Wharfedale Diamond Pro Monitors

  • Thread starter Thread starter kensington
  • Start date Start date
Teacher said:
I don't think i've ever heard/read someone say that Adams and Genelecs sounds similar. Its usually "Adams Kick the Genelecs azz" or something to that effect...that right there seems a lil suspect but I don't have experience with either so you could be right...
Click to expand...


ADAMs really are the better speaker, but they both have the same relatively neutral, flat-but-maybe-slightly-bright response across the board. I'm speaking of tonality and frequency response only here. Obviously the ADAMs generally excel in terms of pure detail and stereo imaging, and all those other audiophile-type things.
To me, the similar tonality of the YSM1P's make them good budget speakers, because at least they got the frequency response pretty close to correct, which is really all you can ask for in budget monitors. The Wharfies are in a whole different ballpark. Crazy Europeans.
 
Teacher said:
I think the wharfe's are less forgiving then the Yorkies but I had passives with a shitty amp (Samson servo 260) and never compared them side by side
Click to expand...
It depends what kind of mistakes you tend to make when mixing, I think. This is why I do keep my 8.2A's around for a second reference. Even once you learn them, the 8.2A's are FAR more forgiving of mistakes of the low-end (because it always sounds bad, even on the best material) and sibilance, and general coldness (they are warm speakers).
YSM1P's are more forgiving of a somewhat shy high or low end. In fact they have a bit of a scoop so unless you know them, they could provoke this mistake.
 
COOLCAT said:
bleyrad-

interesting post. you mentioned a few studios etc..
where did you compare the Wharf-Actives and York-Actives? HR or Studio?
Click to expand...
Once at home, and everyday in my project studio. Same impression in both places.

what kind of tunes tracking? or mixing?
Click to expand...
Both tracking and mixing. IMO there isn't really much difference in needs between the two, besides more volume for tracking and possibly more variety (a second reference?) for mixing. Yorkies go much louder without strain BTW. I was tracking with the 8.2A's one time around 95db monitor level when the woofer gave up the ghost on the right one and started getting all distorted. It stayed like this for a few hours despite power cycling and lower volumes, but strangely was fine by the next day.
The 8.2A's have lots of port chuff even for their relatively poor bass extension, while the YSM1P's have very little in comparison. I think the cabinet design is much better on the Yorkies - I tried swapping the bass drivers without any real change.

All of this comes from a variety of power-pop/rock/folk/acoustic/jazz stuff. No classical experience, sorry.
 
Last edited:
I thought I would make some design/technical comments here too.

The drivers on the Wharfedale are both of pretty poor quality. The Kevlar is not nearly as rigid as it should be, and the voice coil and magnet are quite lightweight. The tweeter is a complete joke; it is about the cheapest neodymium I've seen, and neodymium's are usually pretty darn cheap as it is. This definitely accounts for the lack of high-end extension and detail. I swapped the tweeter out for the Yorkville's (much better, though still not great) one and the tonality changed completely, for the better.
The port is a joke; it's just a cardboard tube and I don't even think it's tuned very well. Bass extension improves a little just by sticking the inside of paper towel rolls inside there a couple more inches. There is no flaring on the port, making for some pretty intense chuff at louder volumes. There is a fibre mesh at the inside end of the port to keep you from stuffing things inside and to make it look "black" inside... this causes some turbulance, and bass chuff actually improves a fair bit if you cut this mesh off.
The cabinet is too small (not enough bass extension) and not braced at all (looser bass).

I also took a look at the amplifiers... they are very basic but decent IC amps with a sufficient power transformer. Unfortunately there are no power regulators at all, likely decreasing the performance of the IC's.
TL072's are used as opamps which suck pretty badly. I swapped these for OPA2134's but the benefit was neglible; I think the speaker would need to be better as a whole in order to get the benefit from these better parts.
DC filtering is done through some cheap polarized electrolytics, which usually tends to put a veil on the high-end. I haven't swapped these out for better ones yet because I don't have any and it's probably not worth it on these speakers anyway.

OK, I think I'm done. Let me know if there are any more questions.
 
the thread

thanks...
damn.whoooaa.... that wasn't very... hmm?? blunt?

so you actually swapped out amp chips...on NEW SPEAKERS!!! :eek:

you swapped out tweeters from your Yorks! added a cardboard tubed port??

damn.

i salute your gearheadness... whooa... you don't get reviews like that in the $10 magazines full of ad's.
 
Hey bleyrad,

That was extremley cool of you to spend that much time evaluating & sharing.

What's funny is that you originally mentioned doing a comparison between those months ago, and I had not visited around here since. For some reason, I thought I'd peek back in (months later - must have ESP or something)

Glad I did

I never did buy either one. I still have ns10's, but have since also just hooked up my Advent Prodigys as a second (well, for the bass anyway) & to crank it up a bit.

I'm still thinking about Yorkies, but am really interested in Blue Sky Media Desks (possibly 5.1 for surround) So far I haven't been able to hear either one. Sam Ash never has 'em hooked up

anyway, thanks for the evaluation
 
It's good to see some sanity returning to this whole Wharfedale debate, and bleyrad's post was very good.

The 8.2's were, and are, relatively cheap hi fi speakers. A number of people (originally Massive, in this bbs) pointed out that as cheap hi fi speakers go they are better than most as monitors. I bought a pair (the original passive hi fi ones) and found them a huge improvement over the Alesis ones. But that doesn't mean we are talking Yorkville league.

It seems that W'dale heard this buzz going round the project studio community and just capitalised on it by throwing an active version together.

Just goes to show - there are no cheap short cuts in music ;)
 
Let me pose this question...

For a home studio that is just getting started, and for 300 bucks, are the 8.2a's to be considered one of the best choices for this application and price?

Thanks,
Rick
 
WERNER 1 said:
Let me pose this question...

For a home studio that is just getting started, and for 300 bucks, are the 8.2a's to be considered one of the best choices for this application and price?

Thanks,
Rick
Click to expand...

"NO"

Tony
 
wilkee said:
"NO"

Tony
Click to expand...

For $300, what would you consider to be the ticket? Remember alot of us "home" recording folk are on damn tight budgets so reccomending something that's more money does'nt help.
 
Exactly! :)

Let's pose another one then....

Say our budget was really 250.00, but we stretched it to the outer limits.......300 bucks.

Ok, now what are the best 3 choices at this price point and not beyond?

Thanks,

Rick
 
look, you should comapre what's within your budget. I think Wilkee is trying to make a point here. There is no best, only best for you. I like em (i have the passives). I tried some and i like the blue sky system one a lot more, yet i can add a zero to the costs if i wanted that. out of my range. the wharfies are nice.
 
Any Monitor is a compromise whether costing $300 or $30,000 but we have to remember what the monitor is or should be used for. It is simply to allow us to hear what has been recorded and to make sure that the translation to the finished product is as WE desire.

I beleive this can be achieved with a fair amount of skill on basically any competent monitoring system. I also believe that the more accurate the monitoring system the easier that it becomes.

I have yet to hear a speaker system below say $1000 that makes the job easy or even allows the job to be done at all. How on earth do you track say bass guitar or piano (real or sampled) on a speaker system that has no real output below 60hz?

If you cannot afford the amount nesc. then consider s/hand etc. I just think that buying something that is not suitable for the job no matter how cheap is a total waste of money and ultimately time.

Tony
 
Garry Sharp said:
It's good to see some sanity returning to this whole Wharfedale debate, and bleyrad's post was very good.

The 8.2's were, and are, relatively cheap hi fi speakers. A number of people (originally Massive, in this bbs) pointed out that as cheap hi fi speakers go they are better than most as monitors. I bought a pair (the original passive hi fi ones) and found them a huge improvement over the Alesis ones. But that doesn't mean we are talking Yorkville league.

It seems that W'dale heard this buzz going round the project studio community and just capitalised on it by throwing an active version together.

Just goes to show - there are no cheap short cuts in music ;)
Click to expand...

coming from a FORMER yorkville user. The Yorkvilles have a wider bandwidth hands down especially in the lower octaves. The wharfe's have much better midrange definition/presence and image. Neither are good by themselves in the lower octaves, when mixing its pretty much guess work.
 
$300 range

WERNER 1 said:
Exactly! :)

Let's pose another one then....

Say our budget was really 250.00, but we stretched it to the outer limits.......300 bucks.

Ok, now what are the best 3 choices at this price point and not beyond?

Thanks,

Rick
Click to expand...

basic questions:
Active or Passive?

so which 3 are the best?
most HRheads don't have the comparisons like bleyrads, excellent gearheaad article, or Massives spread of Wharfs to BW802's...for example.
like one post stated "most HR's call these low end monitors their MAINS."

one seasoned vet...stated "their just F&%ing tools!!".
i liked that one...

where i'm at is all the monitors work better than Headphones for me,
and my skills are the weakest link at this point! :eek:

my exp with nearfields:

1) Best to date, I like my B&W DM303's with a Tascam "studio" amplifier.
Good articles, my ears like 'em and my mixes tend to be as good as any other monitor i tried. Paid $150 pair/used. New$325
Amplifier $150

2) Tried the BX5's Actives, which really had great detail, and when i added the 80hz-& lower sub, very,very nice sound. Mixes no change from the 303.
Used $185pair / $300
+ Sub $

3) JBL Control 5's have alot of mid-range in comparison to the 303's... piercing mids to my ears, but at the same time i could hear reverbs on vocals very clearly that were not noticeable on the B&W's?? makes me question myself on choosing monitors??
Used $175pair/ New $500-600

4)Originally I had some RAMS Studio monitors...similar to the JBLs, a lot of upper mid-range, which i wasn't accustomed too. The B&W303 replaced these.
$80 pair New

5) Short testdrive with KRK RP8's-Active, which was my favorite pick from GC. And had the store demos $cheap... but at 3ft these things were huge physically and the air blowing out of the front port i didn't like at all.
These would be "mid to farfields IMO"....big cabinet and 8".
$forget..but near 50% off.
 
Thanks for the replies on this!!

Since I'm already pregnant with the 8.2a's, I'll just hope for the best in gettting started, and learn to work around the inefficiencies that these monitors seem to display,....or not display.

Either way it's got to be better than using my DCM CX17's eh? :)

Thanks again!!

Rick
 
i have the wharfies and theyre pretty good for what theyre worth but... im feelin the itch for a pair of dynaudio bm5a's... we'll see if i can scrap together $1000 tho... and even if i can maybe itd be better if i spent that money on a good vocal mic or more instrument mics or....... blah..... im going to bed now im too tired to think.
 
tools

WERNER 1 said:
Thanks for the replies on this!!

Since I'm already pregnant with the 8.2a's, I'll just hope for the best in gettting started, and learn to work around the inefficiencies that these monitors seem to display,....or not display.

Either way it's got to be better than using my DCM CX17's eh? :)

Thanks again!!

Rick
Click to expand...

your mixes will answer your own question on being better. :)

yeah, step by step.... i can relate. today Wharfs 8.2 tomorrow ??Mackie 824's...DYn's

you have speakers now that some of the pros around here have checked out and said "ok". the <good-cheap-stuff> stamp of approval.

I like BMWerks analogy best..........."their just tools."

i think once you get a decent set of monitors its all down to your skills.
i tried several sets and the mixes weren't that much different.
now headphones to speakers and it was like damn!obvious change..paradigm shift.
i only had to burn a couple cd's instead of 12-15 with headphones!! thats what i'm talkin bout.

gearhead lust...yeah, the itch...i'd like some $1,000 Mackies824 or Adams BW601/2...or DynsActive...this won't stop unitl i'm dead. :D
 
8.1 vs. 8.2

Hello,

I am living in a tiny apartment in Tokyo and wondering if the 8.1 or 8.2 is more suitable for tight quarters-monitoring. The room is about 7.5 feet by 12 feet. any thoughts?

cheers...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top