This is a review written by Terry Ellis July 2025.

For my video review please see my YouTube channel link here

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Can lightning strike twice

I distinctly remember hearing Wharfedale’s Evo 4.4 speakers at the Bristol HiFi show early in 2020 and was very impressed by them. I later conducted an eight way speaker group test with the Evo 4.2 coming out on top and I had the 4.2 at home for years as my reference speakers at their price. I always knew they were not perfect, what speaker is perfect but I always enjoyed listening to them and was alway impressed by what they could do for the money.

Roll on some time and we now have a new Wharfedale Evo speaker range. I have here the largest 5.4 speakers that I was able to compare to the previous generation Evo 4.4 so I can tell you everything that is new and how that has affected the sound quality. Given my history with the Evo 4.2 speakers and how extremely popular they have been I also wanted to do the same comparison between the new Evo 5.2 and 4.2.

I can give you a teaser for what’s to come, Wharfedale have made the new Evo 5 speakers better by some margin and they have hardly increased the price. I don’t mean from yesterday, I mean since the Evo 4 range was launched back in 2020 and for that Wharfedale we all salute you.

5.4

The Evo 5.4 is a three way bass reflex tower or floor stand speaker featuring a 35 x 70mm AMT or air motion transformer treble unit. It uses a 2 inch soft dome mid range driver and dual 6.5 inch black woven kevlar bass woofers. They are a 90db sensitivity 4 ohm speaker and the pair I was sent had the brand new matt grey finish, which is interesting because it’s a little darker than I expected from images I had seen and it looks a little blue in some lights. I am still undecided if the colour would be my preferred of the four available finishes but I know a lot of people are going to love it for being different but not crazy. I like how chunky the plinth of the speaker is, with the chunky again spikes and the unusually named SLPP, slot loaded profiled port.

The 5.4 is quite a chunky looking speaker and is more square in shape than curved and it reminds me of a cross between the Elysian 3 I reviewed in October 2023 and Wharefdale’s Aura speakers that I have not listened to yet. With the Aura being the most recent speaker it makes sense Wharfedale have gone this way with the new Evo design but those of you familiar with the Evo 4 speakers will see some obvious similarities but also some very distinct differences.

5.4 Sound quality

The 5.4 were sent to me already run in which I appreciated. I set them up in the usual best spot in my room and I was surprised by the amount of bass they delivered allowing me to use them in the optimal spot for the best balance of bass response and overall sound.  I found a slight amount of toe in seemed to offer the best balance of central sound stage space but still with a nice fullness of tone to vocals and instruments. I know Wharfedale speakers so well by now and I am sure that helped but it only took me about an hour to be happy with their positioning so I would call them easy speakers to setup.

The system I used to do all the testing and comparison was a crazy high end system for a pair of speakers costing £1399 for the pair, however it allowed me to hear them close to their best I feel and it really didn’t take me long to appreciate what we have here. The Evo 5.4 reminded me of a big Mission 770 speaker and that is a speaker I have wanted for some time and considering they cost half as much no one could complain about that. The reason for this is I found the 5.4 had a very familiar vibe. The vibe is their ability to relax me, but to still get me going with the music from their nice full warm and pleasing sound and they deliver all music in a way that slowly pulls you in and before you know it your foot’s tapping and you’re having a great time.

For a speaker to do that for me in 2025 it has to deliver a good amount, well a lot really, of good quality bass. I expected the 5.4 to come up short here for my big expectations which is definitely bigger than average, but they didn’t. I did wonder to myself if Peter Comeau (who knows me well by now) designed these speakers with me and people like me in mind, because if it’s a big speaker I expect a big bass. I don’t need crazy amounts of deep bass but I expect a big bass, one that I can feel on my body if I am listening to a big speaker and that is not always the case.

The 5.4 don’t go crazy with their bass, please don’t misinterpret what I mean here, what you get is a pretty big, but always tight and controlled bass that can be really quite attacking and punchy at times. It’s what I would call authoritative bass that supports and underpins the music fantastically well even for heavy hitting music like drum and bass or reggae or similar. The bass from the 5.4 is definitely a standout positive for them. Being honest, I wouldn’t have minded a bit more still, a bit more of the thick, warming of the room bouncing bass. You get some of that but not loads of it, so maybe adding subwoofers could still be a good thing here as it often is, but its not essential. The 5.4 deliver a very good balance of bass quality vs quantity even for a bass head like me.

I think that is helped by the quite polite treble that sounds clean, clear and detailed but is presented a little softer in the main. However the treble does NOT sound rolled off in a traditional sense. I am sure someone will measure these at some point to confirm if I am right or wrong here, I could have measured them myself but these days I care more about what I can and can’t obviously hear. I do wonder if my hearing the treble as sounding more polite is influenced by the fact I have not listened to an AMT for some time and I have just become used to a more sharper sounding treble delivery from a dome tweeter for better or for worse.

The benefit of the more polite treble is this is a speaker that doesn’t punish your worse quality music collection. Even sibilance in music which can be quite pronounced with the HiFi system I was using is very well “managed.” You hear it but its softened to not grate on you and it’s this aspect that helps the 5.4 to be a more relaxing listen, the treble is not putting you on edge like a lot digital streamed music can do. We have all experienced this and vinyl can do it too if the turntable is not setup properly. The downside of this is I have found some speakers can end up sounding dull or lacking speed or excitement and there is a touch of that here, just a touch, however I think it’s again well managed. We don’t lose too much speed or attack and the music doesn’t sound muffled, there is a tiny bit of it, but its so slight you might never notice it depending on what your used to or what other speakers your comparing to.

What I liked most about the 5.4 is the middle region of their sound, the vocals and their upper bass both sound very robust, nicely tonally full and pleasing and really quite warm, but not congested or thick or slow.  You get a great balance of fullness and tonality still with a good amount of sound stage clarity and openness, what I call “a see through” sound stage, where you can see through the speakers onto the music happening behind them or free of them. You hear it with your ears of course but it’s so clear it feels like your seeing it with your eyes too and this is the most powerful trick a HiFi system can pull off. The 5.4 are very composed sounding speakers, organised, clear and very well timed, especially in that middle region, but also for their the bass and highs. They are not perfect in this regard but very good in the main and that means they deliver a very impressive overall sound stage that I would call very three dimensional.

For some shorter comings and these are nit picks, the vocals sometimes don’t sound quite crisp clear, they can be delivered just a little soft, but other times they are really clear, so it depends on the music to some degree but there is a little trade off here I think compared to other speakers. There is also an obvious touch of a polite character to the 5.4 in terms of the energy of the music delivery, but again this is nothing more than a nit pick for a speaker at this price. I think using a more lively sounding HiFi system could be a good choice with them, it worked well for me. I found cranking the volume some also livened them up too and they played loud no problem to a point of course but I also liked them at medium volumes. They still sound full and warm and not lean or lacking like some speakers can, but at lower volumes I found they sounded a little too soft for me but I do sit a distance away.

For some music examples good and less good, I really liked modern or electronic music through the 5.4. One track in particular that sounded really good is Joris Delacroix, the track called Homie. It sounded very big in terms of scale, totally in balance from top to bottom with a lot detail to the synths and other sound effects, then what a great bass the 5.4 delivered with this track, it was a real experience to listen to.

Thornetta Davis, Honest Woman can be an amazing album to listen to or not. It can sound like a live band is in your room or it can be a little flat and it has quite a bit of sibilance. The 5.4 did a great job of managing the sibilance stopping the music sounding grating, they also gave the vocals a very authentic tonality and there was a good drive to the music, but they definitely sounded a little polite here.

Some lesser good examples maybe, the track Mud by Dorothy sounded very big, full and warm, very tonally pleasing which was nice, especially the vocals, but when the music really gets going the 5.4 did compress and get a little mushy sounding. It was a more of a warm mush so a more pleasing way to compress rather than sounding brighter and harsher as some speakers do which then naturally sounds more unpleasant.

Lastly would be some classical violin, the 5.4 laid out the sound stage with excellent accuracy and they did a good job of keeping the leading edges of the violin clean and clear without them sounding strident. The Revival Audio sprint 4 speakers I reviewed the week before, that cost a few hundreds pounds extra did a little better with the spatial clarity of the violins. The 5.4 were a little more polite with the crisp edges of the violin but I think in other music the Evo resolved bass notes with a little more speed and clarity compared to the more expensive Revival so pro’s and con’s as always.

In summary, the Evo 5.4 is an impressive speaker that exceeded my expectations. They are another good all rounder speaker from Wharfedale that definitely favours making music a pleasing listen, rather than an edge of the seat exciting or analytical one but the balance between all of this is far better than I expected.  You are definitely getting a lot of speaker here for your money that was very clear to me, however I thought a lot of this was true with the Evo 4.4 as well so how do they compare?

4.4 Comparison

I said in the video version of this review that I think the Evo 5.4 make the 4.4 sound fundamentally broken, which seemed to ruffle some peoples feathers based on their comments. I used this extreme language to try and stress the point of just how much better the 5.4 are and I was not expecting this because of course the 4.4 are good speakers, but I felt it was important be honest. Brutal honest maybe, but honest all the same.  It seemed like there was about as much difference or improvement as between the Linton and the Super Linton but it’s not the same kind of difference. To stress again there is only a £200 price increase for the 5.4 from when the 4.4 was released in 2020, a period of time where everything has become far more expensive, except these Wharfedale speakers,  keep that in mind.

At first I didn’t feel like this, I thought the 4.4 was the more upfront and exciting listen of the two with a more full bass, however it only took me three songs to realise the bass that was really stand out good about the 5.4 was now the thing I liked the least about the 4.4. The 4.4’s bass is very boxy by comparison, very one note by comparison, its thick and lacking definition, extension and depth again by comparison. That is why at first I thought there was more from the 4.4 because the bass notes sounded more clumped together and limited for their clarity or the way they dance around the room. Listening to the Joris Delacroix Homie track, the bass is a really important part of the this track and from the 4.4 it was more of a repetitive similar note, rather than clearly well defined mixed notes underpinning the rest of the music, allowing it to blossom for want of a better phrase. I was not expecting this much difference and I messed around with the 4.4’s placement and toe in and I could make a little improvement but it didn’t really change that much and could not match the 5.4.

For the mid range and highs the 4.4 sounded both the more forward and the more dull of the two. It’s the same again at first you think there is more information in the middle region of the sound with an even more full tonal palate Ten minutes later you realise that is because there is no real sound stage depth, the presentation is very 2D, yes you get a little “see through” the speakers sound stage but nothing like from the 5.4. The 4.4 delivers most of the music forward from them and it feels quite squashed in one sound region, so parts of the music sound very pronounced and sometimes that is a good thing other times not so much.

Some of the Thornetta Davis tracks, her female vocals sounded a little more attacking and present and I thought I preferred that until I played the classical violin and it sound a bit screechy and really quite edgy and a bit thin. That made it quite hard music to listen to showing there is not the same nice overall balance of sound as from the 5.4, some bits of the music are being shouted at you to some degree. Of course it’s still very possible someone would prefer the 4.4’s more forward sound, especially if you have built a system to balance them in your room.

This of course all sounds like a typical reviewer thing to say about a new speaker, to that I say do the test for yourself. Listen to the 5.4 for a week and then go back to the 4.4 and see if you feel the same as me.

What is new?

I was very interested to learn what Wharfedale have done here to lift the performance of the 5.4 speakers this much especially given the main recipe for all the speakers in the new Evo 5 range are very familiar, so the changes they have made seem to be very important.

Looking at the two speakers side by side my first impression is the 4.4 is a beautiful looking speaker and I think I prefer its tall and slender shape visually with the grills on.  I think the full length grill offsetting the wood finish is the nicer looking speaker of the two, especially with the silver on the spikes adding a little extra something. Remove the grills and I am now not sure now which speaker I prefer the look of and I wonder if they were in the same finish either wood or grey would this change how I feel? I think it probably would. Sat at my listening seat looking at them, so around 12 feet away I found the 4.4 is a little more stand out and I don’t know if that is necessarily a good thing or for a positive reason, maybe they were more visually in the way.

I definitely prefer the look of the driver surrounds of the 5.4, yes they have less bling about them being all black but they look higher quality, more premium built in their own way. From any angle you can see the Evo 5 is the more square or chunky speaker but that is for the technical benefit of giving the cabinet more volume for a better bass response. I would take that over the slender shaped speaker (worse bass) all day, every day and you hear this difference very easily. The 5.4’s cabinet is made from a sandwich of woods all of different densities to help kill resonances and what I noticed when picking the 5.4 up is they feel heavier and more solid  compared to the 4.4. Maybe it’s just because of the shape and how that feels in your hands but there is more weight to them about 5 kg making the 5.4 about 25% heavier, so a significant amount heavier.

It’s not initially obvious but the 5.4 has a brand new designed AMT treble unit. It is larger so has a larger radiating area and also a new front plate to improve its directivity. Behind the AMT is a chamber filled with a material Wharfedale have trade marked called SilentWeave. They say it’s used to better absorb the back sound wave from the AMT and I think you hear these differences in the smoothness and more detailed highs compared to the 4.4’s edgier and duller presentation. You do have to look very closely at both AMT to see any visual difference, its certainly not obvious but you can see it.

My favourite Evo speaker driver has always been the soft dome mid range and I believe the Evo 5 uses the same cone material but there are two major differences. One is the outer frame that again has a trademark name of ResoFrame, said to be an elastomer damping ring intended to prevent resonances moving to and from the driver into the cabinet or back again. There is also more Silentweave material used behind the dome to, you guessed it, better absorb the back sound wave into a chamber. The soft dome plays up to around the 4Khz region which is very high for a mid range driver and that means the speaker avoids the typical 1-2Khz region for a crossover, so they avoid a sound region human hearing is highly sensitive and how can you not like that. The second obvious difference is how the dome sits further back into the cabinet and there seems to be more of a horn or at least a deeper wave guide in front of it. I wondered if that is what gives the 5.4 the smidgen more sensitivity as the spec says 90db instead of 89db for the 4.4.

The bass drivers look very similar for the cone material because it is the same black kevlar. The 5.4 bass drivers also have the ResoFrame surrounds that likely matters more for the bass as they create more vibration. Probably the most exciting change here is with motor system that has been taken from the top of the range Elysian speakers bass drivers. That definitely helps explains the big difference in the bass control, articulation, depth and power and that is amazing driver tech to get in this price of speaker.  The wonders of trickle down technology.

The SLPP or slot loaded port system is now a three way design with the 5.4 rather than a two way with the 4.4. Wharfedale say this improves how the bass behaves from the speaker in the room and how that makes them easier to position and I cannot deny I experienced this difference between them.

I had to borrow a photo from the internet for the 4.4’s crossover for my video review, its quite complex looking and all on one single board. Wharfedale say with the improvements to the drivers they could make the crossover more simple for the 5.4 and they have separated boards for the high and low frequencies. They told me they are using better quality components too, such as better quality polypropylene capacitors in critical positions.

Lastly and very interesting Wharefdale say the crossover and the other changes have helped to improve the speakers directivity, which is how the speaker controls its sound more towards the listener and less towards the many reflective surfaces in a room, like the walls ceiling and floor etc. They say this has been a two year project and you can hear this very clearly with how the 5.4 create a fully 3D sound stage and sound far more balanced top to bottom. This will likely benefit those of you without an acoustically treated room more than me in this my treated room, but I could still hear the difference very easily.

The bass drivers look very similar for the cone material because it is the same black kevlar. The 5.4 bass drivers also have the Resoframe surrounds which likely matters more for the bass as they create more vibration but the big change here is with motor system, that has been taken from the top of the range Elysian speakers bass drivers. That definitely helps explains the big difference in the bass control, articulation, depth and power and that is amazing driver tech to get in this price of speaker I feel.  The wonders of trickle down technology.

The SLPP or slot loaded port system is now a three way design with the 5.4 rather than a two way with the 4.4. Wharfedale say this improves how the bass behaves from the speaker in the room and how that makes them easier to position and I cannot deny I experienced that difference between them.

I had to borrow a photo from the internet for the 4.4’s crossover, its quite complex looking and all on one single board. Wharfedale say with the improvements to the drivers they could make the crossover more simple for the 5.4 and they have now separated the boards for the high and low frequencies. They told me they are using better quality components for the 5.4 crossover such as better quality polypropylene capacitors in critical positions.

Lastly and very interesting is Wharfedale say the crossover and other changes have helped to improve the speakers directivity which is how the speaker controls its sound more towards the listener and less towards the many reflective surfaces in a room, the walls, the ceiling and floor etc. They say this has been a two year project and you can hear this very clearly with how the 5.4 create a fully 3D sound stage and sounds far more balanced top to bottom. This will likely benefit those of you without an acoustically treated room more than in my fully treated room, but I could still hear the difference very easily.

EVO 5.2

The EVO 5.2 is likely to be an extremely popular speaker given we are getting almost everything the same as with the 5.4 but for the ridiculously reasonable price of £749 for the pair. That is only £100 more than the 4.2 when released back in 2020 which is again crazy given the differences in the speakers.

It’s a similar story ,with the 5.2 side by side with the 4.2 you can see the main speaker recipe is the same. The 5.2 is a three way speaker with the new AMT, the same improved soft dome mid range driver but just a single improved 6.5 inch bass woofer. The 5.2 has the three way SLPP port system and the crossover has different values but is still a dual board not a single one, so you do get almost everything the same as with the 5.4, just a bit less of it. But it’s not quite the same speaker.

It is a noticeably larger, chunkier and more substantial looking speaker compared to the 4.2, however unlike how I felt about the visual difference between the 5.4 and 4.4, I prefer the look of the 5.2 outright. I think the proportions of the 5.2 just look right to me for a serious performance stand mount speaker.

Speaking of stands I had hoped to get the matching dedicated 5.2 stands here for this review but sadly none had not made it into the country yet. I had my hands on the new speakers so early I had to use my Mission 770 stands and they were ok, but not perfect. Wharfedale told me the dedicated stands specifically designed for the 5.2 are a little special and they do look like really nice from the images, they are priced to be special at £449 for a set. That is a lot of money for stands for speakers that only cost £749 and choosing these might be a tough decision for some people I feel.

All I can say is stands do matter and if you want the best performance and looks the matching stands often work out the best, but other stands are available if you want to save some money.

5.2 Sound Quality and comparison

I need to temper my comments about the sound quality of the 5.2 because I didn’t have the correct stands, but what I can say is the performance is very similar to the 5.4 as you would expect, but there are some stand out differences. The first big thing to mention is I found the Evo 5.2 to perform better than the larger 4.4, so better than the previous top of the range floor standing speaker in pretty much every way, including bass. I would say there was maybe a touch less bass, but only a touch, but the extension of the bass and the overall scale of the sound was about the same, with the 5.2 giving a better bass quality, a clearer and better organised sound stage, much nicer vocals, and they are a better balanced listen overall. Of course that is only in my smaller room but that is a pretty big win from where I am sitting.

There was some differences between the 5.2 and 5.4 I think are worthy of note. I found the 5.4 to have the edge on the 5.2 in every area, just a touch in some, more significant in others. The 5.4 are a little smoother and a little more relaxed of a listen and of course they can give you a bigger scale of sound, play louder without the same hardening of the music. It’s not just about them being a bigger speaker I think it’s the way the drivers are setup, I think the extra bass driver means the soft dome can do a little less and you end up with a smoother overall sound. The 5.4 can create more of a 3D sound stage with a little more depth. For some people the 5.4 will be worth the extra money even though the 5.2 is punching well above it’s price weight and for what it can do compared your expectation for an Evo stand mount speaker. The bass the 5.2 deliver is very impressive and very punchy for a stand mount speaker and their overall sound is still big and smooth and very impressive for £749, I think they are going to shock some people and make many others very happy.

It almost felt pointless to do the 5.2 and 4.2 comparison but of course I still did and especially as the Evo 4.2 is an old favourite speaker of mine that works really well in this room. They are like an old pair of slippers speaker for me and I enjoyed them more than the 4.4 for some reason, I couldn’t say why.  I enjoyed them so much t first I was feeling they might be quite close to the 5.2’s performance because I settled into how they sounded so quickly and easily. I put the 5.2 back in to compare and in less than one song I realised the difference between the speakers is massive, with again the 5.2 making the 4.2 sound broken. The 5.2 sound more like a speaker up the range, so better in every way, rather than a direct replacement and that is very impressive when you stop and think about it.

Conclusion

Time to wrap up my longest review in a long time. It’s no surprise to me that a new Wharfedale speaker is better than an older one, that is to be expected but I am genuinely surprised by how much improvement there is given the prices have not really changed. That is where the value for money proposition really comes in here.

I think I might prefer what Wharfedale have done with the new Evo speakers in terms of the improvements more than what they did with the Super Linton and maybe that is because the Evo have always been more of my kind of speaker. Not really from a bass point of view though, but the 5.4 certainly addresses that.

I think if you have been a fan of any Evo 4 speaker the Evo 5 are very likely going to blow you away by how much better they are. Many of the big strengths are now bigger strengths and the weaker points are mostly gone. They are not perfect speakers but they offer a hell of a lot of performance for what they cost. Audiophiles have never had it better when it comes to affordable speakers as in 2025.

A Serious Bang for Buck Award is granted in recognition of a products stand out high performance being significantly greater than its perceived price point

For the full specification of the Wharfedale Evo 5 speaker range see their website here