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Wharfedale Diamond 220 Budget Speaker Review

MrOtto

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I was planning to switch from Edifier S2000 Pro to these Diamond 220 for my "living room, TV, casual listening setup" , but found another offer on the Diamond 225, which has 6.5" woofer. Hoping Diamond 225 are comparable in measured quality to Diamond 220, but with a little more volume, room filling and bass capability. Feels like a better upgrade having 6.5" woofer to the 5.5" on S2000 Pro and 5" on Diamond 220.
 
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mattzildjian

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So where would you recommend crossing these over to a subwoofer ? I was thinking maybe 80-100 hz ? I notioced Amir saying there was a slight boominess, anyway to eliminate this with a different crossover point ?

Did you figure out a sweet spot for a sub crossover? I notice on the frequency response that the 220's are already losing a lot of power by 100hz.

SVS matching tool recommends 80hz though.
 

mattzildjian

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I keep going back and forth between 80-90hz, although I think I prefer 90hz actually.
I should mention SVS actually recommend crossing over at 100hz if you are using an AV receiver, however if you are blending the full range with the sub they recommend 80hz 12db/octave slope.
 

Bsmooth

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Good thing is I actually plan on an SVS sub at some point, so thats good to know. Right now I'm planning a Voxel build, as soon as I figure out the box size. I think I'll go with the Slot port If I can. Going to use this with my Audioengine A5+ speakers in my bedroom.
 

Den

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I have wharfedale 225 in a not optimal position in corners. Bass being abit too much sometimes. It is safe to put a foam in the bass port or should I get the 220 instead who might have less bass than 225?
Thanks in advance.
 

posvibes

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I'd love to see a speaker such as this go up against a LS3/5a in a blind test comparison and see how the preferences turned out.
 

Willem

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Actually, I own both but never properly compared them. I replaced the (later 11 Ohm) LS3/5a's with the far better Harbeth P3ESRs and the LS35a's are about to be sold since I have not used them for a while. The Diamond 220s were bought quite recently for almost nothing to be used in our garden annex. The Wharfedales are remarkably good for a budget speaker, and lack any harshness. They are light on bass, but the bass that there is is clean.
 

posvibes

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This might sound a bit weird but in my opinion most of the charm and a great deal of the audiophile bonafides of the LS3/5a resides in the BBC dip and the ability for the listener to listen beyond it. That said I have never heard a genuine version of that speaker but a few clones that supposedly come close to it.

If the Harbeth is far better but retains something of the LS3/5a intrinsic to its nature or as some say it's "magic" can you identify what that particular ingredient is that may not be evident in the Wharfedale for example?
 

Willem

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The LS35/a is warm and well integrated in near field, with a pretty decent reproduction of the human voice. Contrary to the views of audiophools, the later 11 Ohm is actually more accurate than the earlier 15 Ohm (that will be completely out of spec by now anyway).
The P3ESR is far less coloured without any funny peaks or dips, and has rather deeper bass. My main speakers are Quad 2805 electrostats, and the Harbeths are pretty close in neutrality. Unlike the LS3/5a's the Harbeths can handle quite a bit of power, and can be played pretty loudly. Since they lack the mid bass bump, they are also much easier to integrate with subwoofers. I did so very successfully, and the result was massively impressive.
The difference between the little Wharfedales and the Harbeths is quite large, with much greater transparency for the Harbeths. But let us be fair: the Diamonds cost les than 10% of the Harbeths.
 

Willem

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My question would be if the 16 cm woofer integrates as well with the tweeter as does the 13 cm woofer. With earlier generations of Diamonds this was sometimes a problem.
 

TheBatsEar

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I have wharfedale 225 in a not optimal position in corners. Bass being abit too much sometimes. It is safe to put a foam in the bass port or should I get the 220 instead who might have less bass than 225?
Putting foam in is not a problem at all. Check the box, maybe they even added some premade foam plugs in there somewhere.
Another option is to turn down bass on the amplifier or in the source (depends of course).
 

TheBatsEar

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This might sound a bit weird but in my opinion most of the charm and a great deal of the audiophile bonafides of the LS3/5a resides in the BBC dip and the ability for the listener to listen beyond it.
If that's the case, would it be possible to emulate that dip using EQ? And if yes, how? Where would that dip have to be?

Asking for a friend. ;)
 

Phorize

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The LS35/a is warm and well integrated in near field, with a pretty decent reproduction of the human voice. Contrary to the views of audiophools, the later 11 Ohm is actually more accurate than the earlier 15 Ohm (that will be completely out of spec by now anyway).
The P3ESR is far less coloured without any funny peaks or dips, and has rather deeper bass. My main speakers are Quad 2805 electrostats, and the Harbeths are pretty close in neutrality. Unlike the LS3/5a's the Harbeths can handle quite a bit of power, and can be played pretty loudly. Since they lack the mid bass bump, they are also much easier to integrate with subwoofers. I did so very successfully, and the result was massively impressive.
The difference between the little Wharfedales and the Harbeths is quite large, with much greater transparency for the Harbeths. But let us be fair: the Diamonds cost les than 10% of the Harbeths.
@Willem do you mind me asking which subs you used? I’m considering subs for the setup in my signature below.
 

Willem

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My first subwoofer was a B&W PV1d for my main system with Quad 2805 electrostats, bought about a decade ago. The sound quality was dispointingly woolly and a bit booming. I then discovered about room modes, and bought a DSpeaker Antimode 8033 cinema dsp room eq box, which cured the sound quality, although primarily for the main listening position. It can also do a wider area equalization, but that is not as effective. A bit later I decided to add a passive high pass filter at 80 Hz and also raise the low pass filter frequency on the sub. One day I decided to experiment and use the P3ESRs from my study instead of the big Quad electrostats (and with the Antimode). The result was stunningly convincing with massive and refined full range sound seemingly coming out of tiny boxes. It could not quite fill the large listening room, but that was just about the only limitation.
With Covid I started to spend more time in my 18 sq study at home, so I decided to treat myself to a small subwoofer for the system in my study. I decided an 8 inch sub was enough in something as small as an 18 sqm study, and I bought a Kef Kube8b for just 359 euros. These KEF Kubes looked stylish, and proved to be easy to integrate. Sadly my PV1d died, so I moved the litle KEF to the main system while the PV1d was being repaired (which took a while). Not surprisingly the little KEF was not as convincing as the more powerful PV1d in this large open plan listening space, although it still managed pretty decent output at 25 Hz. In the end I decided that a subwoofer was not really worth it in my small study, so once the PV1d had been repaired I kept the KEF as a second sub in the main system. Here I discovered that the KEF produced an incurable switching thud into the PV1d. When I connected the subs directly to my RME ADI-2 this did not happen, but somehow the Antimode passed on the thud. So I decided to get a miniDSP 2x4HD instead of the Antimode, and this does indeed not pass on the thud. The bad news is, of course, that I now had to roll up my sleeves and do a lot of manual measurements for Multi Sub Optimizer. Once I had to do this, I decided I might as well do it properly and get myself a third (bigger) sub in Earl Geddes style. So I bought an SVS SB2000. I bought the older model without the fancy app and filters because the miniDSP already gives me the filters, and the SVS non-pro model is currently an awful lot cheaper than the Pro (I paid 600 euros). The idea was to simply get one sub that is clearly more powerful than the others, use it in the front corner for an extra boost to do the heavy lifting, let MSO do the equalizing of the high output from the corner position, and leave the two smaller uncorrelated subs to further smoothen the response over a wider area.
I have currently come as far as disabling the tone controls and filters on my ADI-2 in preparation for the REW measurements, and installing the latest version of REW. Making proper measurements is now the next step. However, with the three subs in uncorrelated positions the sound is already quite a lot smoother than last week when they were sitting close together while I was waiting for longer cables to arrive.
So what have I learned? First and foremost that the room is far more important than the actual quality of the sub. Second, that even in a large room dsp room eq is necessary, and third that multiple uncorrelated subs are necessary if you want that smoothly equalized sound quality over a wider listening area. And as you can see, my subs are not at all identical. The SB2000 is the biggest one, and it is also the least good looking one, but that does not matter because it sits out of sight behind one of the huge Quad speakers. The position in the back of the room went to the PV1d for the simple reason that it is more powerful than the KEF, and because the location is in front of a window, in bright sunlight (it is an aluminium sphere). And it looks good, which matters in such a prominent position. The little KEF is located along a side wall next to a modern sofa in what counts as near field, and also close to a modern chair where I sit most of the time. The KEF's location is in the shade, and that is probably a good idea because it has a cloth wraparound finish. I like the look, but it may not survive that long in bright sunlight. So as you can see, my recent decisions were mostly very practical, using what I already had for whatever reason, and with a view to what suited the intended location, and without spending too much.
 
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