Loud midbass

blurred vague vocals, rolled off tinny highs, no stereo image

Picked these up on the (too) cheap at an online auction. This will teach me to NEVER buy any product without seeing it demonstrated live from now on. You can't get the sound from a cute picture and glowing BS review from the people selling the junk. Given the high cost of energy now that we have a republican economy, I might get my money's worth by putting these in the fireplace to warm the house. Remember...if everybody in the world is getting these at $150 to $250 a pair, then you are lucky if they are worth even that. If these were really worth $1400 and the retailer paid $700 or so, do you think they are going to lose a few hundred on every pair? Do you think the manufacturer is losing money? No way, they are just looking for suckers. And if you don't think so, I have a $10,000 "MSRP" watch I'll sell you for $200.

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B&W, M&K, Tannoy, Magnepan, Martin Logan, JBL

EVERYTHING

NOT EVEN CLOSE

HERE'S THE PROBLEM......UBID IS SELLING 2 DIFFERENT SPEAKERS....THE BLACK ONES THAT WEIGH 22 LBS PER SPEAKER AND THE ROSEWOODS THAT WEIGH 47 LBS PER SPEAKER. ONCE WHARFEDALE SOLD ALL OF THE BLACK MODELS THEY STARTED MAKING THESE 22 LB PIECES OF GARBAGE TO SELL ON UBID. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND GET A PAIR OF 47 LB ROSEWOODS WHILE YOU CAN. YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED. THIS IS AN EXTREMLY STRONG SPEAKER WITH VERY PURE SOUND. I HAVE BROUGHT THIS POINT UP TO UBID WITH NO RESOLVE AS OF YET. THEY CAN AFFORD TO SELL THE GOOD SPEAKERS AT 200/PAIR AS LONG AS PEOPLE KEEP BUYING THE GARBAGE FOR THE SAME PRICE.

Great value, very neutral sound, smooth response throughout freq. range, construction not as awful as expected

Broke the grille removing it, a bit lacking in clarity/definition in mids/highs

Thanks to Ben K below who said:
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That's exactly what I did.
I really can't complain. I don't know about break-in, but I think they do sound a bit better every day; most comments about the sound quality written below are pretty accurate; the bass is reasonably tight, the highs are not scratchy or shrill, response is smooth throughout the frequency range (tried my techno-trance stuff with the deep bass octaves, and you can hear it fall off at the bottom a bit, but very, very gradually, and none of the pitches jump out at you in the least).
Listened to the end of Saint-Seans Organ Symphony and got chills-- was able to listen to the music, not the speakers.
They really start to shine at the upper end of what my 20 year old HK 330i reciever can give them (rated 20 watts RMS)-- got a new amp on the way, hope to biwire them and see what they can do.
Thanks for all the useful reviews here!

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My onlyy speekers to date are my 20 year old B&W DM 100s

Heavy

the noise that comes out of them

These things make fancy looking fireplace logs. You can bet that all the ridiculously superlative reviews below on this page and on any page here for a product that Ubid sells were typed up by Ubid's same employees who hold auctions open an extra half hour while they make bogus bids when the real bids aren't high enough. It's been reported in all the news media that they have been caught at it and have confessed.

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Mirage, KEF, PSB

I think it's an all around wonderful sounding speaker. Nice deep bass, very smooth highs.

cheap grille, I heard it snap when I was taking them off...but I didn't find anything broken, I'll probably throw the grilles away anyways.

I think these speakers sound great. I have a very controled environment for listening to music, and these speakers just sound awesome to me. I may not have the normal budget of an audiophile, but I have a decent ear. I think these speakers have great highs, I read some people say that they sounded rolled off, but I think they sound natural and not all hyped up.

These things sound horrible straight out of the box, I left mine on for 3 days, and that seemed to be good for break in time. They sound fantastic now. I can only think that the people giving these bad reviews must have had something wrong with their speakers. Either that, or they didn't allow enough break in time. They sounded very distorted in the mids, and highs straight out of the box, but now they are very smooth, detailed, and accurate. For 300 dollars, this is a great deal! Oh, and I don't work for Ubid either.

I would give these a five for overall rating, but these aren't the best speakers in the world, I've heard better...and can't afford ten grand for speakers. For the money, I don't know if they can be beat. I think they sound great!

Side note, I have the rosewood version. I don't know if that is true about the black ones, but these are the 47lb. each speakers.

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Several B&W's, Infinity Mark III's, Quad electrostats, Genelecs, and tons of other studio monitors.

I think it's an all around wonderful sounding speaker. Nice deep bass, very smooth highs.

cheap grille, I heard it snap when I was taking them off...but I didn't find anything broken, I'll probably throw the grilles away anyways.

I think these speakers sound great. I have a very controled environment for listening to music, and these speakers just sound awesome to me. I may not have the normal budget of an audiophile, but I have a decent ear. I think these speakers have great highs, I read some people say that they sounded rolled off, but I think they sound natural and not all hyped up.

These things sound horrible straight out of the box, I left mine on for 3 days, and that seemed to be good for break in time. They sound fantastic now. I can only think that the people giving these bad reviews must have had something wrong with their speakers. Either that, or they didn't allow enough break in time. They sounded very distorted in the mids, and highs straight out of the box, but now they are very smooth, detailed, and accurate. For 300 dollars, this is a great deal! Oh, and I don't work for Ubid either.

I would give these a five for overall rating, but these aren't the best speakers in the world, I've heard better...and can't afford ten grand for speakers. For the money, I don't know if they can be beat. I think they sound great!

Side note, I have the rosewood version. I don't know if that is true about the black ones, but these are the 47lb. each speakers.

Similar Products Used:

Several B&W's, Infinity Mark III's, Quad electrostats, Genelecs, and tons of other studio monitors.

I think it's an all around wonderful sounding speaker. Nice deep bass, very smooth highs.

cheap grille, I heard it snap when I was taking them off...but I didn't find anything broken, I'll probably throw the grilles away anyways.

I think these speakers sound great. I have a very controled environment for listening to music, and these speakers just sound awesome to me. I may not have the normal budget of an audiophile, but I have a decent ear. I think these speakers have great highs, I read some people say that they sounded rolled off, but I think they sound natural and not all hyped up.

These things sound horrible straight out of the box, I left mine on for 3 days, and that seemed to be good for break in time. They sound fantastic now. I can only think that the people giving these bad reviews must have had something wrong with their speakers. Either that, or they didn't allow enough break in time. They sounded very distorted in the mids, and highs straight out of the box, but now they are very smooth, detailed, and accurate. For 300 dollars, this is a great deal! Oh, and I don't work for Ubid either.

I would give these a five for overall rating, but these aren't the best speakers in the world, I've heard better...and can't afford ten grand for speakers. For the money, I don't know if they can be beat. I think they sound great!

Side note, I have the rosewood version. I don't know if that is true about the black ones, but these are the 47lb. each speakers.

Similar Products Used:

Several B&W's, Infinity Mark III's, Quad electrostats, Genelecs, and tons of other studio monitors.

Excellent mid range, big soundstage, they're big and impressive looking, bi-wiring, low cost

crappy grill

I was using NHT SuperOnes for the mains in the home theater and while they're great minimonitors, I thought a little more heft would help imaging in music and create more presence in movies. So I bid on these, a bit higher than some others apparently (I never saw the bids that low). Anyway they arrived in good shape. They need breaking in; they sound flat at first. I had to finagle my whole setup to get these in decent locations, but they really add to the sense of 'large'. They are great for stereo. I noticed female vocalists hit right on these speakers strength. Maybe males do too but I listen to females more. They do need help at the low end, especially if you like rock or like the LFE in movies. They don't go down to the bottom of the range and aren't strong in the upper lows either. For mid range and high they are quite nice. Bi-wiring is an incremental improvement. For a few bucks more wire why not do it? I use a Pioneer Elite VSX 35TX with these and a Phase Tech Teatro 6.5 for the center. I moved the NHT SuperOnes to surround duty and have a JBL 10" 150W sub. Sounds like Frankenstein's monster but I think of it as a gun made with the best interchangeable parts of several guns. The Phase Tech center actually seems to blend well with the MFMs. It also is sweet in mid range. I will probably get some real surrounds eventually but that matchup isn't as crucial. I play music mostly in stereo (with the sub) and the Wharfedale MFM7s are great; good staging and sense of depth. They do have rear ports so they need some distance from a wall. In this price range how can you beat them?

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Nothing quite like this.

Can't figure out how to put the rubber fet on the bottoms of the speakers! Otherwise, none yet!

I've had my MFM-7s for one week now and I couldn't be happier. The imaging on these speakers is really great, and I'm hearing things in redordings that I had never noticed on my old speakers. The bass is tight (I can't imagine needing a separate subwoofer!) and the highs are crisp. I've particularly noticed how good the highs sound when listening to live recordings (Dire Straits, certain jazz albums). I still need to experiment with distance from my walls, since the bass can get a little boomy when put too close.
By way of full disclosure: my old speakers are Design Acoustic PS-10s. (Bookshelf speakers with a downfiring 10 in. woofer). Now I always thought those sounded awfully good, but the MFM-7s are in a wholly different class of speaker. They sound so much better.
The bottom line is that for the money I paid ($89/per) I couldn't possibly have done better. I gave an overall rating of 4 only because I don't feel like I have enough experience with top of the line speakers to claim that these should be compared with the absolute best. I only know that they are the best that I, in my limited experience, have ever heard.

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I haven't owned any similar speakers

Size

Goddamn I like this speaker!

Let me say that again: Goddamn I like this speaker!

The minute I heard it I thought to myself 'I am going straight to audioreview and I am going to make a complete a$$ of myself.

I picked these suckers up for $29 each including shipping. That is almost $1400 off the retail! THey look like schit, but what can you expect from a speaker assembled in China from recycled toothpicks and condoms. The MFM7 uses all Optimus drivers for top-of-the nut sound. The speaker is so light too. I must weight five pounds! Talk about space-age plastic! I like Wharfedale's woofer drivers. The magnets are so small I can basically bang the speaker repeatedly against my TV screen and the magnet does not affect the image quality. A great speaker for the price.

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Optimus, Jensen, and other audiophile grade stuff.