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Wharfedale Aura 2 review by ErinsAudioCorner

sweetchaos

sweetchaos

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Erin just reviewed the Wharfedale Aura 2 (3-way bookshelf)
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Video Review:

Written Review:

Wharfedale AURA 2 Speaker Review

Wharfedale AURA 2 Speaker Review
www.erinsaudiocorner.com


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Discuss!
 
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I hate that kind of extremely narrow directivity, in practice this makes listening quite annoying. It's easy to tell just by looking at it too.
Otherwise very well performing speaker though.
 
He had a lot of great things to say about it, I'm going to check out the data and wait for the PS score. Looks like another great speaker. A friend of mine has the Aura 1 and he prefers it over Polk Reference and PSB Revela bookshelves
 
3125b said:
I hate that kind of extremely narrow directivity, in practice this makes listening quite annoying. It's easy to tell just by looking at it too.
Otherwise very well performing speaker though.
Click to expand...
The vertical contour plots seem pretty typical for non-coaxial designs, but I would worry about where the tweeter height ends up with my current stands. The horizontal dispersion is very wide.
 
Interesting how the tweeter beams both horizontally and vertically. Careful positioning and aiming seem to be required. I very much dislike those properties of AMT tweeters. (I have not watched the video yet.)

From the posted graphs, other than availability, I do not see a reason to choose this over the Philharmonic BMR.
 
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Strange that the preference score is so high with that narrow directivity.
 
Puddingbuks said:
Strange that the preference score is so high with that narrow directivity.
Click to expand...
Narrow directivity helps the score, correlation (r , r^2 ) is part of the score, and the more the PIR is slopped that thus means there is a higher correlation between frequency and dB, boosting the score. It’s one of the quirks of the calculation (I assume only dome tweeters were used in the creation of the score so this issue never came up).
 
sweetchaos said:
Does Wharfedale have a Klippel NFS?
Anyone know?
Click to expand...
They have an anechoic chamber. From their website:
Dovedale is built in the home of British Hi-Fi at Wharfedale’s UK headquarters in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. Incorporating key manufacturing, assembly and finishing processes for specially selected products in addition to the R&D function already located there. A 9,000ft2 production facility has been added to the existing building, including a new anechoic chamber, making a total of 25,000ft2 of office, lab and manufacturing space. It is here that Dovedale is manufactured by highly trained, vastly experienced loudspeaker experts.
Click to expand...
 
It's cool to see the designer commented on the video, slightly disappointed in the studio monitor comments and encouraging subjective opinions but I suppose he still has to toe the company line

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Half the price of Elysian. I wonder what the differences would be; better mid and woofer + cabinet I assume. Maybe there's also upcharge for "made in UK"?
 
3125b said:
I hate that kind of extremely narrow directivity, in practice this makes listening quite annoying. It's easy to tell just by looking at it too.
Otherwise very well performing speaker though.
Click to expand...
It holds up remarkably well up to 7khz though, so you're only going to miss a bit of sizzle and sparkle if you sit outside of the sweet spot. I for one was actually impressed to see the directivity even power response, and how they massaged it by having a rising on-axis response. So in practice I think they'd sound OK off-axis and maybe too bright on-axis. $2500/pair for these isn't crazy if you happen to be a ribbon fan.
 
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The BMR with RAAL maintains wide horizontal dispersion all the way up to 20kHz, whereas the dispersion from this Wharfedale AMT starts to narrow considerably around 7kHz. Which is better is hard to say and probably depends on room acoustics and personal preferences and source material.

The vertical dispersion of this Wharfedale, meanwhile, is remarkably similar to the vertical dispersion of the Philharmonic BMR. Even the "eyes" from the crossover are similar.

Source: https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/philharmonic_bmr_v2/

specs
 
This is a large standmount speaker. 22" tall, 11" wide, 16" deep, and 45 pounds each.

Interesting to compare them with the Wharfedale Linton 85th, another large standmount that Erin reviewed favorably:

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/wharfedale_linton_85/

The Lintons are just a little smaller and weigh about 5 pounds less. The Lintons use a bigger woofer and bigger midrange driver.
 
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