Wharfedale Elysian 1 review

We've had a look at the Wharfedale Elysian 1. The smallest unit in the flagship range from Wharfedale, which consists of a center speaker, two standmount/bookshelf and a floorstanding loudspeaker.

Build
The build quality is at a really high level. The lacquered walnut we got as a demo unit looked so fabolous. The units is 15kg/per pcs without stands.
The stands is made of carbon steel, and the baseplates is with wood in the same finishes as the loudspeaker.

The unit is fitted with a high quality 27x90mm AMT tweeter and a 7" fibre class matrix bass/midrange unit.

Sound
The sound is overall tight, homogeneous and not least extremely open. The interaction between the treble module and the bass-midrange unit is close to flawless, the transition is completely fluid, and the treble module contributes with a great wealth of detail and resolution that so abundantly lives up to whatever you throw at it.

Michael Jackson's "Beat it" plays liberated and with tight timing in the bass, and a punch in the midrange. The bass is measured and correct, and on some passages also deep. There are limits to what you can do with a 7 "bass-midrangeunit, but here it is used as it should be.

Once again a completely smooth transition between the two units on Adele's "Rolling in the Deep", and offers a offers a fantastically precise perspective. And in particular Adele's voice that blares through with rarely heard hole through, and a level of resolution that to that extent deserves the predicate High Fidelity.

Verdict
It is one of, if not the, best trebles I've heard from any Wharfedale product ever made. The AMT is something special, combined with the large 7" bas/midrange unit it is a very good all-arounder.

The sound is just as nice and neat as the speaker itself, it handles both rock, classical or jazz without problems, and the details are reproduced nicely and cleanly.

At 5000€ it is a no-brainer, and should be on your short-list when you are looking for at speaker within this budget.

Editors Choice!

Equipment used:

• Pass Labs XA100.8
• Pass Labs XS Preamp
• Luxman DA-06
• Lumin U1
• Kimber Carbon 16
• Kimber Carbon XLR
  

Demo videos:
Coming