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Wharfedale Evo 4.2 - 3-way standmount, AMT tweeter

FWIW I bought the 4.4s in black and I’m really enjoying them.

I think the price of most hifi has gone crazy, for whatever reasons I don’t know.

In this regard I think the Wharfedales and most of the stuff from IAG in general makes a lot of sense.

Bang for buck is very high.

It seems Peter Comeau is doing a good job, he certainly how to make an enjoyable, well balanced pair of speakers.
 
FWIW I bought the 4.4s in black and I’m really enjoying them.

What is the diameter of the bass drivers on the Evo 4.4? It says 6.5" on the Wharfedale website. But its also says that for the Evo 4.2 and I've just measured them - including the rubber surrounds they are only 5" wide. Including the black circular blanking plate around the driver makes it nearly 7" - but that's not part of the driver, its part of the baffle. I think Wharfedale need to check their specs!
 
Sounds like they have put the budget into the drivers rather than the cosmetics. A sensible decision at the price point
 
Sounds like you have them in hand then? How do they sound?

Well, still trying to find best position with them.... pretty good top & mid but bass is a problem - it can be bloaty and lumpy. I have the speakers well out into the room - 1 m from rear wall and side walls. which is really further than I want them to be.

I've had much larger speakers here, most of them reflex, and not had problems like this - except with 2 pairs of active studio monitors, Adam S2a and Focal 6be which exhibited the same port problems. The answer for the Focal 6be back then was (counter-intuitively) to push it back until it was nearly touching the rear wall.... cured the bass bloat to some extent but messed the imaging. They didn't stay here long.

I'm currently trying the port-stuffing trick.... there is large port in the bottom of the speaker which then sits on a plinth with a gap all around the base. Apparently its tuned to 48Hz. The plinth is easily unscrewed so I've currently got a rolled-up sock in each port! Its limiting the bass lumpiness but it also seems to be squashing the sound overall - mid and treble are affected too.

Without the socks the speakers can sound great on the right kind of misc, very vivid and sparkling with great imaging. These are potentially great speakers.... but that bass is a let down. Not sure they will be keepers tbh but I will be further experimenting on positioning including going close to rear wall.
 
What is the diameter of the bass drivers on the Evo 4.4? It says 6.5" on the Wharfedale website. But its also says that for the Evo 4.2 and I've just measured them - including the rubber surrounds they are only 5" wide. Including the black circular blanking plate around the driver makes it nearly 7" - but that's not part of the driver, its part of the baffle. I think Wharfedale need to check their specs!

Hi Alan, the convention with almost all driver and speaker manufacturers is to give the overall diameter of the frame as the nominal size. The emissive surface is always a good bit smaller. You can find examples on the websites of most of the established driver manufacturers (Scanspeak, for example). It's pretty much standard practice, and has been for a long time.
 
Well, still trying to find best position with them.... pretty good top & mid but bass is a problem - it can be bloaty and lumpy. I have the speakers well out into the room - 1 m from rear wall and side walls. which is really further than I want them to be.

I've had much larger speakers here, most of them reflex, and not had problems like this - except with 2 pairs of active studio monitors, Adam S2a and Focal 6be which exhibited the same port problems. The answer for the Focal 6be back then was (counter-intuitively) to push it back until it was nearly touching the rear wall.... cured the bass bloat to some extent but messed the imaging. They didn't stay here long.

I'm currently trying the port-stuffing trick.... there is large port in the bottom of the speaker which then sits on a plinth with a gap all around the base. Apparently its tuned to 48Hz. The plinth is easily unscrewed so I've currently got a rolled-up sock in each port! Its limiting the bass lumpiness but it also seems to be squashing the sound overall - mid and treble are affected too.

Without the socks the speakers can sound great on the right kind of misc, very vivid and sparkling with great imaging. These are potentially great speakers.... but that bass is a let down. Not sure they will be keepers tbh but I will be further experimenting on positioning including going close to rear wall.

It's likely that the mid and tweeter will have their own chambers, so in theory they shouldn't really be affected by alterations to the bass enclosure. However it may be a balance thing, and at the end of the day, everything usually comes down to balance.

The sock-in-port trick has worked pretty well for me at times. Is it worth trying a different density of sock? ;)
 
I have taken the socks out and put the speakers MUCH closer to the wall - now only 18cm. What an incredible difference! Bass is still very present but much much tighter and keeping time with the rest of the music. That's just so totally at odds with my understanding of conventional wisdom on ported speakers. Anyway, fairly happy with how they are sounding right now, they could maybe replace the venerable & ancient KEF 103.2 long-term.

Looks wise... well, I'm not too keen on the faux-chrome rings around the outer rim of each driver, that's a wee bit tacky. I'll probably leave the magnetic grilles on, they are quite nice. The cabinet itself is very well finished but a wee bit vinylish rather than the feeling of real wood. The speakers are not as heavy as looks or size would suggest. oh well you pays your money and makes your choice.

On the issues of the driver size - I think Wharfedale are trying to have it both ways... the midrange soft dome unit is spec'd as 2", which is correct for within its surround but would be 4" if they measured it same way as they are measuring the woofer.
 
Glad they're sounding better.

You're right that the nominal sizes given for domes (mids and tweeters) tend to reflect the actual radiating area pretty well, on the whole. I don't know why it's not the same for woofers. But Wharfedale aren't out of line here. For example Scan-speak's nominally 18cm woofers have an effective radiating diameter of 136mm. Seas's 18cm woofers are slightly smaller still.
 
Yes, same size drivers in the 4.4 model.

I thought they looked less blingy in the black and I prefer them with the grilles on. More intimate with them off but a bit sharper too.

It sounds like you’re exciting a problem bass frequency in your room with the speakers out from the wall.

I have the opposite problem, my room sucks the bass out a bit so the 4.4s suit my space very well as they’re quite weighty sounding.
 
The thing is that other speakers have not had these problems in the same room in the same position. I was finding things a bit odd and soundstage artificially wide with them against the wall. I've moved them out into the room again, 1.2 m from sides, 1m from walls, and bass is not too bad if listening in near field. But still getting many moments of loose bass... a sort of bleurghy-thunderfart that just spoils everything. Such a shame because I really think the midrange and that AMT tweeter are doing a superb job.

All my experiences with modern speakers keep coming back to the same question.... why can't somebody make an affordable, domestically acceptable, sealed-box speaker anymore? Why are we cursed with reflex ported speakers with fake bass? (and before anyone says ATC - been there, done it, sent them back after a home demo).
 
All my experiences with modern speakers keep coming back to the same question.... why can't somebody make an affordable, domestically acceptable, sealed-box speaker anymore? Why are we cursed with reflex ported speakers with fake bass? (and before anyone says ATC - been there, done it, sent them back after a home demo).

Totally agree. All the speakers I owned back in the day were sealed - from my first system in 1978 (Keesonic Kubs) until well into the 90s. They included: AR12, Gale 301 and 402, LS3/5a (twice), Celestion SL6s and SL600.

Part of the problem is that the vast majority of bass drivers available these days have a Qts of less than 0.4, so they are best suited for reflex loading. But I guess that may be a symptom rather than the cause - the manufacturers will make what they can sell.

I've just built some sealed boxes with 10" Scan-speak woofers, and even though they're only set up provisionally (not properly glued/sealed, no damping, no stuffing) they immediately sound tighter and more even than all the reflex (and transmission line) enclosures I've had over the past couple of decades.
 
Totally agree. All the speakers I owned back in the day were sealed - from my first system in 1978 (Keesonic Kubs) until well into the 90s. They included: AR12, Gale 301 and 402, LS3/5a (twice), Celestion SL6s and SL600.

Part of the problem is that the vast majority of bass drivers available these days have a Qts of less than 0.4, so they are best suited for reflex loading. But I guess that may be a symptom rather than the cause - the manufacturers will make what they can sell.

I've just built some sealed boxes with 10" Scan-speak woofers, and even though they're only set up provisionally (not properly glued/sealed, no damping, no stuffing) they immediately sound tighter and more even than all the reflex (and transmission line) enclosures I've had over the past couple of decades.

Keesonic Kubs were my first speakers - appropriated from my dad along with a Sansui receiver when I left home. I think they are back in his attic now.

When you are happy with those speakers of yours.... would you like to build a 2nd pair? ;)
 
When you are happy with those speakers of yours.... would you like to build a 2nd pair? ;)

:eek: I'm afraid they're just woofer boxes. They're to go with a pair of Hyperion 938 mid/top units that I picked up. The combo is working rather well, even though I've just cobbled it together at the moment.
 
This is strange as I discounted the 4.2s as I found them not bass heavy enough for me.

Bloaty they were not.
 
I am still trying to get these sounding right. I have taken the plinths off and now have the speakers sitting directly on 4 hemispherical sorbothane feet (supplied with the speakers) attached to the top plate of my stands. Night and day difference... now the bass is as it should be, with the speakers c. 50 cm from the wall, 60 cm from sides. Much Much better!

The plinths have a waveguide that blocks output from the port underneath the speakers at the front and rear, but are open at the sides. With my arrangement above, the output from the port is only impeded by the sorbothane pads (i.e. almost nothing), which themselves are approx the same height as the sections of the plinth which block the front and rear.

Just amazed at the difference this has made.

Here is the port on the bottom of the speaker, and the pads I've now got on the top of the stands:
Wharf+evo4.2+(3).jpg


and here is the plinth that normally sits under that port, showing how it vents either side but blocks front and back.
Wharf+evo4.2+(2).jpg
 
I am still trying to get these sounding right. I have taken the plinths off and now have the speakers sitting directly on 4 hemispherical sorbothane feet (supplied with the speakers) attached to the top plate of my stands. Night and day difference... now the bass is as it should be, with the speakers c. 50 cm from the wall, 60 cm from sides. Much Much better!

The plinths have a waveguide that blocks output from the port underneath the speakers at the front and rear, but are open at the sides. With my arrangement above, the output from the port is only impeded by the sorbothane pads (i.e. almost nothing), which themselves are approx the same height as the sections of the plinth which block the front and rear.

Just amazed at the difference this has made.

Here is the port on the bottom of the speaker, and the pads I've now got on the top of the stands:
Wharf+evo4.2+(3).jpg


and here is the plinth that normally sits under that port, showing how it vents either side but blocks front and back.
Wharf+evo4.2+(2).jpg

Very interesting Alan, i've done a similar thing with my PMC's, there are four sorbathane feet between the bolts on plinth and speaker, the bolts are loose so the speaker is floating on the sorbathane pads, i've then added large Sorbathane feet to where the spikes normally sit on the bottom of the plinths, the whole shebang sits on a paving slab (i have a suspended wooden floor). In my case the Sorbathe really cleaned up the bass.
 
I removed the spikes on my Tannoy DC6T and cleaned things up a bit not fully I have the god awful combination suspended wooden flooring with laminate floor covering and plasterboard dot n dab walls.
I replaced the spikes sorbothane pads Atacama ones from fleabay were cheap enough,
effect was more bass quite a bit in fact now can be a touch bloated on some tracks , others sound way better, still a work in progress.
Still trying to get finished sound not tried the large slab idea what you recommend for this as they have to be aesthetically pleasing to keep others in the house happy as well

on hold until my amps are back from service as just sold the nait5i beginning to regret that already
 
Just amazed at the difference this has made.
You have substantially changed the port tuning and so a significant change is to be expected. Normally one wouldn't expect moving away from the designed port geometry to be an improvement. However for ported speakers close to boundaries reducing the output from the port (e.g. foam plugs) can help reduce boom. Changing the port geometry and the tuning in the way you have done is not usually an option. Interesting.
 


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