna be fixed soon, but the whole mess with the blown speaker just leaves me with a really bad impression of these speakers. i mean having them for over a week and not being able to do any sort of work with them has really been a downer. :(
 
for me in my untreated room, the biggest problem i was having was with the bass frequencies, so it's been a good adjustment (to primarily mixing on headphones). i find that by using both, reference material, and then checking mixes in a few places (most notably the car of course), i can get pretty tolerable mixes.
plus my gf/now fiancee moved in, so it's also a concession to that too :D :o
 
zed32, Mackie HR824's are being blown out right now for around $1,000 a pair. If you are in the $800-1,200 range you can consider these. I have a pair and I like them very much. They are in a whole differnet league than what you've been using.

I have some friends that use the Event ASP8's and they love them.

I think the Dynauiod BM5A's might a be a little small unless you are planning to use a sub with them.

Now you are getting into the right budget for a decent pair of monitors! Good luck with your search.
 
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