I like the display style of showing the before and after graphs above and below each other. I do miss the parts exhibition. It is nice to see the components that are being purchased. Thanks as always for the presentation and information.
G'day Danny, Enjoying your work. Have a pair of EVO 4.2's, I reckon they have sold very well. Great speaker as is, design allows good performance in difficult rooms, even when against a wall which is rare. Case thickness probably similar to the 4.4 and might return better rigidity on the smaller cabinet. Resolving as they are, these speakers are missing that extra bit of air and detail, expect this is been sucked out by the crossover. Possibly a good candidate for your professional touch. Would be very interested in seeing these hit their full potential. No hassle if your too busy, I'd say you get these requests a lot ! All the best, Shane, Ireland
Hey Luis , I am drinking some fine Chilean wine while watching this video, your country produces the best wine , far more superior than any of the garbage that comes from the United States.
That's right my friend, a few days ago I turned 50 years old and I enjoyed a bottle of an incredible Chilean Gran Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon, enjoying until dawn the best songs heard in different stages of my life. Indeed, we are blessed to drink incredible wines at very low prices, the cheapest Chilean wine is an elite wine abroad. Greetings!!!
@@luisrodrigonunezolguin7038 yes even here in the united States of lies and deseption it is only 10.00 dollars a bottle . The wine I used to drink from Napa valley , Clau deubua, is now close to 40.00 dollars a bottle and I would still buy wine from Chile if it was the same cost . Anyways , happy birthday brother and I hope and pray you and your people are all doing good 👍
Nice work Danny. Would you consider a step-by-step video series on crossover design and construction. As an avid DIY speaker builder, I'm always interested in how other designers go about designing a top-quality cost-effective passive crossover.
Danny has done several vids showing us how to build crossovers for his speakers. He talks about his design ethos in many of his vids just as he does for these Wharfedales. His critics argue that some of the expensive parts he uses aren't in the signal path but that's a debate for the forums.
A well designed passive crossover is nothing more then a big exspence do do it right , other than that is to choose wisely the drivers and purchase units that have smooth response, no erratic dips or humps and as smooth of a impedance as possible as well , then you will be able to not spend countless amounts of money on caps, inductors, resistors etc. I shoot for in my builds , the least amount of components in the signal path the better .
Also building up a mock up cabinets with the ability to change out the front baffles for the way the drivers will work with different dimensions of the front baffles .
@@sirtimothyjasonwellsakaelduce and that is precisely why I suggested that we leave it to the forums - every DiYer I've encountered is an expert on speaker design.
Hey Danny. Was the main problem with the vertical off axis response the fact that the mid/tweeter were crossed too high? I love your videos and have learned a lot but sometimes I wish you explained your crossover tricks more thoroughly for us simpletons. Thanks!
Hi Danny, would this upgrade kit work for the EVO 4.3’s too? I know you build the crossover specifically for the speaker as it measured before you design it.
Great video as always Danny. I am a fan, but if I may make one suggestion... Instead saying it is "not true" that an EQ does not address FQ response like changing the X-over. Maybe say using EQ only addresses the FQ response. Re-engineering the x-over can address FQ response and so much more. Then hit us with your standard format. Just trying to help you bring this community together.
Thank You! Finally Evo speakers! But mine are 4.2 😢! Do you know, or think, that the same upgrade will suit for Evo4.2. I think that crossover is the same…
@@MrSplit57 Plastic rings are actually rubberized and flexible, get a finger nail or some thin plastic in the grove and they peel right off. The crossovers are hard to get to as they are mounted to the back wall ( evo 4.1 ) and behind the down firing port.
@@azar3006 is it a port or a passive radiator? amir on audiosciencereview said it is a PR. i had a pair of 4.2 before but sold them already so i cant confirm it.
An exciting video, I would love to do such a modernization in my Wharfedale Ev o4.4. Unfortunately, I'm not a DIY person, so even if I buy your modernization kit, I don't really know what to do with it. Of course, there is a forum and local electronics mechanics, but this all complicates the matter. Is there a chance to buy a ready-made replacement crossover, so as to remove the old factory crossover and install your modified crossover? Thank you in advance for your answer. Regards. Ralph.
@@bp1012 Same here. Have had mine EVOs for about a year, but feels that they are missing clarity, also would like more brightness. They sound a bit dull right now to my ears. Almost like my 10 year old Wharfedale Diamond 10.1 more.
how does this kit that cost 70% of the total speaker its self be worth it? got my speakers New for 999Usd from denmark cant se that 660usd for a crossover beeing worth it sry. Ok ( I spoke to soon, looking at what the components cost it is a good deal tbh, now thinking of ordering xD. To bad the shipping cost is so high outside US. best regards!
So I'll have the Evo 4.2....do you have a kit for that? Also how difficult is it to do these upgrades? I'm relatively handy but haven't attempted anything like this before.
If I ever upgrade my old modified Celestions I won't bother getting anything off the shelf , I 'll get one of Danny's X kits and do it myself. I have every confidence in his designs and his ability to de - snag new speaker's even though it will have to come from the US.
Hi I have ordered those speakers… If I order the kit on the site if it is available… how to install the kit you offer? Everyone can install the kit? Do you deliver the kit with a tutorial? Thanks for such interesting review…👌
I am glad to see reasonable response from the factory. HOWEVER there was problems like Danny said. I bet this wasn't terrible to work with because response was ok and drivers behaved nicely. Parts quality and clarity went way up and typical Wharfedale fashion top end was a bit too soft and Danny fixed it.
Think I'd rather have 0dB at 15khz, and -5dB at 20khz, than +3-4dB between 10 and 15khz, and 0dB at 20khz. That sting at 10 to 15khz could be audible, while -5dB above 15khz is unlikely to be.
Simple way against the eq fiddeling is that every record is mastered and mixed in different ways and you had to fiddle pretty much for every song you play. I´m so totally with GR on this one, hands down.
@@MrSplit57 You probably have to pop off the beauty ring around one of the woofers. Then unscrew the driver to gain access. Call GR research, they can tell you exactly how to do it without damage.
That sure is a neat looking speaker in my opinion. And 3 or more ways are definitely my thing! Good explanation and off axis response. I never worry about off axis because I'm not moving around while watching a movie, but my room is well enough treated that I don't have to think much about it. For other folks, off axis response could make a big difference once summed in their room. Cheers 🍻
Moving around isn't what off axis is about. You don't hear the direct radiation from a speaker nearly as much as you think. You hear a combination of the direct, and the sum or direct and indirect reflections, which all come from the off axis response.
@@Luke-qs2cg: Off axis only really matters in rooms, untreated rooms specifically. Every one of us testing speakers and showing the data are doing so in a room! Some of us gate a frequency response, some just use smoothing. Point is, you are measuring a speaker, or you are measuring a speaker in a room. You must pick a measurement and define it, before we can really talk about it. For me the room no longer matters, I just focus on the speaker. I just fixed up my living/listening/watching room, it's on my channel if you want to check it out. But I can now focus on more speaker and less on room. Sound is not easy. Good sound even less than! Cheers 🍻
Most speaker mainstream manufacturers use generic crossover parts for crossovers, its mainly the high end boutique companies that add the extra quality components but at a price
Yes, improvements can be made by substituting superior parts, but I don’t think the present speakers sound bad, maybe a bit fussy. I would be wary of changing their voicing however because I find them rather enjoyable already.
We have Monitor Audio as an established name here in the Uk.. but you haven’t been into the brand and they seem okay.. do you have any in your district and what are your thoughts?
I had some Silver 6. They imaged really well but sounded devoid of body or colour with lumpy bass and less than perfect recordings werent great. Figuring the bigger bass drivers, ribbon tweeter and dedicated mid of the Gold GX300 would fix that i went for an ex demo pair and they were tonally much the same, cool and analytical, little warmth but stunning on good recordings with a much cleaner presentation thab the Silvers. They were very good but the Montor house sound appears to be very much a more anaemic, sterile, clean but thin style that after a while makes me want to go back to well rounded warm musical old 80s Wharfedales (when they were made in Yorkshire and sounded proper 👍)
I am a fan of using poly caps for the tweeter and midrange drivers. But thinking I could get buy with using electrolytic caps for the woofer circuit mainly because those large caps are so expensive and thinking there would not be such a large difference in those low frequencies. Am I correct?
I had a previous version of these speakers - the Wharfedale Opus 2 and they were a great speaker. I was doing a big move and sold them. The biggest difference was the Opus speakers had a soft dome tweeter as well as mid vs the AMT tweeter in the Evo. So not sure if this improved them or not.
Wharfedale shut down years ago,,it was at High Field road , Idel, Bradford. The Chinese were taking it over by December 1983...Bumped into to a group of them in the service department.....my partner was a secretary there...now only the name remains....sad .
The problem here is, hiring a company do re-do these crossovers will cost more than the speaker itself, the shippingcost alone is most likely more than the crossover. I've had my eyes on these speakers for a very long time, but after watching this video, thank you very much for saving my money NOT buying them.
The "just e.q. it" people have never run multiple iterations of a crossover, balancing time arrivals, phase, stored energy, frequency response, and power handling. I use CLIO and Soundeasy, will design multiple candidate crossovers and, usually, narrow it down to three or four. Then build up the prototypes and LISTEN! They wil all sound different. I have bins of caps, resistors, and tapped, air core inductors. The naysayers remind me of the Spice jockeys that sim. all day long, but never build anything! You've got to breathe the solder fumes and get sawdust under your fingernails! Dan
Well that screwed that up. I was going to go the extra for the EVO 4.4 over some other speakers because I read good things about it, but if I have to shell out another $660 to fine tune them then it's not worth the outlay. I was considering these as an alternative to either a pair of Dali Oberon 7s or a pair of Dali Oberon 5s paired to a SVS SB100 Subwoofer.
Question please: Re, the vertical axis: What does one do essentially to try get the lines trace close together? I mean, what do you play around in the crossover simulation? Danny glosses it over but what component/components do one dials up or down? Thanks!
I never use any crossover simulations. The two things that really affect the vertical off axis is center to center spacing and the wavelength at the crossover point.
@@dannyrichie9743 Thank you. So, with the assumption that the baffle is made (and can't be changed), one is left with trying to find the best crossover point to get the closet traces?
@@raynerstuelgalid phase response would still matter otherwise you could get some driver cancellation. You could always try playing around with some values in a crossover designer
You run the high-passed drivers down as low as possible which brings them closer to a point source and reduces phase differences at the xo point due to the longer wavelength. Then you use the crossover slopes that introduce the right amount of phase shift you need to get the drivers in phase with each other as best as you can. The drivers will initially not be in phase on a flat baffle due to the different physical depth of each driver, unless the driver depth has been specifically designed with a certain crossover in mind, which is something you might get with a high end speaker but the majority just have the drivers slapped into a baffle and the crossover is a bandaid fix.
@@raynerstuelgalid The order and slopes of the filters will also shift phase. It is a tricky balance. Most of the time i have to see what the operating range of the drivers are to know where they can be crossed.
Hi Danny I just subscribed and starting watching some of your videos,which are awesome and informative.I have a set of Boston lynfields 950 is there a way of improving them ,I am based here in South Africa , any suggestions
So, I'm in the market for a new set of speakers, and stumbled upon the evo 4.4. I saw they won best speakers awards 3 times in a row. So are you saying they're no good ? Need a new crossover ? Also , i can buy them for ~750 € a pair, which means your upgrade kit would almost double the price ? And in your opinion , is your X-MTM Encore Kit better then these evo's . Because then it'll be better to buy the kit for ~990$
They are good speakers stock. But reviewers/awards are all bought and paid for so never go off them. Imo having heard these i found the Focal Chora 826 and Triangle BR08 and BR09 considerably more musical. These are abit flat, dont image well for a narrow tower due to the tweeter type and just play it abit too safe. They are WAY better than those nasty Lintons though. But thats just my ears and you can only trust your own and nothing else!!
Since you always seem to find a problem with pretty much any speaker what about rsl speakers ? What do you think of those they use all the stuff you preach like air core inductors and poly caps etc
@Fredrik Timren I started with the 4.2, returned returned them in exchange for the 4.4s. A little more bass ( still needed a sub) they sound great just really narrow.
Hi there! I am really interested in does anyone possess these kind of speakers and are the dimensions in depth 34+1 including the terminals or not? In addition how much it takes to be wired and what’s the total size? I am about to fix it against the wall, this is why it’s important to me! Thank you all! And have an enjoyable rest of the weekend!
Hey I would be interested in that upgrade but 660 for just for components is a bit high I could understand if the crossover was already build and wired so we have to only replace having in mind that whole speakers cost 1200 asking for half of that money just for couple compasytors sens to be to much would you consider selling prebuilt crossovers
My congratulations Mr. Richie because the Aura models that replaced the Wharfedale EVO have exactly the improvements in the frequency curve that you made in your kit. As if they had seen your review. Greetings
I bought the 4.4's a couple years ago, so they're certainly broken in. I was disappointed and still find they sound dry and lack imaging. I'm not a fan of bright speakers, but I can say these lack top-end sparkle and have rather flat (or maybe muddled) imaging with a dry presentation. A capable speaker for home theater, played loud in a large room. But certainly not an audiophile speaker.
I think they design the frequency response to kill the upper mids to sound polite and refined when you have the speakers "dead ahead", I've seen this issue too many times for it to be accidental.
You can get great bass with an inductor or with the bass control. Both get the bass but the bass control ruins the voice sound something chronic. Makes it too "boomy".
dear danni. i've been following you for some time. i wonder why you do not really talk about makes like wilson audio, magico, higher end focals. i am across the pond which makes shipping costs from you rather high sadly
Hi Danny, as always a great video I thank you for this. What an earth is wrong with these manufacturers and these low end components. They have massive buying power surely they can get the quality at a far better price and sell us something decent from the start. I'm going to take a peep inside my Spendors I wonder what is fitted to them?
There's nothing wrong with them , Danny is just pushing his products and making them sound the way his ears want them to sound as everyone has different opinions in sound . Especially all the vintage speakers that he rapes that were " intended to sound a certain way " and not Danny's way !! His crossover mods are also not cheap , do you want to pay $1000 for a pair of Klipsch bookshelf speakers ? Neither do most people as they'd be out of business with Danny's motto . It's called Promosm !!
Just curious. I understand that you change the crossover part for the quality ones. But when company makes speakers sound to match their sound profile and you will change this profile, can you still say that they have signature sound?
Changing parts from poor quality to higher quality doesn't change the sound profile. It improves clarity, detail, resolution, space between notes, less smearing, better imaging, better layering, etc.
@@dannyrichie9743 Do you ever have issues fitting the new parts in the enclosure? Going from a 10uf electrolytic to a 10uf film/foil is a huge size difference. Definitely agree upgraded parts would sound much better.
Look at Danny’s site and what upgrades he offers. These speakers he shows, needed help and some are really expensive at start. So what would you get for 50% more? Better finish? If you can diy, buy a kit, you won’t be sad or broke.
Would you be interested in finished LGK cabinets made from solid cherry, that could potentially get completed LGKs down to the 800 dollar range? I have a sample- prototype built I could send you if interested.
I've been using it for a year It's great for the price, but but the sound is not balanced The midrange is too weak So the music doesn't sound lively. ㅜㅜ
Surprised to see the simple crossover in the EVO4.4. I have a pair of Wharfedale JADE 5 that have a MUCH more robust crossover full of polycaps, etc. I thought the EVO 4.4 was a newer version of the JADE 5 (similar driver compliment and cabinet volume)but now I'm not convinced. Are you familiar with the JADE 5? Can there still be similar improvements made?
Since the Jade range was the top series of Wharfedale in 2011 till the new Elysians, they are way better indeed than these EVOs by far till today, (personal experience). However they do use the same components for their partial crossovers, just with much more parts and of course better box design and drivers! All in all they could be upgraded as well, but at that level I do not think it would be a well audible improvement, plus the curved cabinet design determinates almost everything in the mid high section of the crossover, because there is literaly way too less space to install better parts! But as a Jade owner, I would appreciate a video about them for sure... :)
Can somebody send a pair of Dali Ikon 7 to GR Research so he could build a crossover kit that I can then purchase? I'm on the other side of the world and I'm just eyeing and waiting for somebody knowledgeable to create a kit that could potentially improve this magnificient speakers.
Can you please explain/demonstrate what you mean by "tube connectors". I gather these are binding posts but don't have a clear idea of your meaning. Thanks
The irony is that the upgraded speaker would handle EQ better than the original. Furthermore, automated EQ will also have an easier in-room response to deal with. So even if you would want to EQ, the upgraded speaker would be a superior choice 🤓
I like 3 ways and bought your sony kit. Considering the ludicrous amount of time i spend on youtube how about a youtube desktop high end kit designed to be listened to at 80cms. 4° sloping front baffle to point at my ears. A 2" mid close to a 1/2" tweeter covering the mids, highs, imaging. 5" Bass reinforced by the wall behind my desk. Massive SPL not important. Is there a massive untapped market? Maybe poll you viewers if they would buy a speaker designed for watch your and other videos. I think people would spend money where they spend their tme.
There is really no need for a 3 way speaker in that listening situation. Maybe you won’t believe me now but someday you will! If you take the cost of the 6 drivers and crossover parts and put that money into a pair of high end full range drivers instead, you will have a significantly better performance in every aspect. The best speakers have the least amount of “ways” possible, for big sound in a big room you may need 3 ways. For listening in a single seat at the extreme nearfield, 1 way is all you need.
@@KingOath I appreciate your comments and point of view but this aint my first rodeo on a hover board. My desk is at the end of my listening room. The room is designed around the golden ratio so not to resonate, There are 3 8'x4' acoustic panels in the ceiling and 2 in the walls at the speaker end. I rotate thru old Sonus Faber Guaneris , Apogee Duettas and current Magico #3 Mk2. No speaker is perfect. At my computer my ears are 22" above t he desktop and 24" to the tweeter. If I use a single driver the acoustic centre would have to be 22" high requiring a stand or a greater tilt if lower. A 2" or 3" full range with infill drivers for the highs and lows would be ideal. Pointing at my ears it would image like a champ. For nearfield the drivers could have a very low moving mass to Bl ratio giving incredible detail. Lets face it. A full range beams up high and cant go low. A 6" full range would require a stand and be too cumbersome. Imagine miniature Avalon Eilodon. About 18" high and 7'" wide. You may not want it but Millions of gamers and youtube watchers worldwide would as a prestige product.
Check out the speakers that we have designed for that application. gr-research.com/product/lgk-2-1-kit-pair-2/ Check out the audio clips too. They will eat up the upgraded Sony's.
@@armstrongphysiotherapy5099 Sorry, I saw the words “Sony” and “Desktop” in the same sentence and assumed you were a 16 year old newbie. Feel free to do what you please of course, but I still think you could be overthinking it. A 5” three way will be equally as cumbersome as a 6” fullrange. And the beaming isn’t an issue when you’re sitting in one central position. It can even be beneficial when your speakers are near a wall, you get a lot less splash back from that wall. I’m just saying, when I think about all those extra crossover parts and what they are taking away from the sound, plus the small discrepancies in phase/arrival time, directivity and voicing twice per speaker, it seems like a lot of sacrifices to make. But hey, as you say, no speaker is perfect. Danny’s LGK with the extra woofer seems like a perfect middle ground between too simple and too complicated. Don’t forget the golden ratio only serves to reduce interaction between the different room modes, it won’t prevent them occurring, your room will have modes between it’s dimensions just like all of ours do. Unless it’s completely lined with pressure absorbers of course haha.
I read the What Hifi review of these and it says: Pros +Natural, easy-going presentation +Excitement and rhythmic drive +Fine build and finish Cons -Need a large room to shine So these are pretty great as new. I see no need to "upgrade" these
What Hi-fi often use generic terms in their reviews, needing a large room to shine is commonly stated to be a "con"...the speakers are not designed for small rooms so it's not really a con is it. It just an easy excuse to not really list the proper "cons" when it suits them :P
Why do Wharfedale go to the effort of good drivers and then skimp on the quality for the crossovers? Is it down to the diminishing returns? Is it cheaper and more effective from a sound point of view to use better quality drivers Vs crossover components? Also, I seriously wonder why the move to this type of tweeter other than trying to compete in the looks department against more expensive brands... As it seems like it is actually a really bad idea particularly when it comes to its limits of lower frequencies and directionality/phase. I would love to see this 4.4 kit but with you first adapting in a GR research dome tweeter. I imagine that would make a massive improvement.
The parts in that crossover will likely give 99% the sound as using better parts of the same values and specs. Better parts may allow quality at more power and slight improvements in clarity, however most people would not use such power or want to pay the excess amount for the "improved" crossover. The big change you would get from the gr kit is due to the redesign of the topology. Of course you have to buy the high quality parts with it and there's no budget offering which would give you most of the sound quality improvements from the redesign
Wharfedale wouldn't skimp on the crossover parts, because if it made a difference they would fit alternatives, and any extra cost would not even be a consideration, being such a relatively small amount of money.
@@RennieAsh Actually that is not true at all. Better parts of the same value can sound vastly different. Immediate differences are in clarity, detail, transparency, imaging. sound stage layering, sound stage size width and depth, etc. The kit also includes sheets of No Rez, new wiring, and tube connectors.
I have a very difficult time believing that a pair of Wharfedale stand mounts with likely $80 retail cost of drivers in the pair, to beat a Wilson that very likely doesn't have a single driver that costs as little as $80. That's just silly. I've heard many Wilsons, btw. That's just a bridge too far. Big fan of your work, Danny. Heard half a dozen of your fixed speakers. Not trying to dump on you.
I am not surprised at the least. What the drivers cost doesn't dictate how they will sound. That is the message we got though, and it was not from the owner of the Wharfedale. It was from the owner of the Wilsons.
I demoed the WharfDale not long ago when I was buying new speakers. I didn't think they sounded good at all. The salesman at the store said the same thing. On paper they should sound good. They just don't. I really wanted to like them. I ended up with Revel's instead.
They are going for a bit of a softer response with that dome and the tweeter roll off I think. The extremes off axis not shown here may also see that tweeter being more narrow there?
I loved the 4.4’s. They sounded much better than the atc scm40’s that I owned before. I have since gone the diy route which has taken things another level completely.
Wow, the ATC's midrange absolutely blew me away, which is why I was curious about these. The negative comments here about them are surprising. What drivers did you end using in your build?
Frequency response is only a measure of quantity, NOT Quality. A smooth response is always a good sign, but not necessary in direct relation to quality of sound. So many people don’t grasp this concept. 😊
The frequency response graph for the Wharfedale Evo speakers are very rare! And what I see from Dany’s graph is exactly what I hear and dislike on my Evos! Thank you Dany!
Depends what’s causing the frequency response deviations. A driver that’s naturally a little bumpy isnt a big deal. Most are. But if it’s due to phase and lobing issues it is a problem because you’l get an uneven room response. In other words, the way the speaker interacts with the room will be different in different directions and that will screw up your imaging, soundstage and sometimes the whole tonal balance of the room. You’re allowed to like whatever response shape you prefer but if you want good performance it needs to stay as consistent as possible off axis in all directions, or at least roll off in a linear fashion.
Vertical off-axis seems to be the only measurement that is drastically impacted. Trying to understand why that is important. For serious listening, most people are sitting down so horizontal on axis and horizontal off axis seem to be more important.
This is quite a tall floor standing speaker and if you are sitting with your ear at the tweeter axis, your argument stands. However if your are sitting below the tweeter axis then the vertical off axis will be important.
I can see an impact if you sit on the floor or are standing up, but not much change if for example you recline on a chair and sit slightly below tweeter axis. My main point being, cost of the kit for minimal improvement in vertical off axis doesn’t seem worth it in this case. Overall measurements as is actually seem quite good. Comes down to personal taste, if you like sizzling treble this speaker is not for you, if you like mainly neutral, slightly warm speaker, then this fits the bill.
@@sofakingcrazy1943 Are you using this particular pair of speaker or some other when making this remark? Also the upgrade does not only improve the vertical off axis performance, with improved quality components, the sound quality will have an obvious improvement too. If you cannot hear the difference between an electrolytic capacitor and a high quality foil capacitor than I feel there is no point for further discussion. Furthermore with different crossover points, the speaker will pretty different even though the before & after response curve looks similar.
This one. Never said there wouldn’t be an improvement in sound quality. I’ll take your word for it, I’m sure there would be. It’s more about cost benefit and that’s a personal thing.
@@sofakingcrazy1943 The benefits are so huge you will be regretting why you didn’t do it any sooner. I had an old pair of B&W bookshelf speakers ( dm302 ) bought new back in 1995, after listening to Danny I found the crossover schematics online and replaced the crossover parts with half decent ones from parts express , the improvements were so huge that my replacement speakers ( evo 4.1) are unused waiting to be upgraded in the near future once time and funds allow.
$2200! for the speaker. why cant they at least toss in some decent stuff in the tweeter and mid circuit?? i have so little faith in off the shelf gear after watching dannie
Weil es alle machen. Selbst bei 16.000€ klipsch lautsprechern. Wir wollen beschissen werden. Deswegen ist gr research auch gegen dsp und aktivieren. Da verdient er ja nichts mehr mit upgraden.😁😁👍🇩🇪
It does the job and most people wouldn't actually hear the difference if you just replaced stuff with exact values and specs. Or at least, the tiny gain isn't economically viable for the bean counters.
I like the display style of showing the before and after graphs above and below each other. I do miss the parts exhibition. It is nice to see the components that are being purchased. Thanks as always for the presentation and information.
Okay thanks. I will get those new parts into the videos again.
Of all the speakers you could have chosen - thankyou for upgrading the 4.4's! Just what I'm after.
G'day Danny,
Enjoying your work. Have a pair of EVO 4.2's, I reckon they have sold very well. Great speaker as is, design allows good performance in difficult rooms, even when against a wall which is rare. Case thickness probably similar to the 4.4 and might return better rigidity on the smaller cabinet. Resolving as they are, these speakers are missing that extra bit of air and detail, expect this is been sucked out by the crossover. Possibly a good candidate for your professional touch. Would be very interested in seeing these hit their full potential. No hassle if your too busy, I'd say you get these requests a lot !
All the best, Shane, Ireland
Thanks Danny, I've been waiting for this upgrade for months. Greetings from Chile!!
Hey Luis , I am drinking some fine Chilean wine while watching this video, your country produces the best wine , far more superior than any of the garbage that comes from the United States.
That's right my friend, a few days ago I turned 50 years old and I enjoyed a bottle of an incredible Chilean Gran Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon, enjoying until dawn the best songs heard in different stages of my life. Indeed, we are blessed to drink incredible wines at very low prices, the cheapest Chilean wine is an elite wine abroad. Greetings!!!
@@luisrodrigonunezolguin7038 yes even here in the united States of lies and deseption it is only 10.00 dollars a bottle . The wine I used to drink from Napa valley , Clau deubua, is now close to 40.00 dollars a bottle and I would still buy wine from Chile if it was the same cost . Anyways , happy birthday brother and I hope and pray you and your people are all doing good 👍
Great job. Those graphs are a work of art. That, plus the component quality, should make these sweet honey factories.
Nice work Danny. Would you consider a step-by-step video series on crossover design and construction. As an avid DIY speaker builder, I'm always interested in how other designers go about designing a top-quality cost-effective passive crossover.
Danny has done several vids showing us how to build crossovers for his speakers. He talks about his design ethos in many of his vids just as he does for these Wharfedales. His critics argue that some of the expensive parts he uses aren't in the signal path but that's a debate for the forums.
A well designed passive crossover is nothing more then a big exspence do do it right , other than that is to choose wisely the drivers and purchase units that have smooth response, no erratic dips or humps and as smooth of a impedance as possible as well , then you will be able to not spend countless amounts of money on caps, inductors, resistors etc. I shoot for in my builds , the least amount of components in the signal path the better .
Also building up a mock up cabinets with the ability to change out the front baffles for the way the drivers will work with different dimensions of the front
baffles .
@@sirtimothyjasonwellsakaelduce and that is precisely why I suggested that we leave it to the forums - every DiYer I've encountered is an expert on speaker design.
@@arthurwatts1680 and Sir Timothy. You should start your own forum. Maybe make some vids that you can stand by. Otherwise stay out.
Hey Danny. Was the main problem with the vertical off axis response the fact that the mid/tweeter were crossed too high? I love your videos and have learned a lot but sometimes I wish you explained your crossover tricks more thoroughly for us simpletons. Thanks!
Crossed too high and the order of the crossover used caused too much phase rotation.
@@dannyrichie9743 Danny, thanks for always replying to my questions here. I’ve learned a ton from you.
Hi Danny, would this upgrade kit work for the EVO 4.3’s too? I know you build the crossover specifically for the speaker as it measured before you design it.
Find out if the drivers used in those speakers are the same. If so, then yes it will work
This upgrade is specific to this model.
Great video as always Danny. I am a fan, but if I may make one suggestion... Instead saying it is "not true" that an EQ does not address FQ response like changing the X-over. Maybe say using EQ only addresses the FQ response. Re-engineering the x-over can address FQ response and so much more. Then hit us with your standard format. Just trying to help you bring this community together.
Awesome review, I knew these were very good speakers with a very terrible off-axis response. Good to know your cross-over can fix it!
Thank You! Finally Evo speakers! But mine are 4.2 😢! Do you know, or think, that the same upgrade will suit for Evo4.2. I think that crossover is the same…
The crossover looks the same, but the part have different values. (Have opened mine EVO 4.2 to have a look myself)
@@fredriktimren2242 please, how to open it? How to remove plastic ring on drivers?
@@MrSplit57 Plastic rings are actually rubberized and flexible, get a finger nail or some thin plastic in the grove and they peel right off. The crossovers are hard to get to as they are mounted to the back wall ( evo 4.1 ) and behind the down firing port.
As azar3006 said, just take some thin plastic to remove the rubbet rings, and screws for the element are u behind.
@@azar3006 is it a port or a passive radiator? amir on audiosciencereview said it is a PR. i had a pair of 4.2 before but sold them already so i cant confirm it.
Great video Danny, can't wait for the Bose 901 review.
An exciting video, I would love to do such a modernization in my Wharfedale Ev o4.4. Unfortunately, I'm not a DIY person, so even if I buy your modernization kit, I don't really know what to do with it. Of course, there is a forum and local electronics mechanics, but this all complicates the matter. Is there a chance to buy a ready-made replacement crossover, so as to remove the old factory crossover and install your modified crossover? Thank you in advance for your answer. Regards. Ralph.
Hi Danny, Will this kit work for Evo 4.2? If not, are there any plans to bring out a kit for Evo 4.2?
I have not looked at that model, but I doubt it. If it is a different model then it will need a different filter.
@@dannyrichie9743 I’d buy it instantly for my 4.2’s. Definitely one customer, that’s enough to develop it right? 😊
@@bp1012 Someone will have to send one in.
@@dannyrichie9743 tell me what to do and I’ll send it over.
@@bp1012 Same here. Have had mine EVOs for about a year, but feels that they are missing clarity, also would like more brightness. They sound a bit dull right now to my ears. Almost like my 10 year old Wharfedale Diamond 10.1 more.
how does this kit that cost 70% of the total speaker its self be worth it? got my speakers New for 999Usd from denmark cant se that 660usd for a crossover beeing worth it sry. Ok ( I spoke to soon, looking at what the components cost it is a good deal tbh, now thinking of ordering xD. To bad the shipping cost is so high outside US. best regards!
So I'll have the Evo 4.2....do you have a kit for that? Also how difficult is it to do these upgrades? I'm relatively handy but haven't attempted anything like this before.
I would also be interested in a 4.2 upgrade
Me too !
Me too! Also owner of Evo4.2, also concern how easy and safe is disassembling process?
Same here
Someone will have to send one in and I'll see what I can do with it.
hi Danny What is the Kit cost to upgrade the Wharfedale 4.2 , really appreciated if you can quote me a price for that , Thank You .
If I ever upgrade my old modified Celestions I won't bother getting anything off the shelf , I 'll get one of Danny's X kits and do it myself. I have every confidence in his designs and his ability to de - snag new speaker's even though it will have to come from the US.
That’s a nice improved power response! Good work.
Hi I have ordered those speakers…
If I order the kit on the site if it is available… how to install the kit you offer? Everyone can install the kit?
Do you deliver the kit with a tutorial?
Thanks for such interesting review…👌
You can install the upgrade yourself. It is not difficult and you get our complete support.
@@dannyrichie9743 How to get in touched? Do you send the parts to Sweden?
@@danielthomas7747 You can order it online and have it sent to Sweden.
Danny, was that the Wharfedale Diamond 9.2's that supposedly blew away the Wilson Audio speakers?
Might have to finally get the kit for my pair.
I think he was referring to the 9.1
Yeah, it was the 9.1's with our upgrade.
Think they would video when they are taking them apart to give us better idea of what's involved..
I am glad to see reasonable response from the factory. HOWEVER there was problems like Danny said. I bet this wasn't terrible to work with because response was ok and drivers behaved nicely. Parts quality and clarity went way up and typical Wharfedale fashion top end was a bit too soft and Danny fixed it.
Think I'd rather have 0dB at 15khz, and -5dB at 20khz, than +3-4dB between 10 and 15khz, and 0dB at 20khz. That sting at 10 to 15khz could be audible, while -5dB above 15khz is unlikely to be.
But, that's personal preference, I guess.
Depending on age our hearing probably rolls off above 15k.
This was probably done to offset the narrow dispersion pattern of that large tweeter overall treble level in the room.
Simple way against the eq fiddeling is that every record is mastered and mixed in different ways and you had to fiddle pretty much for every song you play.
I´m so totally with GR on this one, hands down.
Same upgrade for the EVO 4.2 bookshelf, then?
Sorry, completely different model will require a different filter.
@@dannyrichie9743same, just one less woofer, lol.
Lovely work and explanation Danny
Do the new components come assembled, how and where installed? How to gain entry for component swap?
Same question!
No they don't. It's an upgrade kit. You do it yourself.
They do come in pieces, I can make them if you guys want. You usually open the binding post and take out the xover from there.
@@VIctorCarruyo for sure not thru the binding posts opening! It is too narrow!
@@MrSplit57 You probably have to pop off the beauty ring around one of the woofers. Then unscrew the driver to gain access. Call GR research, they can tell you exactly how to do it without damage.
My method of eq is to sum measurements from around the listening position. Then do it by ear using the pecks and dips as hints.
That sure is a neat looking speaker in my opinion. And 3 or more ways are definitely my thing! Good explanation and off axis response. I never worry about off axis because I'm not moving around while watching a movie, but my room is well enough treated that I don't have to think much about it. For other folks, off axis response could make a big difference once summed in their room. Cheers 🍻
Moving around isn't what off axis is about. You don't hear the direct radiation from a speaker nearly as much as you think. You hear a combination of the direct, and the sum or direct and indirect reflections, which all come from the off axis response.
@@Luke-qs2cg:
Off axis only really matters in rooms, untreated rooms specifically. Every one of us testing speakers and showing the data are doing so in a room! Some of us gate a frequency response, some just use smoothing. Point is, you are measuring a speaker, or you are measuring a speaker in a room. You must pick a measurement and define it, before we can really talk about it.
For me the room no longer matters, I just focus on the speaker. I just fixed up my living/listening/watching room, it's on my channel if you want to check it out. But I can now focus on more speaker and less on room. Sound is not easy. Good sound even less than!
Cheers 🍻
Any tips for upgrading Focal Electra 1028Be2 speaker caps etc.? They are good speakers but I feel that the caps are quite poor quality.
Most speaker mainstream manufacturers use generic crossover parts for crossovers, its mainly the high end boutique companies that add the extra quality components but at a price
Yes, improvements can be made by substituting superior parts, but I don’t think the present speakers sound bad, maybe a bit fussy. I would be wary of changing their voicing however because I find them rather enjoyable already.
I have my treble and bass at 6 o clock and loudness on in my quad esl989. Sounds fantastic
We have Monitor Audio as an established name here in the Uk.. but you haven’t been into the brand and they seem okay.. do you have any in your district and what are your thoughts?
I had some Silver 6. They imaged really well but sounded devoid of body or colour with lumpy bass and less than perfect recordings werent great. Figuring the bigger bass drivers, ribbon tweeter and dedicated mid of the Gold GX300 would fix that i went for an ex demo pair and they were tonally much the same, cool and analytical, little warmth but stunning on good recordings with a much cleaner presentation thab the Silvers. They were very good but the Montor house sound appears to be very much a more anaemic, sterile, clean but thin style that after a while makes me want to go back to well rounded warm musical old 80s Wharfedales (when they were made in Yorkshire and sounded proper 👍)
I am a fan of using poly caps for the tweeter and midrange drivers. But thinking I could get buy with using electrolytic caps for the woofer circuit mainly because those large caps are so expensive and thinking there would not be such a large difference in those low frequencies. Am I correct?
Have you ever done a kit fir the bookshelf version, Evo 4.2?
I had a previous version of these speakers - the Wharfedale Opus 2 and they were a great speaker. I was doing a big move and sold them. The biggest difference was the Opus speakers had a soft dome tweeter as well as mid vs the AMT tweeter in the Evo. So not sure if this improved them or not.
What little Warfedale was this? I’d like to upgrade the evo 4.1 but don’t know if it’s worth it. 9:11
is there a kit for the Evo 4.2?
Wharfedale shut down years ago,,it was at High Field road , Idel, Bradford.
The Chinese were taking it over by December 1983...Bumped into to a group of them in the service department.....my partner was a secretary there...now only the name remains....sad .
Do you have an upgrade for the Wharfedale Elysian 2?
The problem here is, hiring a company do re-do these crossovers will cost more than the speaker itself, the shippingcost alone
is most likely more than the crossover. I've had my eyes on these speakers for a very long time, but after watching this video,
thank you very much for saving my money NOT buying them.
Any chance you'll do this to the EVO 4.2?
The "just e.q. it" people have never run multiple iterations of a crossover, balancing time arrivals, phase, stored energy, frequency response, and power handling.
I use CLIO and Soundeasy, will design multiple candidate crossovers and, usually, narrow it down to three or four. Then build up the prototypes and LISTEN! They wil all sound different. I have bins of caps, resistors, and tapped, air core inductors.
The naysayers remind me of the Spice jockeys that sim. all day long, but never build anything!
You've got to breathe the solder fumes and get sawdust under your fingernails!
Dan
Well that screwed that up. I was going to go the extra for the EVO 4.4 over some other speakers because I read good things about it, but if I have to shell out another $660 to fine tune them then it's not worth the outlay. I was considering these as an alternative to either a pair of Dali Oberon 7s or a pair of Dali Oberon 5s paired to a SVS SB100 Subwoofer.
Dali cheapy parts also
Question please: Re, the vertical axis: What does one do essentially to try get the lines trace close together? I mean, what do you play around in the crossover simulation? Danny glosses it over but what component/components do one dials up or down? Thanks!
I never use any crossover simulations. The two things that really affect the vertical off axis is center to center spacing and the wavelength at the crossover point.
@@dannyrichie9743 Thank you. So, with the assumption that the baffle is made (and can't be changed), one is left with trying to find the best crossover point to get the closet traces?
@@raynerstuelgalid phase response would still matter otherwise you could get some driver cancellation. You could always try playing around with some values in a crossover designer
You run the high-passed drivers down as low as possible which brings them closer to a point source and reduces phase differences at the xo point due to the longer wavelength. Then you use the crossover slopes that introduce the right amount of phase shift you need to get the drivers in phase with each other as best as you can. The drivers will initially not be in phase on a flat baffle due to the different physical depth of each driver, unless the driver depth has been specifically designed with a certain crossover in mind, which is something you might get with a high end speaker but the majority just have the drivers slapped into a baffle and the crossover is a bandaid fix.
@@raynerstuelgalid The order and slopes of the filters will also shift phase. It is a tricky balance. Most of the time i have to see what the operating range of the drivers are to know where they can be crossed.
How do you open it up and do the upgrade? The drivers have no screws
Take the rubber round the elements of with a plastic tool, and you'll find the screws behind.
Hi Danny I just subscribed and starting watching some of your videos,which are awesome and informative.I have a set of Boston lynfields 950 is there a way of improving them ,I am based here in South Africa , any suggestions
The Bryts did a little boo-boo with the slopes, ups. In this case I agree with Danny.
So, I'm in the market for a new set of speakers, and stumbled upon the evo 4.4. I saw they won best speakers awards 3 times in a row. So are you saying they're no good ? Need a new crossover ? Also , i can buy them for ~750 € a pair, which means your upgrade kit would almost double the price ? And in your opinion , is your X-MTM Encore Kit better then these evo's . Because then it'll be better to buy the kit for ~990$
They are good speakers stock. But reviewers/awards are all bought and paid for so never go off them. Imo having heard these i found the Focal Chora 826 and Triangle BR08 and BR09 considerably more musical. These are abit flat, dont image well for a narrow tower due to the tweeter type and just play it abit too safe. They are WAY better than those nasty Lintons though. But thats just my ears and you can only trust your own and nothing else!!
Honestly, the Evo 4.4 needed a lot of help. The X-MTM is in a different league.
I like your work & I'm entertained. 🔈🔉🔊
Since you always seem to find a problem with pretty much any speaker what about rsl speakers ? What do you think of those they use all the stuff you preach like air core inductors and poly caps etc
Send one in and I'll take a look.
I would love to send you my Thiel cs6 speakers,but the shipping cost alone hinders me.
Hmmmm, I own a pair if Warfedale 4.4s. Always thought a little something was missing!
Same thing here with my EVO 4.2
Hope I will see an upgrade kit one day!
@Fredrik Timren I started with the 4.2, returned returned them in exchange for the 4.4s. A little more bass ( still needed a sub) they sound great just really narrow.
Nice work Danny.
I have the Philharmonic BMR Towers and they're great, but I like to tinker and wish there were an upgrade kit for them.
There are some known issues with those. Send one in and I'll see what we can do with it.
@@dannyrichie9743 If I still had the original boxes, I would.
Hi there!
I am really interested in does anyone possess these kind of speakers and are the dimensions in depth 34+1 including the terminals or not? In addition how much it takes to be wired and what’s the total size? I am about to fix it against the wall, this is why it’s important to me! Thank you all! And have an enjoyable rest of the weekend!
Hey I would be interested in that upgrade but 660 for just for components is a bit high I could understand if the crossover was already build and wired so we have to only replace having in mind that whole speakers cost 1200 asking for half of that money just for couple compasytors sens to be to much would you consider selling prebuilt crossovers
The upgrade is a lot more than just capacitors and it transforms them into a really nice speaker. You get what you pay for.
My congratulations Mr. Richie because the Aura models that replaced the Wharfedale EVO have exactly the improvements in the frequency curve that you made in your kit. As if they had seen your review. Greetings
I like my 4.4 very much but I had to bump up the level a few db to match my Martin Logan f2 foundation
I bought the 4.4's a couple years ago, so they're certainly broken in. I was disappointed and still find they sound dry and lack imaging. I'm not a fan of bright speakers, but I can say these lack top-end sparkle and have rather flat (or maybe muddled) imaging with a dry presentation. A capable speaker for home theater, played loud in a large room. But certainly not an audiophile speaker.
Another speaker that lifts incredibly by similar treatment is the Magnat Transpuls 1500. it becomes a totally different monster.
Could you please share scheme for diy upgrade?
I am curious to see a simple upgrade modification of the jbl 4312 type speakers ....better pots , caps ? More then this simple 2 caps circuit?
Send one in.
I'd love to, but its heavy and i live in brussels europ, so hopefully some one closer will do , thanks a lot for your great work
I think they design the frequency response to kill the upper mids to sound polite and refined when you have the speakers "dead ahead", I've seen this issue too many times for it to be accidental.
Upper mid is actually 500Hz to 800Hz. The soft top end these have is way past that.
@@dannyrichie9743 To me upper mids is 4-8khz.
Prob meant 5k. 15k drop means alot of music is lost.
You can get great bass with an inductor or with the bass control. Both get the bass but the bass control ruins the voice sound something chronic. Makes it too "boomy".
dear danni. i've been following you for some time. i wonder why you do not really talk about makes like wilson audio, magico, higher end focals. i am across the pond which makes shipping costs from you rather high sadly
Yea. I like seeing parts too . Do DIY active speakers…lol
Okay, I will try to include them in future videos.
Great job. Would love to see what you can do w. the KEF R300…
Hi Danny, as always a great video I thank you for this. What an earth is wrong with these manufacturers and these low end components. They have massive buying power surely they can get the quality at a far better price and sell us something decent from the start. I'm going to take a peep inside my Spendors I wonder what is fitted to them?
There's nothing wrong with them , Danny is just pushing his products and making them sound the way his ears want them to sound as everyone has different opinions in sound . Especially all the vintage speakers that he rapes that were " intended to sound a certain way " and not Danny's way !! His crossover mods are also not cheap , do you want to pay $1000 for a pair of Klipsch bookshelf speakers ? Neither do most people as they'd be out of business with Danny's motto .
It's called Promosm !!
Just curious. I understand that you change the crossover part for the quality ones. But when company makes speakers sound to match their sound profile and you will change this profile, can you still say that they have signature sound?
Changing parts from poor quality to higher quality doesn't change the sound profile. It improves clarity, detail, resolution, space between notes, less smearing, better imaging, better layering, etc.
@@dannyrichie9743 sure, so why the meassurements? isn't it the signature sound?
@@milanulrich The measurements show accuracy.
@@dannyrichie9743 Do you ever have issues fitting the new parts in the enclosure? Going from a 10uf electrolytic to a 10uf film/foil is a huge size difference. Definitely agree upgraded parts would sound much better.
@@dannyrichie9743 aha, thank you for an explanation.
Why by a speaker then have to spend an additional 50% upgrading it?
Look at Danny’s site and what upgrades he offers. These speakers he shows, needed help and some are really expensive at start. So what would you get for 50% more? Better finish? If you can diy, buy a kit, you won’t be sad or broke.
Welldone Danny,
I always enjoy the vids.
Regards, Antony Warrington, Cheshire England..
Would you be interested in finished LGK cabinets made from solid cherry, that could potentially get completed LGKs down to the 800 dollar range? I have a sample- prototype built I could send you if interested.
We tend to not want to make cabinets out of solid hardwoods as they tend to be more resonant than MDF.
@@dannyrichie9743 No problem, I kinda got that impression from one of your previous vids.
I've been using it for a year
It's great for the price, but
but the sound is not balanced
The midrange is too weak
So the music doesn't sound lively.
ㅜㅜ
Нет ли у вас обзора на Polk R700 и Polk S60E
I have the Evo 44s and don't need any changes a bargain at £1200
Hey it's old Joe Don Baker!
Would this kit work on the Evo 4.2 as well?
No.
@@dannyrichie9743 Sucks, would've been a guaranteed purchase from me.
Surprised to see the simple crossover in the EVO4.4. I have a pair of Wharfedale JADE 5 that have a MUCH more robust crossover full of polycaps, etc. I thought the EVO 4.4 was a newer version of the JADE 5 (similar driver compliment and cabinet volume)but now I'm not convinced. Are you familiar with the JADE 5? Can there still be similar improvements made?
I have not checked out the Jade 5.
Since the Jade range was the top series of Wharfedale in 2011 till the new Elysians, they are way better indeed than these EVOs by far till today, (personal experience). However they do use the same components for their partial crossovers, just with much more parts and of course better box design and drivers! All in all they could be upgraded as well, but at that level I do not think it would be a well audible improvement, plus the curved cabinet design determinates almost everything in the mid high section of the crossover, because there is literaly way too less space to install better parts! But as a Jade owner, I would appreciate a video about them for sure... :)
@@viktork.8737 When the quality of the drivers go up then the differences in quality of crossover parts become even more apparent.
Can somebody send a pair of Dali Ikon 7 to GR Research so he could build a crossover kit that I can then purchase? I'm on the other side of the world and I'm just eyeing and waiting for somebody knowledgeable to create a kit that could potentially improve this magnificient speakers.
Good job again 🥰
Excellent
Can you please explain/demonstrate what you mean by "tube connectors". I gather these are binding posts but don't have a clear idea of your meaning. Thanks
I shot a whole video on them: ua-cam.com/video/gInqJGvMT_8/v-deo.html
The irony is that the upgraded speaker would handle EQ better than the original. Furthermore, automated EQ will also have an easier in-room response to deal with. So even if you would want to EQ, the upgraded speaker would be a superior choice 🤓
Wait, you can do all these improvements by just upgrading the crossover?? Then why manufacturers don't do that, are they all dumb?
I like 3 ways and bought your sony kit.
Considering the ludicrous amount of time i spend on youtube how about a youtube desktop high end kit designed to be listened to at 80cms.
4° sloping front baffle to point at my ears.
A 2" mid close to a 1/2" tweeter covering the mids, highs, imaging.
5" Bass reinforced by the wall behind my desk. Massive SPL not important.
Is there a massive untapped market?
Maybe poll you viewers if they would buy a speaker designed for watch your and other videos.
I think people would spend money where they spend their tme.
There is really no need for a 3 way speaker in that listening situation. Maybe you won’t believe me now but someday you will! If you take the cost of the 6 drivers and crossover parts and put that money into a pair of high end full range drivers instead, you will have a significantly better performance in every aspect. The best speakers have the least amount of “ways” possible, for big sound in a big room you may need 3 ways. For listening in a single seat at the extreme nearfield, 1 way is all you need.
@@KingOath I appreciate your comments and point of view but this aint my first rodeo on a hover board.
My desk is at the end of my listening room. The room is designed around the golden ratio so not to resonate, There are 3 8'x4' acoustic panels in the ceiling and 2 in the walls at the speaker end. I rotate thru old Sonus Faber Guaneris , Apogee Duettas and current Magico #3 Mk2.
No speaker is perfect.
At my computer my ears are 22" above t
he desktop and 24" to the tweeter.
If I use a single driver the acoustic centre would have to be 22" high requiring a stand or a greater tilt if lower.
A 2" or 3" full range with infill drivers for the highs and lows would be ideal.
Pointing at my ears it would image like a champ.
For nearfield the drivers could have a very low moving mass to Bl ratio giving incredible detail.
Lets face it. A full range beams up high and cant go low. A 6" full range
would require a stand and be too cumbersome.
Imagine miniature Avalon Eilodon. About 18" high and 7'" wide. You may not want it but Millions of gamers and youtube watchers worldwide would as a prestige product.
Check out the speakers that we have designed for that application. gr-research.com/product/lgk-2-1-kit-pair-2/
Check out the audio clips too. They will eat up the upgraded Sony's.
@@armstrongphysiotherapy5099 Sorry, I saw the words “Sony” and “Desktop” in the same sentence and assumed you were a 16 year old newbie. Feel free to do what you please of course, but I still think you could be overthinking it. A 5” three way will be equally as cumbersome as a 6” fullrange. And the beaming isn’t an issue when you’re sitting in one central position. It can even be beneficial when your speakers are near a wall, you get a lot less splash back from that wall. I’m just saying, when I think about all those extra crossover parts and what they are taking away from the sound, plus the small discrepancies in phase/arrival time, directivity and voicing twice per speaker, it seems like a lot of sacrifices to make. But hey, as you say, no speaker is perfect. Danny’s LGK with the extra woofer seems like a perfect middle ground between too simple and too complicated. Don’t forget the golden ratio only serves to reduce interaction between the different room modes, it won’t prevent them occurring, your room will have modes between it’s dimensions just like all of ours do. Unless it’s completely lined with pressure absorbers of course haha.
I read the What Hifi review of these and it says:
Pros
+Natural, easy-going presentation
+Excitement and rhythmic drive
+Fine build and finish
Cons
-Need a large room to shine
So these are pretty great as new.
I see no need to "upgrade" these
Ha, ha, ha.... Someone has a shallow view of what is pretty great.
@@dannyrichie9743 What Hifi are pretty good. I need to hear them too.
@@pizzaearthpancakesandother2549 what hifi give every british products 5 stars regardless of the actual quality. true story.
What Hi-fi often use generic terms in their reviews, needing a large room to shine is commonly stated to be a "con"...the speakers are not designed for small rooms so it's not really a con is it. It just an easy excuse to not really list the proper "cons" when it suits them :P
Why do Wharfedale go to the effort of good drivers and then skimp on the quality for the crossovers? Is it down to the diminishing returns? Is it cheaper and more effective from a sound point of view to use better quality drivers Vs crossover components? Also, I seriously wonder why the move to this type of tweeter other than trying to compete in the looks department against more expensive brands... As it seems like it is actually a really bad idea particularly when it comes to its limits of lower frequencies and directionality/phase. I would love to see this 4.4 kit but with you first adapting in a GR research dome tweeter. I imagine that would make a massive improvement.
The parts in that crossover will likely give 99% the sound as using better parts of the same values and specs.
Better parts may allow quality at more power and slight improvements in clarity, however most people would not use such power or want to pay the excess amount for the "improved" crossover.
The big change you would get from the gr kit is due to the redesign of the topology. Of course you have to buy the high quality parts with it and there's no budget offering which would give you most of the sound quality improvements from the redesign
Wharfedale wouldn't skimp on the crossover parts, because if it made a difference they would fit alternatives, and any extra cost would not even be a consideration, being such a relatively small amount of money.
@@RennieAsh Actually that is not true at all. Better parts of the same value can sound vastly different. Immediate differences are in clarity, detail, transparency, imaging. sound stage layering, sound stage size width and depth, etc. The kit also includes sheets of No Rez, new wiring, and tube connectors.
@@montynorth3009 Actually Wharfedale skimps like hell on the crossover parts because they are a LOT cheaper.
Love the shirt! Where can we find this.
It was given to competitors at the Oklahoma Senior Games competition in 2022.
Nice shirt .
Thanks, it was from the Oklahoma Senior Games competition.
waiting dor this
I have a very difficult time believing that a pair of Wharfedale stand mounts with likely $80 retail cost of drivers in the pair, to beat a Wilson that very likely doesn't have a single driver that costs as little as $80. That's just silly. I've heard many Wilsons, btw. That's just a bridge too far. Big fan of your work, Danny. Heard half a dozen of your fixed speakers. Not trying to dump on you.
I am not surprised at the least. What the drivers cost doesn't dictate how they will sound. That is the message we got though, and it was not from the owner of the Wharfedale. It was from the owner of the Wilsons.
I demoed the WharfDale not long ago when I was buying new speakers. I didn't think they sounded good at all. The salesman at the store said the same thing. On paper they should sound good. They just don't. I really wanted to like them. I ended up with Revel's instead.
They are going for a bit of a softer response with that dome and the tweeter roll off I think. The extremes off axis not shown here may also see that tweeter being more narrow there?
I loved the 4.4’s. They sounded much better than the atc scm40’s that I owned before. I have since gone the diy route which has taken things another level completely.
I tried wharf evo 4.1 and didnt like it. I liked revel more
Wow, the ATC's midrange absolutely blew me away, which is why I was curious about these. The negative comments here about them are surprising. What drivers did you end using in your build?
@@getdealtwithquick I ended up with Revel F 206's and I love them.
Frequency response is only a measure of quantity, NOT Quality. A smooth response is always a good sign, but not necessary in direct relation to quality of sound. So many people don’t grasp this concept. 😊
The frequency response graph for the Wharfedale Evo speakers are very rare! And what I see from Dany’s graph is exactly what I hear and dislike on my Evos! Thank you Dany!
Depends what’s causing the frequency response deviations. A driver that’s naturally a little bumpy isnt a big deal. Most are. But if it’s due to phase and lobing issues it is a problem because you’l get an uneven room response. In other words, the way the speaker interacts with the room will be different in different directions and that will screw up your imaging, soundstage and sometimes the whole tonal balance of the room. You’re allowed to like whatever response shape you prefer but if you want good performance it needs to stay as consistent as possible off axis in all directions, or at least roll off in a linear fashion.
@@KingOath Great answer and 100% spot on.
Some one send him a ml 60xt. I'd like to see wht improvement I would expect.
This speakers are very cheap in my country, it only cost $1,200 brand new tax included
Vertical off-axis seems to be the only measurement that is drastically impacted. Trying to understand why that is important. For serious listening, most people are sitting down so horizontal on axis and horizontal off axis seem to be more important.
This is quite a tall floor standing speaker and if you are sitting with your ear at the tweeter axis, your argument stands. However if your are sitting below the tweeter axis then the vertical off axis will be important.
I can see an impact if you sit on the floor or are standing up, but not much change if for example you recline on a chair and sit slightly below tweeter axis. My main point being, cost of the kit for minimal improvement in vertical off axis doesn’t seem worth it in this case. Overall measurements as is actually seem quite good. Comes down to personal taste, if you like sizzling treble this speaker is not for you, if you like mainly neutral, slightly warm speaker, then this fits the bill.
@@sofakingcrazy1943 Are you using this particular pair of speaker or some other when making this remark? Also the upgrade does not only improve the vertical off axis performance, with improved quality components, the sound quality will have an obvious improvement too. If you cannot hear the difference between an electrolytic capacitor and a high quality foil capacitor than I feel there is no point for further discussion. Furthermore with different crossover points, the speaker will pretty different even though the before & after response curve looks similar.
This one. Never said there wouldn’t be an improvement in sound quality. I’ll take your word for it, I’m sure there would be. It’s more about cost benefit and that’s a personal thing.
@@sofakingcrazy1943 The benefits are so huge you will be regretting why you didn’t do it any sooner. I had an old pair of B&W bookshelf speakers ( dm302 ) bought new back in 1995, after listening to Danny I found the crossover schematics online and replaced the crossover parts with half decent ones from parts express , the improvements were so huge that my replacement speakers ( evo 4.1) are unused waiting to be upgraded in the near future once time and funds allow.
Polk R700 Please
$2200! for the speaker. why cant they at least toss in some decent stuff in the tweeter and mid circuit?? i have so little faith in off the shelf gear after watching dannie
Weil es alle machen. Selbst bei 16.000€ klipsch lautsprechern. Wir wollen beschissen werden. Deswegen ist gr research auch gegen dsp und aktivieren. Da verdient er ja nichts mehr mit upgraden.😁😁👍🇩🇪
Its half that price in the UK However a lot of U.S brands are much more expensive here.
It does the job and most people wouldn't actually hear the difference if you just replaced stuff with exact values and specs. Or at least, the tiny gain isn't economically viable for the bean counters.
Same for my car, after some chip tuning it goes like hell. Looks like average but does above average now.