I've posted on here before. There is just something I would like to repeat. Anyone who doesn't approve of these speakers for sound quality is very confused. Perhaps they are those guys you see in lowered Accords with no paint, big chrome tail pipes and wheels that cost more than 9 months rent, who go to "Blowout Extravaganzas" and buy speakers based on how much the woofer vibrates when the bass beat in their favorite Eminem song hits. These are remarkable speakers. Just make sure you have a good amp, you biwire them, and you have decent taste in music.

I do not work for Ubid or Wharfedale. In fact Ubid pisses me off all the time and I can't highly recommend them.

For the price, these speakers and the Modus-8 are mother-fudging wonderful!

I spent four days of my life in fear while I waited on these speakers to come in the mail. I had never heard them, but I was on audio review every day scrolling through the reviews. For the most part they're great, but a couple on here planted a seed of doubt that woke me up at night is cold sweats.

When I unpacked these and biwired them to my Denon AVR-981 (90 watts x 5 @ 8 ohms) I shook my head and doubted the sanity of the few on this sight who dubbed them poor quality. These speakers were of such quality I was ultimately led to belive that anyone who denounced them did something utterly wrong in hooking them up. Perhaps they plugged them into a Fischer 20 watt amp and expected the bass to make their ears bleed? The basic fact is they sound great. I want to do is ease the suffering of somebody who ordered these off Ubid and is biting their fingernails. There's nothing to be worry about as long as you have a quality reciever and you biwire them.

Now, in order to make this a fair review, the bass gets slightly ill-defined at loud volumes. It's certainly there, but it's slightly muddy and loose. I noticed it does better work with natural accousting bass from instruments, than it does with manufactered rap and hip-hop bass.

There is also an issue nobody else has adressed on this sight. They do a fine job, I think, with all genres of music. I said the bass gets a little slow for big beats, but it's still present and mostly enjoyable. In terms of jazz, classical, punk-rock, or blues, it all sounds fine. For the price I paid, I could use these hoes once, throw them away and still be satisfied.

Everything I have written is relative to my personal tastes so take it with a grain of salt. As I said thought, don't be worried if you ordered these without hearing them first. Their a great speaker. As somebody else on this sight said, I will hold out a perfect 5 for a speaker that blows my hair back. I hope this helps... enjoy you MFM-5's!

highs are alright

-muddy bass
-mediocre mids
-cheap construction
-poor imaging (none?)

The guy who said "if it sounds too good to be true..." was right. i searched and searched on the web and finally found out that 2 chinese brothers bought wharfedale in the early 90's. All production is in china now. The cabinets are veneer over partical board, and the bass is bad-muddy and sloppy. maybe i'll take them to work and listen to them in the office. You will be better off buying something mass marketed at one of the chains, really. And yes, the rave reviews MUST be compliments of UBID.COM EMPLOYEES. Watch, another rave review will appear 5 minutes after I post this refuting my comments.

Similar Products Used:

paradigm, accoustic energy

Warfedale MFM-5 has the great heritage of British speakers: accurate and detailed presentation of music, but without the price tags of typical British brands.
I got a pair for $650 at a local dealer. They sounded a lot natural than the more expensive Difinitve BP-10. 5-Star for the value.

These slim-profiled tower speakers offer incredible details and excellent bass response. They produced great amount of volume at 40 Hz using Ultimate Test CD.
I compared them side by side with KEF Q65. They are every bit as good at a much more reasonable price.

I play Jazz in night clubs. Although I have limited budget for my hi-fi system, I am rather picky about it. I have been looking for second-hand deals for a pair of speakers, until I saw the Wharfedale MFM-5 at u-bid. I bit the bullet and bought it for $450 shipped.
This is one of the most neutral sounding speakers I have autioned. The bass is there, but not exaggerated. The midrange is warm and natural. The highs are crisp.

The external design is also very elegant and stylish. They look good even with grill off.

See my reviews under Modus 1.6, & can be purchased very cheapy at UBID

See my reviews under Modus 1.6

NOTE: I posted this review under the MFM-7 because of a bad review there. Since it is specifically about the MFM-5s I thought it might be useful here too. So here it is!


Ok I don't own these speakers, I purchased the Wharfedale Modus 1.6's, the Wharfedale Modus 6's and a Wharfedale Sapphire Center and was thrilled.

Please note, that I wouldn't have posted this review here if it weren't for Fred's review. People like him should not be posting to this cite, as the rest of us are trying to get real advice. And no that doesn't mean we want rave reviews, but complete and honest reviews. Ones that truely assist us in our purchase decisions.

ALSO - See my reviews under Wharfedale Modus 1.6.

At any rate, I spent a consderable amount of time tryng to find professional reviews, published by Stereo and Audio magazines. I found several rave reviews on the Wharfedale Diamond and new Pacific lines in Stereo Review, Brittish Hi-Fi magazines and other magazines, but until recently could not find anything on the MFM or the MODUS (still looking for Modus and if anyone out there comes across something I would love to know about it).

Recently, I came across a review of the MFM-5's in the June 1998 Audio magazine, pages 56 to 59, by D. B. Keele Jr. (not online, at the library). In that review the retail price of this lower end model was listed at $1,250.00 per pair. Not a budget speaker if you ask me, and this is the lower end model, which according to the reviewer at that time was "...the second from the top of the Wharefdale Modus Monitor line..."

The overall review was extremely favorable and in once instance he compared them to the B&W 801's as follows:

"Few speakers I've tested could so closely match my B&W 801's bass authority and extension at low top moderately loud levels. Even at higher levels, the Wharfedales kept up with the B&Ws except when the music contained high levels of frequencies below 30 Hz.

The Wharfedales proved to be good al-around performers on most recordings. They were somewhat brighter than the B&Ws, but this wasn't necessarily unwelcome: It made the MFM-5s sound more lively and energetic than the 801s, though perhaps a bit too much on vocals."

He concluded his review as follows:

"On orchestral music, the MFM-5s were good all-around performers. They exhibited excellent soundstage capability, produced stable center images for solo instruments, and had ample and robust bass. On music having quite high levles of bass, however, I heard some intermoulation distortion at loud levels. The Wharfedale speakers had no trouble reproducing cleanly recorded female and male voclas. They also sounded clean on well-recorded rock and country music, even when played at loud levels.

Wharfedale's MFM-5s deserve serious consideration as an addition to any system. Their excellent looks, extended bass, and good overall performance on a wide range of program material make them well worht their relatively MODEST PRICE." (emphasis added on modest price by me).

NOTE this reviewer thought this was a good buy at $1,250.00, not the low low prices we are seeing them on Ubid... AND NO I DON'T WORK FOR UBID, FRED!

Further if you look at my reviews (there are 3 I believe) under Modus 1.6, you will all see that the real reason Wharfedale is selling these low is because they are introducing new lines, with speakers made with new materials. Look on the Wharfedale cite - www.wharfedale.com and look at their new lines, like the Pacifics.

And for you FRED, if you have nothing productive to say, keep quiet, you just make yourself look stupid!

Everyone else, Enjoy the Bargains!

Similar Products Used:

See my reviews under Modus 1.6

price for the pair and looks with grills off

none

I bought the mfm-5's to use as front speakers, planing on getting some mfm-3's for rears. however, i was so impressed without bi-wiring them that i was already willing to go out and look for a pair of mfm-7's as fronts and using the mfm-5's as the rears. both are great, i don't understand why the ratings on the mfm-7's are so much lower then the mfm-5's. i would tell everyone to try wharfdales out, for the price they can go for is well worth it. the speaker that i compared wharfdales to are between 1,500-4,000 dollars, and there is really little difference between them. it wasn't until i heard a pair of wilson's before i could ditinctly tell differences (i think they were over 100,000). but if your listening to anything below the 4,000 range wharfdales are great.

the mirage was too musical with my system, and when in use as part of a home theatre i like less noise and more bass. high's are great and don't sound like noise like the mirages did, i think their distorition levels were rather high but i didn't ask the dealer what the specs were.

the b&w's were great, but the dealer told be wharfdales were as good and maybe even better. he explained that wharfdale failed in the US due to their high costs and being unheard of here. basicly there was no market to keep them here in the US. if you goto the wharfdale website you can learn about their history and find that they are rather well know and well established in the UK. I did however accompany the whafdale line with b&w's asw1000 which work well together. oh yeah, if you plan on using an entire wharfdale line for your home theatre don't use such a large speaker for the rear's. i think the mfm5's are too much for the rear's (not being used to their full potentials, the mfm3's would have been fine. visit www.wharfdale.co.uk/

my equipment

Sony KV32FV26 (flat screen monitor)
Nak AV10 (reciever)
Nak MB10 (5 disc cd bank)
Pioneer DV333 (dvd player)
Monster HTS2500 (power conditioner)
Wharfdale Modus (center speaker)
Wharfdale MFM-7's (front speakers-biwired)
Wharfdale MFM-5's (rear speakers)
B&W ASW1000 (powered subwoofer)
Cables are all monster cables refrence Z2

Similar Products Used:

mirage om-5's, b&w lines

Clean-uncolored sound with good clean bass response. Wide soundstage.

Cabinet could be better.

I love these speakers. They are worth every penny that you buy them for in the US. I paid just under 300 for the pair on UBID several months ago and love them. They produce a very clean sound without any detectable coloration. I am very picky about coloration because once you notice it, it never goes away. The only problem that I have with them is that one of the speakers produces a vibration-buzz when played moderately loud with certain midrange frequencies. The buzz comes from the casing around the midrange speaker and can be quenched by placing my hand firmly on the spot that the sound eminates from. I may invest in the Tekna speaker vibration absorbers to unload the vibration from this unit.

The Bass.. It does drop out a bit when the music is turned up louder, but this should be correctable by bi-amping the speakers.. Anyone tried it? I'm going to go this route soon. I just purchased a newcastle 925 to add to the Denon I currently have :)

5 stars because these speakers are worth it. I listened to a pair of $15000 speakers at an HT shop the other day, came home and listened to these playing comparable music and the response is audibly close. Certainly not $14700 different!

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Infinity rs5

I had been shopping for a new pair speakers for a while. I myself am a professional musician. I took a chance by getting these speakers off an auction web page. I did as much research on them as I could, since no place locally had a pair for me to listen to. They retail for $700 a pair. For the price I got them for I thought that they were worth a try. As soon as I hooked them up I was impressed, and they seem to get better and better everytime I turn on my stereo. They have incredible clarity. The bass is tight and the highs are clear. I continuously hear new things in CD's that I have had for ages. So far they haven't disappointed me in any of the genre's of music that I listen to. Many of my friends are in awe of them, and ask me where I got them. I would recommend to any one.