Wharfedale Aura 2 review by ErinsAudioCorner

[Linnie]

I’ve had both. The lintons are warmer and better for a space you’re moving around in. The Aura2 want you in the sweet spot. I preferred the lintons for mixed/everyday use.

Having narrowed down my search for a more neutral loudspeaker to either the Wharfedale Linton 85 or the Aura 2, I wondered which one to chose. Erin’s measurements show that the Aura 2 has a downshelved bass region while the Linton has two flat but wide dips in the treble region.
I wondered with which deviation I could live more easily. I had no opportunity to listen to either of them before a purchase, let alone a direct A-B comparison. To get an impression of how these deviations might sound and how audible they are at all, I tried to mimic them with a headphone:

As a starting point I used my Sony MDR-ZX110 headphone with the Equalization APO PEG/Peace UI and sweetchaos' eq proposal for a more neutral response of this headphone.

I added to the peace file of the Sony some settings which I thought would mimic the deviations of the Wharfedale speakers to some degree. Probably there is software that could calculate this, but I don’t know about that.

To „mimic“ the Aura 2, I added a highpass @150 Hz, -1,5 dB
For the Linton I added these settings: @ 2.000 Hz, - 1.0 dB, Q = 2, the same @ 4.000 Hz

Listening to some tracks while switching between the settings revealed that the „Aura“ downshelving of the bass altered the sound considerably. It took away a lot of „substance“. The „Linton“ dips where far less audible. When listening very carefully I could hear the sound become a tad warmer but sometimes the changes were barely distinguishable.

Would be nice to know if my little experiment with the different eq settings makes sense or is an unrealistic approach.

 

[Soniclife]

Listening to some tracks while switching between the settings revealed that the „Aura“ downshelving of the bass altered the sound considerably.

You cannot match an anechoic speaker measurement in the bass to headphones, that speaker measurement will likely not shelve down in most rooms. How both speakers will work in your room is hard to predict.

 

[Linnie]

that speaker measurement will likely not shelve down in most rooms. How both speakers will work in your room is hard to predict.

I was curious about that so I tried again in-room with my stereo system. This time I simply started with a neutral equalizer setting and added the settings as described before:

To „mimic“ the Aura 2, I added a highpass @150 Hz, -1,5 dB
For the Linton I added these settings: @ 2.000 Hz, - 1.0 dB, Q = 2, the same @ 4.000 Hz

Differences were more difficult to hear than with the headphone, but were there. The highpass was sometimes more audible, sometimes less, depending on the material played. The dips were hardly audible. So IMHO the Aura 2 could be expected to sound a tad brighter, as Matt34 described.