Wharfedale Evo 4.4
These are the biggest and priciest offerings in Wharfedale’s Evo range and are packed full of so much technology that we had to double-check the speaker’s price tag to make sure it was for a pair of speakers, rather than just one.
What kind of technology? Well, there’s the Air Motion Transformer (AMT) tweeter for starters. While there are a few similarly priced speakers that use such a unit, it’s a design more usually seen at far higher prices. It works by having a light, pleated diaphragm driven across its surface by a row of carefully placed magnets. The pleats contract or expand according to the music signal, squeezing the air between them in the process to create the sound wave. The sound from this kind of unit is claimed to be fast because of the light diaphragm, and accurate because of the complete surface area being driven.
The 55 x 80mm AMT hands over to another unusual drive unit, a dome midrange, at a relatively high 4.7khz. Few speakers use a dome midrange because of the cost and difficulty of development, but the one used in the 4.4 has a 50mm soft dome coated with a damping compound to control resonances. There’s also a specially shaped chamber behind the dome that scatters and absorbs the diaphragm’s rearward sound, so reducing distortion and improving detail.
Driver integration
This dome midrange unit has a wide frequency response ranging from 800Hz to 5khz. This helps it integrate with the AMT tweeter as well as with the twin woven Kevlar bass drivers below it on the front panel.
The output of those two bass drivers is helped by a downward-facing port arrangement where the low-frequency sound fires out through a gap between the base of the speaker cabinet and the floor plinth.
The Evo 4.4’s build quality is good for the price. We like the way the elegantly curved cabinet is put together. There are three finish options – black, white or walnut. The standard of fit and finish on our review samples is good.
These are pretty big speakers, and sound best well away from the rear and side walls in our medium-sized test room. Get it right though, and add suitably talented electronics into the equation, and you’ll find the Evo 4.4s to be superb speakers for the money. We think something like a Cyrus CDI CD player coupled with Rega’s Elex-r would be a good starting point for a system.
Reach into the New World
We listen to Dvořák’s New World Symphony and are impressed by the Wharfedale’s dynamic reach and ability to cope with a mass of instrumentation with composure. They go loud with an ease that suggests plenty of headroom, and remain organised when the recording gets demanding.
The transparency and subtlety these Wharfedales display is far less expected. There’s a real feeling that these speakers are digging deep into the recording and presenting that information in an honest way. They track the complete envelope of a note well, clearly defining leading and trailing edges without sounding overly etched. Rivals such as the excellent Fyne Audio F501s sound more forward, and perhaps more exciting because of that, but over a longer listen the Evo 4.4’s easier-going presentation is more natural and convincing.
Tying everything together is a fine sense of timing that produces surefooted rhythms and the ability to present a mass of instrumentation as a cohesive, musical whole. The longer we listen, the less we find ourselves analysing the sound and the more we enjoy the results.
These floorstanders prove that Wharfedale has the ability to mix it with the very best at more premium prices. They are entertaining and detailed with enough in the way of refinement to make them an excellent choice.