Of course, integrating three different drivers made of different materials takes some skill and expertise, and Wharfedale employs Computer-Aided Optimization to tune the crossover. This results in an excellent tonal balance, which is one of EVO4.2’s major strengths. Vocals & instruments come through brilliantly and overall is a very smooth and enjoyable listen. D’angelo’s Voodoo album sounds fantastic. Lower bass plays an important role in this genre, the 4.2’s full bodied bass offering sounds plentiful and complements the genre, the vocals shine through, the highs are there in pleasing amounts. The swirling psychedelic echo effects in dub reggae are especially well suited to the immersive soundscape these speakers create. Burning Spear, Fat Freddys Drop & Gentlemans Dub Club sound brilliant.

Our frequency response analysis of the Evo 4.2 shows a broadly flat charac­teristic across the audio band from 40Hz to 16kHz, making the ‘speaker fundamentally accurate. There is no treble lift as is now so common, so no emphasis of distortion harmonics, from CD for example. The sudden dip and peak around 160Hz is due to floor return, so not an intrinsic FREQUENCY RESPONSE I found that a slight toe-in gave me the best balance of image focus and soundstage. Most speakers I point almost directly at the listening position, but with the Wharfedales, I found them to play more open that way. Usually found only on speakers costing well in excess of the EVO 4.2, the dedicated, soft dome mid-range brings vocals to life. With a top quality drive unit, dedicated to the mid-range, vocal reproduction is more accurate than ever with every breath (sometimes literally in some recordings) clearly defined. Other instruments in the mid-range, such as guitars, also benefit through higher resolution. One of the big strengths of the Lintons are their very engaging vocals and mid range delivery which is very smooth and effortlessly large, the EVO 4.2 cant quite match the scale but the benefits of the soft dome mid range driver for speed means they have better vocal resolution.

Listening to the Wharfedale EVO4.2

Moving further upscale into the treble, cymbal hits and bell taps provided the delicacy you would hope for with reverb tails here and there to please but the bass focus added a sense of weight to each cymbal proving a certainty to each tap. EVO4's AMT high-frequency unit produces sound in a completely different way than conventional dome testers. The ribbon technology uses a large, pleated, lightweight diaphragm, driven by a series of magnets. This is an extremely efficient and accurate method to create high-frequency sound, so that the EVO4 series has an open and smooth sounding top, without being too bright and hard. I think what your after is a subwoofer to get a full-range sound that will sort out all you ills sound stageing is a placement problem and you can sort for free by taking more time might 2mm out never know.

Blues, Jazz, Acoustic, Vocals, Dub Reggae, Instruments and low-mid tempo music types are presented fantastically.This provides clearance for a down-firing port, the narrow gap providing a measure of acoustic damping.

This SLPP (Slot Loaded Profiled Port) receives the lowest frequency energy, profiled, says the company to, “…equalise the high internal pressure to the low pressure in the room.” Same with blues, jazz and all acoustic music that's why is sounds good it fall into that natural bass band 40hz and above.I’ve always found Audiolab gear to be an excellent match with Wharfedale Speakers, and to an extent, this is probably by design since China’s International Audio Group owns both brands. In some countries, they are also under the same distribution, but not in the U.S. I did decide to buy a pair of EVO 4.2 to have as a review tool for comparison purposes, their sound presentation is more familiar to me and is more inline with the sound I enjoy from HiFi, however if these were to be my main and only speakers and the budget permitted I would have likely bought the EVO 4.4 because their extra bass driver and inevitable increased bass output compared to the 4.2 would better suit my overall listening preferences.