Building on Wharfedale's Diamond reputation

If you've spent a lot of time reading speaker reviews (like me), you may have noticed a trend with Wharfedale's Diamond Series speakers. They're continually praised for offering excellent sound at an affordable price. Sure, there's a level of additional performance to be had if you want to spend a whole lot more. But the Diamond 12.1 bookshelf speakers can certainly hold their own against lots of more expensive models.

New high-tech drivers

These speakers are a complete redesign from the previous generation. The 5-inch Klarity™ woofer is a mica-infused polypropylene cone. What does that mean? Polypropylene is very light, so it responds quickly to audio signals — important for any speaker to reproduce music accurately. Mica is a mineral that adds stiffness to the polypropylene. That keeps the woofer from losing its shape, which can cause distortion. Combined with the 1-inch soft-dome tweeter, these new Klarity woofers offer sound that's impressively accurate and smooth.

Great for stereo or rounding out a surround system

This is a great pair of speakers if you're putting together your first "real" stereo system, or if you want an affordable system for a secondary room. Either way, I recommend pairing them with a good amplifier — they'll definitely benefit from solid power. These speakers would also make excellent rear speakers in a surround sound setup.

 

 

A voice coil beyond this class

The voice coil is wound on a high-power epoxy/glass fibre bobbin highly unusual in speakers at this price level. This has the advantage of not adding eddy currents and delivering greater power handling than an aluminium bobbin, whilst also being much stiffer than the Kapton type associated with this price-class.

DIAMOND highs

The 25mm dome is made from a woven polyester film with a high-loss coating to deliver open and smoothly extended high frequencies. The magnet system and the front plate have been optimised for wide dispersion and uncompressed behaviour. The front plate is flat and exposes the dome as much as possible; only a very short duct on the front plate balances the acoustic load and improves the SPL (sound pressure level) measurement.