Wharfdale Diamond - Pleb Audiophile speaker?

A agree with Paraneer, I had the TOTL Opus for several months, great speaker for the money!

I think you already know the answer. Trust your ears!

Ellrotts, you are way out of line with your, "whitevan scam speakers," comment. I reviewed the Wharfedale Opus series for Dagogo.com and this is a legit company which makes very fine sounding speakers at a good price point. I have not worked with the Diamond series, so I will refrain from comment regarding that particular house sound.

However, you said, "Upon inspection of the speaker the [sic] appear to try to ripoff the woven Kevlar look but it appears the wover pattern looked like embossed plastic rather than a woven material of any kind.
Had a listen and the treble was dull and the bass was boomy."

Neither of these observations are absolutely determinant of the quality or lack thereof of the speaker.
-The appearance of the cones is hardly the marker of the sound; take a look around and you will see many, many different and unusual materials and applications for drivers. It sounds like you are running a visual comparison and trying to render judgmement based on what you see. That's hardly a refined way to deal with a speaker.
-The dull or uninspiring sound quite likely is largely due to the system. If the speaker is not to your liking, ask the dealer to set up a quite different rig with more brightness/liveliness. Perhaps different source or cables, or if it was a tube amp go to a SS amp. Hearing a speaker once in an unfamiliar rig is not grounds to pronounce them unfit for audiophile consumption.

I don't mean to bully you on this but you did come in here a bit like a bull in a china shop. A bit more understanding and tact may be in order. I have no skin in the game as regards Wharfedale; I'm not reviewing anything of theirs. I do agree that Wharfedale is not making an extreme speaker series, but neither are they charging for such. As concerns the B&W, I reviewed one of the CM series, the CM6 I believe, and if they were the subject of your ire I would chide you for ripping on them as white van as well. Frankly, the CM series has its own issues sonically, so don't get the idea that you're comparing a nearly perfect line in B&W to a suspect one in Wharfedale. Nothing could be further from the truth. :)

well doug, you showed me, Apologies if i offended you. I know what I heard and based on that I didnt think any amount of tweaking could result in such a vast improvment. Maybe it could I dont know, as soon as I heard them I wrote them off. On brief observation they look sleek and pretty well made and whatnot. on close inspection, veneer look sticker on craftwood as opposed to actual timber. and i would swear to got the cones were plastic made to look like woven whatever... this is what made me instantly think of a vhitevan speaker. In this particular setup they sounded like it too.

Im just trying to ascertain if these speakers are as bad as I heard or is there someting good that I missed.

I remember reading the B&W CM series is made of woven fiberglass, not woven kevlar of the DM series, so looks can be deceiving if that is your criteria for deciding if a speaker is good or not. If the 9.1 is $175 and the 10.1 is $350, what quad or B&W speaker compares to this?