Stylish surround sound that’s easy on the ears
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Wharfedale’s Evo series occupies an unenviable position in company’s speaker offering, flanked by the wildly successful budget Diamond range and the superb flagship Elysians – which, despite their premium price, still represent an excellent return in terms of sound per pound investment.
But don’t presume Evo is the overlooked middle child of this overachieving speaker family. Developed concurrently with Elysian, Evo is packed with technology that uses the same concepts as its bigger sibling, bringing a high-minded approach that is anything but middling to this refined but relaxed speaker package.
The Evo series includes floorstanders, bookshelf speakers and centre channel speakers with two size options available. The flagship Evo 4.4 and smaller, similarly specified Evo 4.3 floorstanders boast a three-way design, as does the Evo 4.2 bookshelf speaker; the ultra-compact Evo 4.1 is a two-way standmount. Meanwhile, there’s the sizeable three-way Evo 4.C and the two-way Evo 4.CS for a centre channel.
Here we have a system comprising the Evo 4.4 floorstanders, the Evo 4.2 bookshelf speakers and the Evo 4.C centre channel, partnered with the SW-12 sub. This Evo 4.4 5.1 pack is bundled at £2475. A similar system from the Elysian range would start at over five times as much without the sub. Which, given that it shares many of its engineering principles with Evo, makes this an exciting prospect.
This symbiosis is immediately evident from the inclusion of Air Motion Transformer tweeters across all the models in the Evo series, a technology usually found in pricier products.
Instead of a cone or dome-shaped driver, AMTs use a light, pleated diaphragm with electrical circuit traces and a movement that expands and contracts like a concertina as a music signal is applied, pushing sound out towards the listener. The light mass of the thin, folded film means it has the potential to be more responsive and immediate than drivers made with heavier materials, while the large surface area makes it particularly efficient and less prone to distortion.
The same 55 x 80mm AMT is found across all of the Evo models in this system, as is the 50mm, domed midrange driver coated with a damping compound to control resonances. This midrange dome has an extensive frequency response, from 800Hz to 5kHz, and sits in fr
