WLM Diva Monitor -- Personal Experience?

Hi, I have Diva Monitors with the Diva Control unit in my "SET the Control" system and am perfectly pleased with them.

These are great speakers that deliver a dense and joyful musical experience. Superlative timing with immediate response, very dynamic, very fast and with excellent soundstaging they have high goose-bump potential. I see you have a multi-mode tube amp with healthy output in ultralinear: Perfect for this speaker! With its high sensitivity the triode mode will be sufficient, normally. But this speaker is such fun you may want to let it off the leash now and then. Also, if you insert the Diva Control you give away some db's depending on its setting, so there again the amp's choice of mode will be a blessing. I am using a 2x8W triode design myself but that is enough because I run it at low volume in the bedroom, together with the Diva Control at +4db that ties it all nicely together for the purpose.

Talking about Diva Control: this is a fantastic (tonally clean!) device to make this a real big speaker without having to hide a sub somewhere. If it's in your budget, consider it seriously. If not, you can always add it later.

One word of warning: the Diva's very hard suspended paper drivers really need break-in time, please consider that if you hear brand new ones.

For the last three years, one of my "must hear" places at the Munich High End has been WLM: they never cease to amaze, the Scala is another magnificent case in point!

Hi Kclone, good to see you on this thread! Not a surprise though, as with our other Sacred Beasts with WLM it's the music that counts!

Enjoy!
Karel

oh yeah. Looks like we have similar taste. IMO, WLM is seriously under known and underrated.

Thanks for the input, Karel. I see that you have a few systems :). This would be my only system. Think I'd find the monitors lacking, so that I would go for a floor standing pair?

Hi, I have not been able to hear the floorstander in my own system. Nevertheless, my recollection under different circumstances is that the overall characteristics of both models are very much the same, which is probably not a surprise given they have the same coaxial drivers configuration. The "gospel" would suggest that the floor ported design and additional air in the floorstander deliver deeper bass, the larger cabinet on the other hand may store more energy leading to a less fast reponse. I can can put your mind at rest as to both. With the Diva Control unit you can achieve a similar frequency response with the monitor (btw if necessary you can also use the Diva Control with the floorstander). The floorstander IS a fast speaker as well, IF it is less so than the monitor, then I have not been able to distinguish it when I heard it.
Bottom line: if your room is fairly large, go for the floorstanders, they will deliver deeper F3 without need for the Control unit, thus retaining the entire glorious 97dB. Otherwise, I don't think you will find the monitor lacking but you will probably want to use the Diva Control and that will lower the available sensitivity of the speakers. In both cases, you will have a fast (but not nervous), neutral (yes, the Control unit will explicitly not change that) and extremely musical (buzzword, but the best to describe the essence of the sound) performance.

Sounds lovely. I've pretty much set my mind to the Diva Monitors now. In Tineo :)

I see that you have the stand sold by WLM. Any thought as between the various options? They have 4, randing from ~$450 - ~$900 (give or take, depending on what the exchange rate currently is).

That's a minor detail, though. More on my mind is what amp. I'm thinking of the Luxman 550A-II. Part of me fancies a tube integrated, but the controls/optionality on the Luxman draw me in, particularly since I'll generally be listening at moderate volumes.