Wharfdale Denton Anniver spks. Excellent or hype?

FYI, audiokarma has a huge thread on these speakers in the British section.

@Sunnyjim: No hype, the Denton could be the last best value speakers that ever exists, attractive and beautiful craftsmanship, and most important musical sound, the speakers already been designed to enjoy a wide range of music without harshness, it's sound close to LS 3/5, but better fun bass. You just need some transparent gears include CD player, DAC and amp. It need clean power to sound best, though it still can sound with something like Marantz PM6005, but will sound a bit less clarity in treble and distortion handling. I own several Wharfedale speakers include Diamond 122, Jade 3, so far the Denton is the best value for me, I can spend whole day to listen to music, and stare at them, lol. But of course the Denton got some dynamic limitations due to the driver size, I'm still looking a better dynamic version of larger Denton, xD

For $500 your really can't go wrong. I bought a pair for a second system and drive them with a Primaluna Dialogue 1 tube amp. Quite nice, although I think I might like to hear them through a good SS amp voiced on the warm side of neutral like a Hegel. Excellent mid range (which has a somewhat forward soundstage when compared to my main system's speakers). It is not bright per se, but does not have the smoothness in the upper mids/highs I prefer (which costs a lot of money!). Bass is very good for a small box but you really do need clearance from the back wall or it becomes somewhat boomy/muddy (About 3 feet in my room). Hope that helps a bit.

In this price range, a listen to the NEW Andrew Jones designed ELAC speakers may make sense.

+1 on the Elacs. I have heard before, both the B5 and B6 in addition to the F5 at RMAF.

They are indeed something special for the money.

Thank you to all have responded so far and provided information. As far as equipment, I currently use a Rogue "Sphinx"(100RMS at 8ohms; 200 at 4 ohms) and an Ayre CX7e mp2 player and a Project Carbon DC TT including an Ortofon spike. Cables are Grover Huffman speaker cable and an older vintage Nordost Red Dawn Flat line IC which is about 5 years old. The PC for the Rogue is the Acoustic Zen Tsumani Plus.

I don't see changing any electronics to tweak the Dentons. Seems ironic I was considering Jade 3 speaker. That is quite a testimonial by Wim1983 but..... the Dentons may not accommodate the music I play.

I got the distance from the wall and a pair of decent 20 inch stands. As usual, MoFimadness has provides an interesting alternative. Though, I never associated good sound with Elac speaker products. ( Their turntables were junk)

However, Andrew Jones may have breathed new life into a moribund company. That I will have to judge for myself. If Best Buy/ Magnolia stores are going to be the dealer, Mo, I must respectfully defer. Thanks to all.

Jim...I went to the Best Buy website and they do not list them. Music Direct is a dealer and gives you a 60 day trial period. Might be worth trouble to try them.

I was interested in Denton too, had the audition with the Roksan Kandy integrate(and also with the Music angel 300B), it sounded warm, decent bass, Vocal didn't had the clarity which I looking for, the high freqency was on the softer side, however for the price, it's worth to consider..

when compared to the Audio note AX-2(tested with Music angel 300B), Audio note had better rhythm and softer bass Vocal had better clarity.

Amazon carries the new Elac speakers with free shipping but are out of stock.

@Sunnyjim: hmm, I'm a bit regret to buy Jade 3 frankly, but I can't conclude that it's a bad speakers, it's sound very very flat, neutral, free of color, transparent, but too much revealing for me, it sound best for most state of the art recordings, the way it present the sound is very neat, but some old vocal tracks with higher background noise or instrumental music sensitive to cymbal and treble is ruthlessly revealing to my ears, which bother much to me, create a noisy effect kinda to me. Not that the Denton is free of fatigue 100%, but it sound does not cross the borderline, and works very very good most of the high freq. tracks even, just nice and musical. Hope that give some thuoghts. Between, I'm eagle to hear what you hear from Elac Debut B6. Good luck to your speaerks hunt!