Wharfedale corner speakers ?

[Wardsweb]

I picked up a set of what I think are Wharfedale corner cabinets. They look kind of like mini K-horn cabinets but they have mids and tweets that fire up out of the top of the cabinets. The single 12 or 15 fires forward. They came empty but I was told they house red magnet woofers. Any idea what there things are?

[bully]

Any model info anywhere on 'em?
Couple of weeks ago I got a pair of mint Wharfedale 12-inch woofers, built like well a Peterbilt.
Lots of models listed in my 97 Orion.

pete

[Wardsweb]

Well it's only taken a little over two years to find out these started out life as Wharfedale Airedale speakers. Here is a picture I found of some late 60's versions. Mine are early 60's. The grills set in where the picture grills almost look flush to the top and bottom of the cabinet.

[Wardsweb]

Here is a "how I got them" picture.

[Wardsweb]

and during the rebuild

[styler]

i think they are beautiful... would like to see the finished product.

[krimney]

I have one Wharfedale Corner speaker. Mine is a two piece with the bottom being 3 sided with and an open back. It houses a 15" woofer which IIRC has a big red magnet. There is also a piece that sits on top with an 8" mid and a 5" tweeter both fire upwards. The cabinet is sand filled an HEAVY. I have never hooked it up. The guy I bought it from had it all taken apart and was going to sell all the drivers separatley and scrap? the cabinet. Thanks to an AKer posting here I was able to contact the guy who is local and buy it all. He has since brought me some other speakers he could not ebay due to size. One day I may get around to completing the re-build. I do have a set of Wharfedale 12" if you need a set.

[Nat]

I had a pair of those warfedales. The midrange surrounds had decomposed and one tweeter had a non matching cone/voice coil simple put in place -- no surround or spider. Sounded great! Not perfectly flat or transparent, but warm, spacious, clear, with a good deal of get up and go. Non parallel sides probably helped as did the ceramic tiles held under tension to damp the walls. Pity it was gutted when you found it...

[Wardsweb]

The drivers were missing, but they still have the tiles inside and the casters on the bottom. I closed up the holes in the mid brace to cut the volume in the woofer compartment and then cut a new back panel with tuned ports for the JBL driver. In the corner, these things have tons of solid bass.

[Wardsweb]

Here is the finished product

[Parky50]

AWESOME JOB !!! :thmbsp:
What a great transformation !!!
Be sure to let us know how they are sounding... :yes:

[Celt]

:jawdrop: Gorgeous!

[Wardsweb]

These were very well received at the last Lone Star Bottlehead meet at my house. Many said they wouldn't change anything, but for me I wanted more high end crispness. So, I just picked up these mint 077 tweeters. I will build a secondary crossover to JBL specs (3106/N8000), thanks to Giskard who supplied me with the JBL schematic made to cross these very drivers (077 & LE175).

[Wardsweb]

Here is a pic of the DIY 3106 crossover. I adjusted these and mounted them inside the cabinet. So you only see the 3110A crossovers from the outside.

[lynnm]

Magnificent work Wardsweb!

[dorokusai]

They look fantastic....I seem to have seen that color choice before :) I'm referring to the previous SDA's....same color right?

[Ed in SoDak]

Exudes craftsmanship, wow!

All you need now is that I Dream of Jeannie model and you're set!

-Ed

[jpchleapas]

Outstanding job on the speaker rehabilitation. I like the custom cloth woofer grills. That looks pretty trick and slick. Can you tell me what kind of horn lens that is on these speakers? I would not mind trying them on my JBL L300 Summit speakers. I have a lead on a pair of Onken bass bins that look a bit similar to your new speakers in the cabinet style. I am a sucker for good sounding bass bins. Again a really nice job on these speakers. The JBL 077 should work great. I believe that is the same one in my L300 speakers. John C.

[Wardsweb]

Glad you like the custom grills. They are held in place with rare earth magnets embedded in the cabinet underneath the rosewood veneer. The components are JBL LE-175 HF compression driver, JBL H91 conical horn, JBL H94 bent plate lense and JBL 2220 pro drivers.

[grumpy]

If you ever tire of those you know where they have a home :)

[Brian]

Really neat trick with the magnets and an absolutely beautiful job on the cabinets and final product. You get my DIY award for the year. I've seen some really nice projects but this one looks like it waltzed out of a custom maker factory and has a $20,000 price tag on it.

[Wardsweb]

Truth be told, I have around $1500 in these now. This breaks down to around $200 for the cabinet build and $1300 for original JBL components. While not exatecly cheap, they are now the best sounding speakers in my house. Even up against my Altec Voice of the Theatre that cost about the same to build and my Martin Logan CLS electrostats ($4K msrp).

If you have not seen the entire build, it may be found on my web site:

http://wardsweb.org/audio/diyjbl/diyjbl.html

[grumpy]

So you have the 77's mounted and up and running ?

Surprised to hear you like these better then the A7's. They must sound awesome then !

[CarlV]

Surprised to hear you like these better then the A7's.

I'm not! :D Looking great as usual Wards. :) I would love to see those in person. :yes:

Carl

[merrylander]

I don't know how I missed this thread, that is one halaciously great job Ward, where did you find rosewood veneer? I see it occasionally on eBay and the bidding goes crazy. I was told that Brazil has banned it's export.

Rob

[Wardsweb]

I did buy the "pre-ban" Brazilian Rosewood off Ebay:
http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=smiley123

Patience is a virtue. I took my time and waited for decent prices, knowing there would be more up for auction from this guy.

[Wornears]

I'm not usually into exploring the corner speaker type threads, but all I can say is that you have set the DIY bar, and probably made some manufacturers very glad you're not in the speaker business. Fantastic combination of your skill sets, and something to enjoy for a long time. Thanks for sharing them.

Wow, I knew rosewood prices had gotten stupid because of looking at acoustic guitar prices and the ban, but thanks for the link. I could probably stip my old Ariel dreadnaught acoustic with its separated bridge of its rosewood and make out like a smuggler.