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Epos LS3 or Wharfedale Diamond 9.1?

Both these monitors come well-regarded by the rags and represent good value for the money. I will be using in my HT, very little music use and that when on the treadmill, so pace and punch are more important, I suppose, than subtlety. But brightness is still a no-no, although I don't think either of these would be that. Using a JVC F10 receiver.
Not a big deal as purchases go, but wondering if anyone can point out weaknesses or relative strengths.

On an aside, anyone tried the Diamond 8 DFS surround?
kck
bignerd100
515 posts
 
I have a pair of the 9.1's here that I am auditioning. So far they are dreadful but they have not finished breaking in yet. Even straight out of the box the NHT SB2 blows them away as Rar1 said. In that price range you can go with the SB2, Kef Q1, or even some of teh Celestions and get a bigger bang for the buck. If you can afford the NHT SB3 you would probably not want to upgrade for a while.

Good luck!
jaybo
4,478 posts
 
the diamond
windzilla
16 posts
 
in regards to Bignerd's comments, I own the diamond 9.6's and can say from experiance that the difference between 10 and 100+ hours of solid break in is night and day.
kck OP
184 posts
 
Well I am intrigued now by this SB2/SB3 thing... is there a noticeable difference in performance if one does not care about bass extension of the monitor? (using sub).
rar1's avatar
rar1
1,748 posts
 
Kck:

The SB3 does go lower in the bass than the SB2; is in a slightly bigger cabinet; and the position of the woofer is on the bottom for the SB2 and on the top for the SB3. Otherwise, they have the same tweeter and my guess the same woofer (at least they are the same size). If you are planning to use a sub-woofer, I would think that the differences would be negligible.

The SB2 is really something else and rises to the occasion when placed with better components. I had paired them with a Prima Luna Prologue 2 integrated tube amp and the sound was musical, engaging, nuanced, refined, etc. They were great with my Marantz receiver, but exceptional with the Prima Luna.

Regards, Rich
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