Just got back from demoing the wharfdale diamond 9 compact cinema 5.1 and must say it was a very good sounding (18,000 peso) system. Speakers were matched up with an Onkyo receiver. These speakers Beat up most of the HTIB offered by the major commercial brands that specialize in Audio&video packages. They are solid speakers and pretty heavy as well. Nice looking. The sub is only 100 watt but sounds like it is only 50 watts?? Perhaps it was the positioning of the speakers themselves. For the money I thought there was great value there. The surrounds are the same drivers as the fronts but the speaker is thinner and shaped oblong like. That is a nice feature for asthetics but the wall mounting is flat screw type..not the swivel type that I personally need for my room. Will consider outsourcing a wall bracket from perfect view. (only the fronts had a swivel bracket and that itself was only fair).
If you are considering a HTIB speaker package for a budget of under 20,000 this must be on your list to demo. It really did impress. IMHO You will not look at pioneer samsung panasonic etc. etc. after hearing these.
Now just after the demo of the wharfs I went next door and demoed the Mission m30i ( for the second time) how ever this time I brought with me CD in hand. I jammed the Allman brothers Statesboro Blues > In memory of Elizabeth reed. I demoed just the two speakers with out a sub or center. The quality of the speaker was excellent. No sub was required for music as the base responce was just enough. I mean these speakers were just 2 SWEEEEET. Makes me wanna push up the budget a bit. Full 5.1 system with sub and center was 44,000 more than double the wharfdale. I am hard pressed for cash right now.
But the search will continue.
