Wharfedale Diamond 8.2 Bookshelf Loudspeakers (Maple with Champagne Front Baffle)

Amazon Customer Reviews

(5 out of 5)

Amazing Musicality and Soundstage for Little Money

I was a bit worried when I ordered the Wharfedale Diamond 8.2's based solely on written recommendations from here and from the web. Any concerns I had disappeared the first moment I heard them. They give clean musical sound with a transparency and realistic soundstage I didn't think possible from such an inexpensive speaker. The sound just 'pops' on these babies and you'll hear things that never made it to your ears before. I'm running them with ancient Carver equipment (TFM-25 amp, CT-17 Sonic Holography Preamp tuner) that has never sounded sweeter. The sound is clean and strong throughout the music range. These speakers handle high volume room filling sound cleanly and yet play great at low volume as well. An unbeatable sound/price ratio, I highly recommend the Wharefdale Diamond 8.2s.

(5 out of 5)

sweet sounding

I got my 8.2's today. They have a yellow 6.5 inch Kevlar cone with rubber surrounds, a 1" silk dome tweeter with ferrorfluid, and about a 2" front firing port. These Diamonds look very nice and are solid and they even smell good, lol.Now for the sound. A few years ago I bought a pair of [price] JL Audio 6.5 componets for my car that had silk tweets that I fell in love with. From now on it's silk or no sound. The 8.2's sound just like my JL's, clean, crisp and clear and I don't even have an e.q. or crossover hooked up to them like I did in my car. lol. As far as bass, its tight, warm, and smooth. I listen to Hendrix, Bjork, Korn, Outcast, Rage, Beck, Marley, NIN, and it all sounds fn nice. What really supprised me was how good country music sounds on them and I dont even listen to that stuff. Anyway, movies sound great too and I want to get another pair for surrounds. Add a M&K sub and its on!, though the mids on these Diamonds go down into the 40hz range!lol. Get em and you'll love um and if not, you can always return um, right! THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN LOOSE IS BY NOT BUYING THEM!

(5 out of 5)

gorgeous sound!

Ive been a music producer, record executive, and pop music critic. besides all that i've been a music fanatic since i got my first transistor radio in 1965. i need superb speakers! after shopping around brick and mortar stores, and having been flummoxed by high prices, too many options, and imbecilic sales people i came to Amazon and began reading reviews. then i ordered these fantastic speakers. i cannot over state how happy i am with them. it's just a wonderful experience... even listening to records i have heard thousands of times. i didn't want huge speakers dominating my living room (actually my wife didn't want that), but i NEED a clear vibrant bass sound. i like to hear clean high frequencies, but i don't want shrill fake treble. in the studio, we would use Yamaha NS-10's for the final mix. they offer a completely faithful, no-frills, replication of the recorded music. but they sound was so faithful that it was, well.... boring. these wharfedales are EXCITING. they are ALIVE. despite their small size they have full, warm,. round bass tones. even with my relatively low powered Denon 80 watt amp. one recommendation... plug your speaker wires into the Bass inputs in the rear of the speaker. there are two alternative plugs and when i switched to the bass inputs, the speakers realized their full potential. what a deal, too!

(5 out of 5)

Absolutely Musical

These remarkable and inexpensive speakers have an innate ability to sound "right" playing jazz (vocal and instrumental), popular music, as well as a wide range of classical music. In particular, I enjoy the degree of truth these speakers convey when reproducing the sound of a well-recorded piano. Great depth and presence with a rather narrowly-focused soundfield. These speakers offer terrific value-- another example of what British design and Chinese manufacture can achieve.

(5 out of 5)

Outstanding speakers

I bought these speakers as a Christmas present to myself last Christmas, and they partner a Cambridge Audio A500 Integrated amplifier, connected to it using Gale XL315 speaker cable, and are sitting atop of Atacama SE1000 speaker stands. The amplifier is connected to my PC and a Sky Digital receiver, so I am being a little criminal with the source at the moment.

I mainly listen to trance music, but have listened to all kinds of music at some stage. As you will gather from the previous paragraph, they are also in use for watching TV and movies.

So, what do I think of these speakers? Absolutley superb is what I think of them. Its at times quite hard to believe that the sound is coming out of two relatively small boxes.

These speakers have a "large" sound. What do I mean by this? Basically, I mean they sound like larger speakers. Like floorstanders if you will. The amount of bass that comes from these speakers is surprising, it hits quite deep, and the quality is simply excellent for a bookshelf speaker.

Elsewhere, the speakers have beautifully crisp, smooth, silk dome tweeters, which are never bright or tiring, but are very revealing for the price of these speakers. Hence they are very unforgiving of badly recorded material. However, give it well recorded material, and it simply beggars belief that music coming from such good value speakers can sound like this.

Add to this, the speakers have Kevlar 6.5" woofers, providing the bass and mids, and the speakers seem to have quite a prominent midrange, which for me equates into quite a lively, exciting sound.

Overall, I am simply blown away by these speakers, they simply flatten any speaker that costs the same price, no doubt about it whatsoever. At double the price, I would of been happy, but at £135s, I am delighted.