First Impressions: Wharfdale 8.2 Monitors

[909one]

So I got the Wharfedales the other day. The jury is still out about how I feel about them.
Before I got these I was using Event 20/20' s but one of the woofers blew out. I was not particularly of fan of the Events, so I thought I would try something new. After plugging in the Wharfdale's I imediately noticed the lack of bass response. I knew that would be an issue before I got them. That was no shock, whats weird is that there is a bump around 120-200 hz, possibly to make up for the lack of any real low end in the 50-50hz range. This made things sound a little muddy, but was easily eq-ed out with the mixing board.
Because I have only really owned the 20/20's I can only use them as my main comparision, but with the Wharfdales, alot of the ambient presence of the drums seemed to be lost. Probably due to the excess in the 200 hz range. What did seem better than the Events was the higher end. There is no upper mid weirdness going on like the I think the Event's have. The Wharfdales don't seem like they would be as fatiguing on the ears as the Events can get. Its intersting...when playing back some old mixes, I noticed some distortion in the high end that I had never noticed before. And things things that are closed mic-ed seemed much more detailed with the Wharfdales. Its just the ambient stuff that gets lost. So maybe these will help my mixes, but I have yet to actaully mix something on them. I'll let everyone know how they translate when I do.

PS. With the Wharfdales, I get this stupid amplified disk drive noise that comes through the speakers.

[clineaudio]

first, thanks for the evaluation. New products, I'm always curious...

Also, as for the "disk drive noise" are you using a firewire interface? What's the computer? I have a clue what it might be. Let me know.

[909one]

Yes... the disk drive noise.
I have an ext firewire drive, using it with dual 1.8 G5.
Its weird when the disk spins or is active the noise is amplified through the monitors.
It didn't do it before, but I didn't have powered monitors.
Weird.

[clineaudio]

HA! I knew it!

http://forums.gearwire.com/showthread.php?t=68 Check that forum, I started it w/ the same issue. I'm actually going to reply to it again today, I've got some new info.

[puffpastry]

This is interesting to read. I've heard good things about these monitors, but I've never read a user review. Thanks for writing this.

[clineaudio]

I should also note, that I had this issue both my an amp/passive speaker set up, as well as powered monitors, no amp.