[Review] whardale diamond actives 8.2

whardale diamond actives 8.2

Intro
If your woman is nagging you to tidy up your hifi, and you can't afford a divorce settlement, because your woman wants a nice tidy house without the clutter of multiple boxes and garden hose speaker cables, check out active monitors.

The benefits of going active? well you get an internal amplifier in each speaker, so you don't need to make space on the rack, your speaker is biamplified, meaning a separate amplifier powers each drive unit, you also get an active crossover, which means phase and and time can be compensated for and your amplfier volts and current aren't lost in the passive crossover, which turns them to heat.

So you get all that plus driver protection from being overdriven in one self contained package, AND with some models, you also get tweakable top and bottom end to suit your ears: you can reduce the treble, or compensate for your room.

sounds good? you bet.

Brief info

How does it work in practice? well all that probably means a compromise, especially when like these they are built in China.

I have heard they are the same drive units as the quad 11/12s( at this price?hmm, they look the same though), but you get the less posh box, its more purposeful but not unpleasant.

I am not sure of the new price of these, I picked them up used, they offer a respectable 6 1/2 inch woofer, kevlar coned, and a silk domed tweeter.

they have 2x 40 watt amplifiers in each, quite respectable.

Sound/voicing

Could I live with them? yes, at times the detail coming from them is superb, sometimes I get the feeling that some is lost slightly, but I think that's the voicing( lower mids take secondplace to treble, not to say they are bright though), I am wondering about the balance, it sounds fairly flat without any bass boost, maybe a tad, I seem to recall that speakers with flat bass can sound a tad less detailed in the lower mids. Also, some actives are designed to be listened to virtually full pelt, and so can sound a bit laid back at typical domestic levels. These certainly have a cool, detailed laid back balance, that on some material sounds very 'right'. Sometimes I do wonder that there is more, and occasionally, image and soundstage tho very good, can go awry, as tho' they become confused what goes where.
Strings sound a tad processed, occasionally slilghtly coarse, but its still the sheer detail that shows through, everything is near perfectly balanced, piano is particularly good tonally, scarily accurate, I can't recall acoustic solo piano sounding so good.
Kevlar woofers seem to make brass sound good, and its true here.

I am well known for being a valve advocate, but these really are so good as to make some in my valve collection sound coloured and thick, and at times, I find myself preferring them, they are incredibly easy to listen to.
They don't quite have the same 'presence' as the valves, and ambient effects surrounding the voices, yet the balance, accuracy and tonality sometimes wins me over.


Conclusion
An absolute steal, all the more remarkable as the amplifiers just use cheap opamps. Perhaps in some homes as well as studios, actives will begin to make waves, it certainly makes sense ditching those boxes, and you don't have to spend on expensive cables, the amps are virtually next to the drive units.
I will certainly be checking out more expensive variants, actives really do make traditional setups redundant, I can't strongly recommend them enough, the only drawback really is the fun element of playing with all your boxes.
ahh well, at least you get to stay in your house!!

 

Interesting. As you may know I was a fairly long time user of the 8.2's (passive) and although they sounded okish at the time, I always felt I could do better, and in the end, different speakers proved that. Pretty underwhelming I thought. Still thats just my tastes, and I heard the Quad 11L's and to be honest I think, looks aside, I'd take the 8.2's over the 11L's as they sounded at least as good, if not better IMO, and were 1/3 of the price!!

 

http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/d2/page/shop/flypage/product_id/4478

take a look there. no silk dome tweeter as per passive 8.2 and a different bass driver too and seemingly a deeper cabinet...

interesting....

 

They do look slightly different. I wonder if the bass driver has just been painted, because its made out of the same material. The deeper cabinet might be to accomodate the amps. I dont doubt they sound different though.

 

the kevlar units in the evo's are black. they probably used one of those.

 

that was an initial review, they are really confusing me, I am finding them hard to pigeonhole...they undeniably have detail, and the tonal sound of stuff is extremetly accurate, but there is something missing, very strange, as initially you think wow, the detail, it is the fine ambient cues, the spaces around the notes, the reverb, the attack and decay. So its one of those cases of initial...wow great, to hmmm, not quite so perfect, very confusing, takes a bit of analysing, still very very good for the cash, as good as separates at the price.