Great sound overall for the price

None that come to mind

As a newbie, I am thrilled with these speakers. I am also thrilled with the service of Iagamerica, Wharfedale's US distributor.

First, on the service. I bid on a set of SP-85's at Ubid. After 10 days or so my order was still not shipped, so I contacted Iagmerica. They promptly had me in touch with a person at Ubid who unlike Ubid's customer service agents actually had a clue. Due to the delay I was able to arrange a pickup straight from Iagamerica's warehouse (its 3 miles away from my house), even though they generally do not deal with consumers directly. The folks at Iagamerica gave me a free upgrade to SP-87's for my troubles! Real nice folks too. That's just about the most amazing customer service I have ever seen!

The sound - simply fantastic. The highs are clear and natural, not too brittle(try Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon track #3). The mids are also natural and not too forward. The bass is tight and precise (though at times I wish that the speaker could go lower then it does). The soundstaging is good. I think it would be a lot better if I had a bigger room. Dynamics are breathtaking.

I've heard better speakers, but those were in the thousands of dollars range. For the money, I think there is not even a contest! Also I can rest assured that if there is ever a warranty issue, Iagamerica will be there with their amazing customer service.

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Aura LST628M

Bass is thick and deep. Forward presence is excellent with a wide soundstage and realistic presentation.

Mid-Highs can be shrill, not for ear-popping sounds levels.

For $114x2 plus $75 delivery from UBid these were a very good deal. They are nowhere near the quality boxes from Wharefedale of yore but the smooth and silky sounds from these units and their relative good looks make up for it. These speakers can really reach low frequencies very easily leading me to suspect they have a very flat frequency response between their rated ends (40Hz to 20KHz). Up close they look like nothing special but from casual distances they are attractive and aggressive looking. They make excellent home theater front speakers as they have a wide soundstage. Their construction quality is decent but not exceptional. Overall they sound better than they cost and are built accordingly.

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JBL Music2's, JBL J216A, AR15BX

tight bass, crisp highs, value

I got these after reading some of these reviews. I had heard a lot of speakers before and am really impressed. In particular, these are very comparable to paradigm monitor 7's. These are excellent for HT and music alike. Very transparent sound, nice bass, and clear highs. Midrange is a little stuffy. I don't understand the 1 star ratings. These aren't $2K speakers. They are excellent speakers in the less than $500 range.

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paradigms, energy, klispch, polk

Solid Construction, Good bass for driver size.

Yeah, yeah, the grills are cheap. Take 'em off. They look good without them.

I bought these from Ubid fo course, for $230 including shipping. I was pleasantly suprised at the quality of these units. Needless to say, the Bose 301's went back to the store. The 87's have a much better midrange than my Advents, bass not as peaky, and high's not as harsh. Overall a nice warm, pleasant sounding speaker. Easy to listen to without fatigue.

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Advent Legacy II, Bose 301 IV

Clean strong sound. Good Bass.

Flimsy grill covers

Bought a pair of these at UBID Australia for A$617 (inc shipping)and hooked them up to my brother-in-law's existing stereo system. He uses some 8 year old Jamo horn bookshelf speakers. Left it at his place for breaking in. I'm still waiting to buy an AV receiver most probably the Marantz SR8000. He had several Chesky audio CD's and some of those demo/test CD's for equiptment and we spent a whole night testing them. They sound beautiful and across the whole range. We did A&B testing between his speakers and mine, the result was that we agreed the SP87s were great value for money. It has a lot of bass, so much that I may forgo a sub for the time being. I've managed to get the SP89's & the Sapphire SC as well.. will have a review of a HT system based on the Sapphire speakers in the next month or so..

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N/A

Price, Bass, mid-range, and respond well

none

These speakers were well performed and outstanding. They beat my Energy speakers at both price and quality.

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Energy, Polk Audio, Infinity, Klips,DCM

Great price. Great sound. Easy-to-replace drivers. Wonderful people at IAG America.

These speakers are not going to win any awards for looks anytime soon. The occasional popping noises @ loud volumes.

I, like many others, purchase my four sapphire 87 towers at Ubid.com. I have them connected to an Onkyo TXDS575X Receiver and is accompanied by a Wharf Sapphire Centre. I mainly play DVD movies and CDs from my Panasonic DVDX410 & my Sony CDX400. Both are connected digitally to the Onkyo receiver via Monster Cable optical (Toslink) cable.
I use Monster Cable XP to connect the four Sapphires to the Onkyo receiver. I DO NOT bi-wire the front speakers, which supposedly increases clarity by separating highs & lows more, nontheless the imaging and clarity are tremendous. Don't expect the greatest finish on these speakers. It is and feels like inexpensive imitation woodgrain. However, for the price I paid for each ($120 w/ shipping) I cannot complain. The one issue that seems to plague these speakers is an occasional popping at very loud volumes. However, it does not happen enough to warrant a call to Wharfdale cust. svc. Speaking of their cust. svc. I give them an A++. During shipment, one of the speakers must have been dropped, and a magnet from one of the mid-range drivers became unglued. I called IAG America, the ones who import these speakers into the USA, and w/o any questions sent me a new driver FREE. I didn't even pay for shipping! Replacing the driver was just as easy. It took about 5 minutes. It's very hard to receive that type of service these days. So Thank you Wharfdale for creating such great sounding towers & IAG for looking out for us consumers.

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N/A

Imaging, price

vocals seem distant

I, too got these puppies from U-bid for $97 each plus shipping. One of the pair had a defective tweeter out of the box, IAG wanted to send me a tweeter and have me replace it, but I insisted on a new speaker, which arrived a week later with return shipping instructions.

Overall, this is a fine speaker for the money. Cosmetically, they're not great, but I don't buy audio equipment for looks! Bass response is great, I don't see how they crank out that much bass with a single 6" woofer. Deep pass response is lacking, however I have a sub, so I wasn't looking for anything with deep bass.

Midrange is a bit of a problem. Vocals seem distant, but this seems to be improving with break-in.

Treble is a bit bright, but this may be a function of my listening room, which has a pergo floor and no drapes or other absorptive materials.

Imaging is superior. When listening to Seal's "Humans Being", I couldn't get over the feeling that the vocals were coming from the center channel speaker which was, of course, silent in stereo mode. Classical music sounds great, very easy to place the various instruments.

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none

good bass, low price

voices seem distant

I also purchased these from UBID for $97.00 each. The shipping price was sky high though. I priced the shipping costs at UPS.com and it was only $12.00 compared to the $60.00 I paid. The customer service at UBID is top notch though. They claim to acknowledge the shipping prices are high, we will see if they do anything about it though. Back to the speakers though: they look impresive out of the box. The color and style look very nice. Others complained about the grill. It is very thin but does not look bad. The speakers do take about 40 hours to burn in and then they sound real nice. There is plenty of bass as well. The voices seem distant but if you use your eq that does compensate for some of that. For the price, it is a speaker that can be beat.

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none

Everything!!! can't say enough about these speakers.

break in time (but i works, 100% better sound afterwards)

These speakers out perform any speaker under the $1,000 range (hands down). They compete evenly with others over 1,000 range. If you have a chance to get a pair of these? You will not be disappointed. Great Bass response, mids are sweet, and highs are sharp and accurate. I will invest in another pair(for my rear, maybe the Sapphire sp-85) and the middle speaker to complete my set. And look out for the Pacific Series (the specifications are excellent). I can't wait to get my hands on those.

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bose 901,301,AM5, B&W602