Cinema Grand
Three great systems for a thousand and change
(continued)
Wharfedale
Music that shines and shimmers
Wharfedale is among the grand old names of British speaker design, a tradition only slightly less long and glorious than that of the Royal Navy. The Diamond series suite Wharfedale submitted to our tender mercies features the narrow, slightly boat-shaped Model 9.1 front left/right speaker; the 9.SR surround, with a smaller, shallow cabinet obviously designed with wall mounting in mind; the curvy 9.CS center; and the 10-inch SW150 subwoofer.
SETUP The deep cabinets of the Diamond 9.1 have no wall-mount inserts, and they’re best suited to stands anyway given their protruding biwirable dual input terminals (making them the only speaker in our trio to offer this option). I placed them where I set up all three systems — well away from the wall, which is where any conventional speaker will generally perform best. The 9.SR surrounds do include keyhole wall-hangers, while the 9.CS center uses stick-on rubber feet to provide a stable setting on a flat shelf or TV. Wharfedale includes four larger stick-ons so you can adapt a slight up- or down-tilt for an over- or under-TV location.
MUSIC PERFORMANCE The Diamond 9.1’s tonal character was just about perfect: even, extended, and free of “honk,” “hoo,” muffling, or any of the other typical midrange spoilers. Every well-produced vocal track I auditioned sounded natural and very much in-the-room. Treble was open, clear, and defined, yielding the most natural sound heard from this group on fine detail like the drummer’s brushwork on Norah Jones’s “Don’t Know Why.” Played full-range without the sub, the 9.1s clearly had the most extended bottom end and supported a lower-than-80 Hz crossover setting very well — a potential advantage in some rooms.
Multichannel music sounded fine, too, though I could (just barely) detect the 9.CS center’s slightly “cupped” tonality, compared with the beautifully open 9.1s, on vocals and instruments mixed to the center channel. The 9.SRs were surprisingly dynamic for such shallow speakers but did sound a little strained at extreme volumes — especially when brass instruments were mixed hard to a surround channel.
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