Magic boxes: The Wharfedale Diamond 225
 

As a second budget system to have in the home for the family and baby sitters to use in our kitchen, I ordered a NAD D3020 integrated with a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 225 bookshelf speakers. Upon hooking them up with AudioQuest Rocket 33 bi-wire cables, I could tell this was a very nice setup as soon as I heard the first song through it. This $1200 setup has pace, rhythm, and soul.

After a week, I got curious. I wondered what these speakers will sound like hooked up to my primary system in my listening room. It's always fun and enlightening to mix up speakers, amps, source components, etc. I disconnected the high pass filter boxes that are needed for my Vandersteen Quatro Wood CTs and ran my XLRs directly from my DAC output section to the amp. I used a pair of Benchmark Canare speaker wire with a pair of banana plugs on the speaker end and SpeakOn connectors on the amp side.

Upon firing things up, that soulful rhythmic pace of the Wharfedales I heard with the NAD was present to yet another level with my TotalDac and Benchmark setup. These speakers swing and sway. They get you up to dance, conduct, and boogie! In this respect these small $450 pair of speakers beat anything I've heard before, whether Wilsons, Magicos, Linns or Vandersteens. I have no idea what Wharfedale's engineers did to design this simple box. They should be in every dance club and any audiophile who needs motivation to exercise by getting up and dancing while enjoying their favorite hobby.

I've been continuing to analyze these speakers with different genre of music as well as comparing them with the ELAC Debut B6 bookshelf budget speakers I got a couple weeks earlier, and of course to my main speakers. The Wharfedales sacrifice resolution compared to the B6s and obviously to the much more expensive Quatro Wood CTs. The B6 sounds more overall like what we're accustomed to as audiophiles - more resolution and detail. The B6 sense of swing is similar to the Vandersteens. The Wharfedales sound smoother and snappier with rock music but the difference in pace and rhythm diminish with classical music. Comparing the three speakers has been fascinating.

Thanks for sharing, Yong. I should be over to your place soon enough to hear for myself.