wharfedale 8.2 or 9.1

saran

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One of my friend is planning to buy wharfedale diamond speakers.

which one is good among the two

the 9.1's is small book shelf with frequency response of 50 -24k
the 8.2's are bit larger bookshelves with frequency response of 45-20K

both have more or less the same price tag.


Thanks
Saran
 
Please stick with 9.1's and mate that with a sub. The sub is critical since the bookshelves really don't do lows well at all!
 
The wharfedale.co.uk site does not show the 8.x product line, so my guess is that this is a discontinued product and the dealer is trying to pawn off some leftovers.

Pls check with them, and if true you should be getting them at a big discount.

the 9.1 is a award winning speaker and should be much better than the 8.2

rgds
Srini
 
The wharfedale.co.uk site does not show the 8.x product line, so my guess is that this is a discontinued product and the dealer is trying to pawn off some leftovers.

Pls check with them, and if true you should be getting them at a big discount.

the 9.1 is a award winning speaker and should be much better than the 8.2

rgds
Srini

8 series is listed under previous model category.
Wharfedale

better stick to 9 series from wharfedale.
 
the 9.1 is a award winning speaker and should be much better than the 8.2

Wrong! The 8.2 is better. I did a listening test with a speaker switch box that allowed me to change on-the-fly in between a song without a break.

The 9.1 is a pool of piddle :D

Regards
 
Wrong! The 8.2 is better. I did a listening test with a speaker switch box that allowed me to change on-the-fly in between a song without a break.

Interesting!! On what have you based this conclusion? Can you provide some examples of music that you heard on the two speakers, and what was better on the 8.2? Some details will be appreciated.

Cheers
 
Interesting!! On what have you based this conclusion? Can you provide some examples of music that you heard on the two speakers, and what was better on the 8.2? Some details will be appreciated.

Cheers

Wharfedale 9.1 is good.But Wharfedale family spk are not so open as others like Mordauntshort,Tannoy.

For Venkat only- inbox is full again.
 
Interesting!! On what have you based this conclusion? Can you provide some examples of music that you heard on the two speakers, and what was better on the 8.2? Some details will be appreciated.

Cheers

I did an A/B test with NAD c325BEE 50w rms per ch amp.. speaker cables were DAC.

I heard "The great train Journey" by Prof. Raghavendra of Carnatic school of Percusion, Fusion of western Jazz/classical and Carnatic

Instruments: Bass electric guitar, Mridangam, Electric Veena, Violin, Kanjeera, Morsing, Vocals, Keyboard, Saxaphone, Flute , other afro/latin small hand percussion drums, Tabla

and

"Swara Laya Mela" By Vikku Vinayakram,Subhashchandran/Gurumurthy and others.

Instruments: Ghatam, Mridangam, Violin, Keyboard, Electric guitar, Konnakol (male vocals), Morsing, Tabla, Drumpads, Veena, Kanjeera

Off topic - This album is one I consider the greatest showcase of Indian percussion!! I love it and recommend it to all here. Stupendously energetic with Virtuoso performances from the greats of Indian music. A smooth blend of melody and harmony with rhythm. Go get it!! :)

A Cuban/Latin album and a Motown Jazz album with warm mids from Alto and Tenor Sax/Trumpets/Clarinets besides deep rolling bass lines and tappy Cymbals and punchy drum beats.


Wharfedale 9.2 -

Negative:
Really bland mids, subdued highs, sounded like a person with a stuffed nose ( without being nasal), details in mid were seriously lacking like the speaker was swallowing these frequencies. I had to ask the dealer if the speaker wires were out of phase by accident.

Positive:
Deeper Bass, would love to find another book shelf with the same bass but more open/airy mids and treble

Wharfedale 8.2 -
Negative: Noticeably less bass than 9.2. The lack of depth is apparent only in A/B testing though. But once I noticed it, I was thrown into a big dilemma - How can I get the 8.2 sound with the 9.2 bass? Not convinced it will not fatigue my ears - The ghatam sounded too bright and a little shrill with max treble, on other hand, I felt something was lacking with tone defeat or neutral bass/treble.

Positive: Nice and cheerfully open sound, with an open-air concert feel. Definitely better for percussion/rock and overall. Even the smoother Jazz sections sounded better here than on 9.2.

However with 8.2, I cannot help feeling that I will want to buy a new speaker after a few years - for the comparable lack of depth in lows ( I feel a kinda greed for the deeper lows of the 9.2). All the more since the NAD is known to have lows/bass that do not dominate, I want speakers that extract every ounce of bass from my amp. I am trying to avoid that situation and auditioning other speakers this weekend. If the 8.2 had the deeper bass of 9.2, I would have made an instant purchase last week itself. It is definitely a better sounding speaker that will not sacrifice mids and vocals for listening pleasure (once I forget about the depth of the 9.2 bass) ...

I also checkout The Tannoy F1 Custom, it was a joke. No character - when the sound filled the room, it was like being caught in a sandstorm in Rajasthan. Later I found after I left the dealers, that soft-clipping was off in my amp. I guess the 50W rating for Tannoy is optimistic. Also the dealer only had a 4000 rupee DVD player that screwed the experience totally. :D

The Wharfedale 9.1 has the same flaws as the 9.2 and is even more insipid. Comparing the 9.1 and Tannoy with the 8.2s and 9.2s , I realize that anything with a single 5.x inch driver for bass/mid is going to sound quite inadequate (The MS 906is have two 5.x drivers and they don't sound so poor).

I am really shocked at all the positive reviews I read for these speakers over many weeks!! I have a hunch that they are either paid reviews written to entice consumers or they come from people who have grown up listening to speakers with smaller drivers. To give my example at least, I grew up listening to speakers with 8/10" drivers and the sound from 5" ones is simply unacceptable.


To summarize - all the diamond 9s have a stuffy nose and swallow their mids and treble creating insipid watered down sounds. And the the 9.5 floor stander Booms within the cabinet!! Not worth the extra bucks at all! I was not happy listening to the 8s or 9s with neutral bass/treble.

I am going to re-audition the speakers to really decide since the price range is optimal .

Cheers
 
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I was disappointed with the Wharfedales myself. I conveyed this to the dealer myself - but he put it down to his absence and his store helps ignorance. While both may be true, I don't feel like taking another 110 km round trip just for a repeat audition! (the dealer is in Tirupur!)

Lets see... I might drop in if and when my work takes me to that town... not likely before the end of Jan though!
 
Guys

I did a re-audition of the wharfedale 9.2s vs 8.2s. And I am really embarrassed to say :eek:, my opinion about the 9.2 has reversed 180degrees!!

The difference in conditions were that last time I auditioned around 6pm with a lot of ambient noise from traffic outside the showroom. Hence I my ears only latched on to the somewhat brighter mids of the 8.2s. However my earlier suspicions about the 8.2 turned into apprehension - that they will cause listening fatigue after an hour or so.. True the sax sounded more airy and breathy with the 8.2s.. but everything else was in favor of the 9.2s.

Earlier I described the 9.2 as swallowing frequencies. I will now re-phrase it as the "excellent decay characteristics" of the curved cabinet of the 9.2s. It works wonders in dampening the sound waves and ensuring they do not reflect. Earlier with the high ambient noise, I was mislead quite a bit - I was playing at loud volume and still not hearing the subtleties in the sound well enough as a result of it. This time there was little ambient noise being a Sunday, and the 9.2 stood out as a really marvelous piece of engineering. Everything they say in the reviews is true - sweet non-fatiguing sound, depth in low-mids, quite and natural reproduction without being too much "electronic" sounding. Whether the sweet sound can be termed as coloring is best left to nit-pickers. I was happy to place an order for the set towards the end of the audition.

For the 8.2s, besides a potentially fatiguing sound, what I said about them earlier stood out like a sore thumb this time - lack of depth in lows. I also detected today a hint of muddiness in the low-mids - which wasn't apparent last time. The low-mids I instantly visualized as a sangam of two rivers with muddy water flowing in from one stream.

Apart from the ambient noise, I realized yesterday when auditioning another speaker - my CD of Swara Laya Mela (Label: Koel Music ) was also to blame. The mastering is of poor somewhat dull sounding quality. I am now searching for the same album from another label :)

I am now sufficiently assured that I can listen to the 9.2s for hours at length and feel quite confident that I would not "want" another speaker set for another decade. For the price and sound, I am certainly not going to miss the floor standers that cost 8K more for sure.

My apologies to all for the misleading review earlier. I must acknowledge all the reviews that I suspected for their integrity before, as faithful and honest. My opinion on the 9.1s still stands though - those who grow up listening to speakers with smaller drivers are likely to find the 9.1 satisfying considering the price points. I did not audition it again today, but I am sure it must have the same characteristics as the 9.2 but with a "smaller" sound ( which I definitely recall) due to the driver and cabinet size - all other specs remaining the same.


The one lesson to learn from this experience is to audition only on a quite Sunday esp. when the dealer shop is right off a busy road.

Cheers
 
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Thank God! I was starting to wonder whether I must reevaluate my auditioning methods, and apologise to all those who had purchased the Wharfedales because of what they read here.

I once went to a Sonodyne shop in in Chennai to listen to their speakers. The shop owner had a strange logic. He kept all the windows open, no A/c, and the door had human traffic very akin to Bombay VT. His argument was that this is a 'real life' situation. I came away shaking my head as I couldn't even hear the music. All I did was constantly twist my head to differentiate various noises I was hearing.

Let us enjoy our music !!!!

Cheers
 
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I was disappointed with the Wharfedales myself. I conveyed this to the dealer myself - but he put it down to his absence and his store helps ignorance. While both may be true, I don't feel like taking another 110 km round trip just for a repeat audition! (the dealer is in Tirupur!)

Lets see... I might drop in if and when my work takes me to that town... not likely before the end of Jan though!

You might want to reconsider and audition the 9.2 again ... based on my re-discovery, atleast I can vouch for them now :D but remember to *always* audition a speaker with your own amp.

Cheers
 
Thank God! I was starting to wonder whether I must reevaluate my auditioning methods, and apologise to all those who had purchased the Wharfedales because of what they read here.

<snip>

Let us enjoy of music !!!!

Cheers

Thanks mate. Your faith in the Wahrfies can be termed as "sound" advice. I too had self doubts based on the numerous positive feedbacks I read over weeks... everybody could not have been wrong, something told me... :)

Cheers
 
wow... what a roller coaster ride .. pretty emotional for me ;) , mainly because i am very eager to audition wharfedale 9.2.

Thanks guys for being flexible and frank about your opinions (original/updated :)).

cheers
Rahul
 
Hi Gobble,

Kindly let us know the price of 9.2's.

Thanks,
Prakash

The retailer quoted 15K. I was in a hurry and did not bargain further.
You might want to try your luck. :)

Someone on this forum got it for 14.4k last month from Pune.

Regards
 
The retailer quoted 15K. I was in a hurry and did not bargain further.
You might want to try your luck. :)

Someone on this forum got it for 14.4k last month from Pune.

Regards

Another instance of a dealer quoting high? The distributor, Designer Audio quotes the MRP as 14.5K.
 
Another instance of a dealer quoting high? The distributor, Designer Audio quotes the MRP as 14.5K.

The Dealer showed me a print-out with a price-list - it mentioned 17k, then he very "generously" offered me 15k as discount. I knew the prices were 12.5k in Jul/Aug Time frame and 14.5k was the going rate... I was just in a tearing hurry to finish off the business of purchasing thats all.

I did wonder then if the printed price-list he very generously showed me was a special designer one custom printed for me ... :D

I will be more careful with the cd player purchase and not rush it.

Regards
 
Well done Gobble...

It takes a true audiophile to understand , differentiate and also change an opinion w/o feeling egoistic about it

Great analysis...

9.2s are available at 15K... increase attributed to the greenback going red against the INR :)
 
Thank you.

PS: I do recall a MRP quote of 14.5k given to me days before I purchased the speakers.

For the benefit of others coming in late, I am certain it can be made "more affordable" after discount. considering that the international price converted at currrent dollar price it is still around INR 10k ( while he stock would have been booked and shipped below this peak) so a premium of 50% on the speaker does not look "fair" enough a price.

Cheers
 
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Wharfedale Linton Heritage Speakers in Red Mahogany finish at a Special Offer Price. BUY now before the price increase.
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