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Wharfedale EVO 4.1 Review (Speaker)

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 67 26.5%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 142 56.1%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 30 11.9%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 14 5.5%

  • Total voters
    253

Spkrdctr

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So many people not giving the headless panther. I don't know why. At $800 for a pair of small bookshelves, they should perform quite well. These faired quite poorly. I saw the stink in the charts and in Amir's comments. I give these stinkers a headless panther and am disgusted that it did so bad at that price point. Oh well......
 

thewas

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Disappointing. Lesson here? Get the cheaper Diamond 12.2. Fanbloodytastic speaker.
Lets see when it gets measured here, for now just the 12.1 is a very safe bet which was already measured here, although chances are not bad that the 12.2 will be also good.
 

MarkWinston

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Lets see when it gets measured here, for now just the 12.1 is a very safe bet which was already measured here, although chances are not bad that the 12.2 will be also good.
Own(ed) both the 12.1 and 12.2, by ear alone, the 12.2 poops on the 12.1 real bad. No contest. It will be great to see the 12.2 measured here but the 12.2 is a no brainer really.
 

thewas

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Own(ed) both the 12.1 and 12.2, by ear alone, the 12.2 poops on the 12.1 real bad. No contest. It will be great to see the 12.2 measured here but the 12.2 is a no brainer really.
I know that you liked them more, still I (and most people here) trust measurements more, hope they will confirm your hearing experiences.
 
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abdo123

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So many people not giving the headless panther. I don't know why. At $800 for a pair of small bookshelves, they should perform quite well. These faired quite poorly. I saw the stink in the charts and in Amir's comments. I give these stinkers a headless panther and am disgusted that it did so bad at that price point. Oh well......
because the peaking at 2-4 KHz is intentional and not a design error. the directivity shows a good crossover design.
 

pio80

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Dec 28, 2020
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I've had these. They were impressed me..looked gorgeous, sounded amazing. I was charmed by them. I thought that I found my end bookselfs but after some time I felt tired day by day..in long comparision with Dbr62 I sold them..
 

Yasuo

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So many people not giving the headless panther. I don't know why. At $800 for a pair of small bookshelves, they should perform quite well. These faired quite poorly. I saw the stink in the charts and in Amir's comments. I give these stinkers a headless panther and am disgusted that it did so bad at that price point. Oh well......
Me too. Honestly for 800$ I can buy some really well made active monitors (with great performance).
 

beaRA

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Apr 16, 2021
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Me too. Honestly for 800$ I can buy some really well made active monitors (with great performance).
Because the value proposition can get even worse. Just check the new GoldenEar BRX review.
 

bennybbbx

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this have only a 5 inch speaker and can go to 50 hz around -3 db and 40 hz around -9 db and it have no boom frequency at 100 hz boost. much better than other 5 inch and 6 inch speakers. thats the socket bass port that bring such good results, you can see in the measure that it boost alot. much more as other from 50 to 100 hz. maybe such a port have lesser port noise ?.
 

LunaTempesta

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Finally a proper review of this evo line up. I was considering the floor standers of these for a long time. Most reviews online seemed to really like the sound. Went to a specialised store to listen and straight away changed my mind. Assuming the smaller ones have a similar sound signature. To me they were really boring to listen to. They also didn't look as nice as the pictures give them credit for imo.
 

Walter

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Finally a proper review of this evo line up. I was considering the floor standers of these for a long time. Most reviews online seemed to really like the sound. Went to a specialised store to listen and straight away changed my mind. Assuming the smaller ones have a similar sound signature. To me they were really boring to listen to. They also didn't look as nice as the pictures give them credit for imo.
Do note that the fact that speakers in audio stores which sound a bit dull are often the most accurate ones! Many brands--Klipsch immediately comes to mind--have an intentional treble emphasis that sounds good at first but becomes tiresome really quickly. That makes speakers with a flatter frequency response sound dull and boring. I would not use the results of this one test to condemn the performance of the entire EVO line, especially the 3 ways. I have not heard them, so they might be just as bad as the 4.1 or worse, I'm just saying this review is not proof of that. It does mean that I now won't even consider buying the 4.2 unless Amir or Erin or some other reliable source tests it.
 

LunaTempesta

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Do note that the fact that speakers in audio stores which sound a bit dull are often the most accurate ones! Many brands--Klipsch immediately comes to mind--have an intentional treble emphasis that sounds good at first but becomes tiresome really quickly. That makes speakers with a flatter frequency response sound dull and boring. I would not use the results of this one test to condemn the performance of the entire EVO line, especially the 3 ways. I have not heard them, so they might be just as bad as the 4.1 or worse, I'm just saying this review is not proof of that. It does mean that I now won't even consider buying the 4.2 unless Amir or Erin or some other reliable source tests it.
I don't like overly emphasized highs/lows/mids. So if that was the case I'm sure I would've liked the Wharfedale's. Not sure how to properly explain it. But it almost sounded like the Wharfedale were being played underwater compared to others. Even the vocals were distant in my ear, positioning seemed really nit-picky as well. I did have some Klipsch in the comparison as well and they were too sharp/bright definitely.
The overal presentation really just made me wonder 'Why do people recommend this speaker'. It might be personal taste as well, and I'm fairly new to all this so no expert at all. But out of the whole line up I had that day I was the least bit impressed by those 4.4's.
 

Entropy

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So many people not giving the headless panther. I don't know why. At $800 for a pair of small bookshelves, they should perform quite well. These faired quite poorly. I saw the stink in the charts and in Amir's comments. I give these stinkers a headless panther and am disgusted that it did so bad at that price point. Oh well......
Maybe, if you could just imagine for a second, that some people actually own them, or that some people just like how they sound?
 

Head_Unit

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At Audio Element, Wharfedale's EVO 4.4 had a very narrow sweet spot. By contrast, their Linton Heritage sounded nice throughout their open plan shop. I'd also note that their Diamond 11.4 which I run at one house does not have a notably narrow sweet spot either.
 

Spkrdctr

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Maybe, if you could just imagine for a second, that some people actually own them, or that some people just like how they sound?
Yes, I can imagine that. I have a good imagination.
 

Xyrium

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Noooooooooooooooo! I had high hopes for this line from Wharfedale. Man, the latest few speaker reviews are bumming me out. Either they're amazing and I can't afford them, or they underperform within my price range.
 

Zvu

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Why would you draw conclusions about the whole speaker line using the lowest end model as representative sample ?

If i was choosing what model to review, i'd never chose this one but 4.2 which is standmount threeway loudspeaker. There is nothing special about 4.1 but lots of goodies in 4.2. It is a three way that costs 1200$ so cheaper than LS50meta. It would be interesting.

Looking at the Evo line, this is the only two way and i expected nothing good from it. Other models are three way with dome midrange and we've seen those perform great - even the cheap ones.
 
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akarma

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Why would you draw conclusions about the whole speaker line using the lowest end model as representative sample ?
Why not? I'm shure that 4.2 will be tuned with the same quality as this one.
 

Zvu

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Well, no one can stop you from being sure of anything. You can deduce that all Wharfedale loudspeakers are bad, based on such logic.
 
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