Any thoughts on older Wharfedales?

aprazer402

W70E Model from early 1970's. I nabbed these at the GW yesterday for $22.00. Heavy monsters, cabinets are an 8 (which is why I grabbed them). I connected them to a HK receiver for a quick listen, Holly Cole and Diana Krall. Not bad, great mid-range and surprising bass. These sound good, I believe these have sand filled sides. These originally came with a purplish color domed tweeter, someone has replaced them. The woofer and mids are original by looking at other photos on line. Any idea what the replacement tweeter installed is? They sound good. Worth restoring? Thanks.





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mhardy6647

I don't have a lot of ears on experience myself with (actually, any) Wharfedales -- but they have a very, very good reputation with many devotees (including some life-long ones).

Polkie2009

Great point mhardy, Wharfedales were quite well regarded( probably more popular in U.K.) back in the 50's and 60's before the list grew long from Japanese electronics companies. Here in the U.S. by the 70's and on I would still see them advertised in a number of audio mags. Aprazer was correst about the sand filled sides, supposedly a design to reduce resonance and add stability to cabinet?

aprazer402

Thanks for your comments. After spending a couple of hours listening to them, I think they are more suited for low to med. listening levels. At those levels the mid range on vocals is very good. What really stood out was listening to a FM Public Radio Broadcast of a cello concerto, this sounded good indeed. The treble does not seem bright at all, not sure what that replacement tweeter is. There was some talk on-line elsewhere that these have old oil-filled capacitors and they should be replaced with the same when restoring. Thanks again.

bigaltx24

I have a pair of W70Ds from 1969. Really nice speakers for tube amps or vintage receivers and well worth restoring. The original purple dome tweeters were very fragile so it's not uncommon to find these with different tweets. On mine, one of the purple tweets was bad, I replaced them with some SL2000s I had lying around. Mine had PIO caps in the tweeter circuit, but I found them slow and mushy sounding so I recapped with Clarity PX caps. The best replacement tweeter for these is the Wharfedale Super 3 or Super 5, but they are hard to find and can be real pricey. I would recap and clean the pots real well and enjoy.

leftwinger57

Over at AK there are plenty of Wharfedale threads of users and rehabers. Even if that replacement tweeter is good for that speaker that has to be the sloppiest silicone,mortite job I have ever seen w/ those screws to match. Most would say yes worth restoring. They are keepers and good luck w/ the project.