I purchased these speakers on an online auction, I was sceptical at first because I only paid $160 a piece for them. I thought what the heck, I couldn't beat that deal when they list for over $600 each. When I received them and hooked them up to my HT I definitely had zero regrets. These speakers are awesome and sound amazing whether playing music or watching DVDs. I would recommend these to anyone looking for new speakers, but would not pay the list price of $600. Their build is not the greatest I would have to admit, I had to tighten the screws holding the drivers in place before listening to them, and they are LIGHT. Overall these speakers are great and I have no regrets, matched with a good sub these are phenominal.I am powering these with a SONY STR-DE925 DD/DTS A/V receiver. As of now I lack a good sub but these speakers still sound terrific.
At the price I got them for I give them five stars (DON'T pay full price, $1200+ OUCH!)

Performance & Price.

I have no complaints, but I do worry that the grilles will break if I'm not careful in removing them. Poor video shielding.

I read the reviews here for pretty much all of the Wharfedale speakers at Ubid and decided to bid on the mfm-5's. If you look, these had better reviews than the modus-8's but got taken down a notch because someone put down one star on a very brief (read: non-informative) review. Needless to say I won my bid, but after being charged close to $80 for shipping (after reading other reviewers say they only paid ~$40 s/h), I started thinking that I got ripped-off! I received them in a little over a week. The shipping boxes looked a little beat-up but the speakers were in excellent condition when I unpacked them. The infamous grilles do have a flimsy feel to them, but they look great on the mfm-5's. (Yes, these do look great with the grilles off, but why subject the cones to dust?) Speaking of cones, they looked to have been well-manufactured--rekindling my initial excitement in the purchase. I thought maybe I didn't get ripped-off after all... The cabinet is sturdy, but unimpressive--looking neither better nor worse than other speakers with a black-ash finish. I bi-wired these to my system and was initially underwhelmed when I turned my system on. The bass response seemed almost slow and a little shallow. I figured that this simply meant that I needed to break them in, as other people have mentioned in their reviews. So I loaded up my CD-changer with music involving a lot of acoustic instruments (including taiko drums) and vocals and kept it playing a moderate volume throughout the day while I ran errands. I did this again the next day with a similar set of CD's. Now they sound amazing! I'm wondering if I'll be lucky enough to find truth in what some reviewers say that they get even better with prolonged use! I'll know in a month if these perform better than advertised, but these mid-field-monitors (hence mfm) handle mid-ranges cleanly and beautifully. These need "help" from a subwoofer only because they aren't designed to go that deep. I've indicated under Weaknesses that I think these have poor video shielding. Maybe that's true of other speakers? I wouldn't know, but I do know I'm unhappy how the picture on my television gets weird when one of these towers get placed within ~two feet! Otherwise, I am very happy with the mfm-5's. Now, does anyone know if Wharfedale makes a decent powered subwoofer?

I picked these up from uBid for $295.00 the pair shipping included. They are excellent speakers. I would have to agree with previous reviewers that for heavily bass laden music and thickly layered guitar pieces (such as Molly Hatchet) it could use a little subwoofer help, but for jazz, folk, and classical, blues and such they do very well. It's also my observation that these speakers handle percussion in all its forms extremely well. Five stars for value with great performance.

After reading the reviews for this speaker (and not having actually heard it which I thought would be a serious gamble) I decided to give it a try at uBid. I ended up paying $103 each and $40 s/h for a total of about $250 for the pair. A great price - and actually a great speaker too! One thing - the bass is not tremendously strong on the real low end so it helps to have a powered sub (which I have) for music with a strong bass beat like dance, techno, or rap.
However, since the sound is so clean (which is what a monitor should really be) I don't need the sub for classical, jazz, or more folky kinds of music. This type of music is really where this speaker shines - and I've found that after a couple of weeks of listening, this speaker has become even better sounding after some break-in time.

For the price I paid, I couldn't be happier!

4 stars only because 5 stars should be reserved for those speakers that blow you away completely - even though the MFM-5's are fantastic for the price. Recommended for sure!

never buy this from ubid it is a scam

I too bought my set from ubid, bid price of $87 + ~$40/shipping per speaker. I bought six, I only wanted five - Left, Right, Left Surround, Right Surround, Center Surround - but ubid would only let me bid in increments of two. Since I've got six, I've been using the the last as the front center channel - the manual says the speaker won't be harmed although sound quality will be degraded by laying it horizontally. So, heresy, I've got it laying across the top of my tosh tw56x81 and it still sounds pretty good. As a break-in, I left them playing a loop of pink-noise of the AVIA dvd for about 16 hours at moderate volume levels.

I've got them connected to an Outlaw 1050 receiver and am pretty happy with the combination. To my uneducated ear, response is clean and flat. Rated at 125W, they have plenty of handling capacity for the Outlaw's 65 watts per channel. They come with bi-wiring posts, which I am still debating the merits of myself, right now they are only mono-wired through 14awg wire. They also come with floor-spikes which I have choosen not to use, as I have them in a rented house.

On irksome thing is the lack of specs, other than a stated RMS level of 125W, Wharfedale provides no other information, either with the speakers or on their website. In particular, there is no quoted -3db level for figuring sub-woofer cross-over value. Another thing to watch out for: during shipping the bi-wire connectors came loose on a couple of speakers and ended up inside the speakers, having fallen through the woofer vent.

It does seem like this line is close to being obsoleted, Wharfedale themselves have the mfm5's on sale on their website for something like 185 english pounds per pair, with an exchange rate of ~$1.5 to 1 pound, the ubid pricing is still probably a better deal, unless you live in Great Britain.