Any Experience with Wharfedale Emerald EM-99 towers?

MrBuhl

Wondering if anyone's heard them or has any experience with them? Like em? Hate em?
Thanks!

MrBuhl

So - I went ahead and bit the bullet on the Wharfedales despite the glaring lack of feedback. I read a what reviews I could find on the online - and they were well reviewed mostly for back in the day. I only paid $90 for them, so I figured if nothing else, its something else to get my ears on.

It appears that in the late 90's they were Wharfedale's top of the line, but when WD was bought out they liquidated these on Ubid and Amazon dirt cheap early 2003/2004 - like $300-$400 a pair back then. Seems to be a 6.5" front ported sub sealed off from a 6.5" two-way on the top with a dome tweeter. Sorry for the sideways pics - I don't seem to be able to correct that ever here. Bi-wirable, OFC internal wiring, hand wound voice coils, 6ohm, 88db sensitivity, supposedly 28Hz-27kHz, I'll tell you this, the cabinets are heavy puppies, just as tall as the SDA2b's but considerably narrower, they weigh close to as much by feel.

Moved out the SDA2b's from the HT setup temporarily to give these a swirl. So far they sound good with HT, Movies and TV - and the jury is still out on TT #2 Vinyl rendition. The tweets are actually nice and clear and not too forward, bass in spades, but my initial feeling is they are just this side of boomy, I can't decide if I like 'em or not just yet. Decent soundstage actually and easy to locate specific instruments and vocals, I'd say wide, but not necessarily deep. Running them through the Pio Elite pre outs to the B&K ST1400II right now. They are not fatiguing at all to listen to, they remind me a little of the SDA2's, in general sound... but neither are they my upgraded 1c's that's for sure.

Anyway - thought there's a few of you out there who might enjoy and be interested.

ken brydson

Those look nice. Hard to lose at $90. Congrats!

MrBuhl

Thanks Ken! Kinda what I thought too - for that kind of dough I should be able to turn em on CL if I don't use them around the house!

voltz

I agree for the price they were worth a shot and always fun to play with new speakers. plus I wonder if you wanted to you maybe able to play with the crossovers and such to make them better? just a thought.

MrBuhl

voltz wrote: »

plus I wonder if you wanted to you maybe able to play with the crossovers and such to make them better? just a thought.

I was thinking that too - I've started experimenting with placement too - moved them to the floor (out of the shelves the 2b's lived in) and that made a difference. The 2b's filled up the entire space, but with the narrower profile, the empty space was acting like a drum. I've also been thinking I might spike them - see what that does and very cheap upgrade to start.

New speaks is fun, as long as they aren't overly 'spensive for an experiment Darryl!

voltz

agreeon not spending a lot of $$$, I got some monitor 4's for about $80 and redid the crossovers my self and little stuff, was fun and I think it was worth it. Your Wharfedale's are a better value then my 4's I see good potential.