B&W 686 vs Wharfedale 121 vs Wharfedale Diamond 10

Comparing the B&W 686 vs Wharfedale 121 vs Wharfedale Diamond 10 speakers

Summary:

The 686 wins clearly & for good reasons.
The diamond 10 have had rave reviews claiming they are great for the price.
If you are on a budget, buy a used 686, it costs the same as a new diamond 10.

If buying new, don't even consider the 121s because they cost the same as the old 686 (now called Series 1 since the S2 have been released)
If you want lots of mid bass & don't want to put a sub, then you could argue the 121 is better for you, but if you want something that sounds like that go buy a cheaper set & save your money.

I would not recommend the 686 S2 unless you really want to have a bigger speaker, in which case buy a 685, or a 685 S2.
I discuss this in my previous post comparing the 686 to the 600 series etc
Speaker are passive electric components, they don't die for years. If youre really out of luck something may go wrong, but otherwise, don't settle for new junk over second hand goodies.

Testing:

Rotel 5.1 receiver with USB input.
I use usb flash drives & CDs quite extensively. I am not an analogue audio purist.
I use my ears, rather than argue over stuff I cant tell apart, or ever afford.
I like the way CDs & MP3s extracted nicely sound, & I see no need to only use vinyl or a $4000 preamp before any speaker testing can be done.

Details:

The dealer told me the 121s have the most bass & are the newest & have had rave reviews.
He's right about everything else, except, they don't sound the best at all.
Typical wharfedale making it cheap & grabbing the spot light didn't help this time because the 121 is not cheap! Priced the same as a 686 (not the 686 S2) this speaker is easy to look past.

Bloated bass. No point having more if it sounds so muddy. The bass overpowers the vocals completely.
Speaker has practically no sound stage!
The diamond 10 bookshelf had better top end than it, but then the diamond is treble bright as hell & has no low end vocals, its a tatty flat speaker.

The 121 was warmer than the Diamond 10.1 I admit, but no where near the clarity of the B&Ws.

There was some kind of disconnection between the bass & the treble in the 121. Think of a system where a sub was crossed over poorly & felt like a separate component going off rather than a nicely rolling bass line. That's exactly what the 121 sounded like.

There is good bottom end base, I can feel it, but because the mid bass is also oddly high, this bottom end becomes muddy rather than clean & defined.
Fix this wharfedale folks in maybe a 122 & you might actually have a decent speaker.

The diamond 10.1, well, tatty, bright, gutless, no real bass, I cant see what people rave about with these speakers I tell you.
Maybe you need to really tune your bass & treble settings or your eq. But what the heck, a good speaker shouldn't need you to do all that for its inherent sound to be pleasant.
The diamonds go off & I actually move my ears away & cringe.

I put the treble down & the bass up & yes they sounded slightly better, & the top end of the vocals was not as muddy as the 121 which is a plus.
The 121 has a softer higher end, but that's all plagued by excessive bass that's probably caused people to keep the volume low, & thus the relative volume of other freq must be low such that the treble seems soft. Louder, these speakers have more prominence, but not in the vocals sorry.

The 686 is pleasant, & still grunty bass line contrary to what you might think. I discuss it in my post comparing it to other speakers B&W 6 series speakers here

If you want a small speaker that sounds great as a hifi full range speaker, get the 686, you wont regret it.