Wharfedale's new Evo 5 speakers look perfect for music or home theater, at a price I can get behind

• Increased cabinet volumes and massively reduced resonance
• New AMT high-frequency unit and enhanced bass and midrange drivers
• From £549 (about $730 / AU$1,125)

Wharfedale has significantly upgraded its best-selling EVO speaker range, and the new fifth-generation EVO 5 speakers come with a visual refresh and very important audio upgrades.

There are five models in the range: two standmount speakers (EVO 5.1 and 5.2), two floorstanders (EVO 5.3 and 5.4) and a home cinema center speaker (EVO 5.C). They're gorgeous-looking things and come in new color options, but what's happened inside is what really matters here.

Wharfedale EVOs already went head to head with speakers costing considerably more money, and these fifth-gen versions promise to sound even better.

Wharfedale EVO 5 speakers: key features and pricing

The first upgrade is to the Air Motion Transformer (AMT), which Wharfedale uses instead of dome tweeters: it's a pleated diaphragm that apparently pushes four times more air than comparable traditional tweeters, delivering lower distortion and faster transient responses. Wharfedale says it also produces a wider frequency range and excellent horizontal dispersion.

The EVO 5 version is bigger than before – 35x70mm compared to 30x60mm in the EVO 4 – and delivers improved efficiency and dispersion. Behind it there's the new SilentWeave damping, which should reduce sound wave reflections inside the speaker.

There's more where SilentWeave came from: ResoFrame and ResoSeal, also new to the EVO 5, are a new acoustic damping frame and damping ring respectively and aim to help the drive units deliver a smoother response.

The mid-range driver is redesigned for the fifth generation, with the aforementioned ResoFrame and Silentweave. And the bass drivers utilise the advanced low-distortion motor system first seen in the flagship Elysian models. That's teamed with a woven Kevlar cone of 130mm or 150mm depending on the speaker model and a low-loss rubber surround for a natural-sounding lower midrange and tight bass.

The crossovers have been redesigned too, and benefit from a redesigned circuit board that delivers a shorter path length between the components and drive units. In the three-way models, that's split into separate PCBs for mid/treble and for bass to reduce electromagnetic interference.

The bass reflex design comes from Wharfedale's more premium Aura and Elysian ranges, with a slot at the base of the speaker rather than a more conventional front or rear-firing port. Where the EVO 4 vented in two directions, the EVO 5 vent in three, which Wharfedale says optimizes the airflow distribution for deep, articulate and well-integrated bass. The design also makes the speakers "less fussy" about placement than conventionally ported designs.

The cabinets are larger than their EVO 4 counterparts and made from a sandwich of different density woods to reduce panel resonance to inaudible levels and reduce leakage of unwanted sound energy. And at the bottom there's a hybrid metal/wood plinth for rigidity and isolation.

The walnut wood option is carried across from the EVO 4, but the black and white are now super-smooth high-quality matt and there's a new matt option called Lunar Grey.

The EVO 5 speakers will be available from June 2025. The prices are:

• EVO 5.1: £549 per pair
• EVO 5.2: £749 per pair
• EVO 5.3: £1099 per pair
• EVO 5.4: £1399 per pair
• EVO 5.C: £549

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