Wharfedale Owners Thread

sempai said:

The 15" woofers in the Rosedales are something special.

I'm thinking about picking up a miniDSP and configuring the Rosedales to fill in the bottom end of my OB's.

Art

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That makes sense. They made a damn-good 15" woofer. The alnico W15 was still available when they were selling the W*0D series (They used that driver in the last 3-way Omni-Directional model, that huge one), so they were still making killer 15" drivers when the Rosedale was debuted.

Speaking of your OB's, somebody on YouTube used the W15/RS in the bass enclosure of his multi-tier system. The upper part was OB, and I believe he used Goodmans for that part. Can't remember which drivers, but you should see it if you do a YouTube search for "Goodmans Wharfedale" or "Goodmans Wharfedale OB" maybe. He seemed quite-pleased with the results.

I sometimes add a little bass-lift to my W90's because the Fisher 800C's bass is a bit subdued, and at the same time, it has an excellent EQ section that allows you to add a little extra bass or treble without adding coloration. I usually only do it with modern, post-1990 stuff. Right now I'm playing "Aretha's Gold", which is one of the few old albums where I do add it (EQ'ing is definitely an art form... Not easy). I have that one on vinyl and cassette (The cassette is great... Played it on the way back from Maine in the Passat).

I've had my W90's going all afternoon. Loving it.

Just discovered Junior Parker,I strongly recommend any W90/W70 user to check his body of work as it brings out the very best. My favorite at present is his version of "Funny how time slips away".As GT notes frequently...funk gets it done!

Thanks for the Junior Parker tip. At first, I thought it read Junior Brown, also awesome.

phatster said:

Just discovered Junior Parker,I strongly recommend any W90/W70 user to check his body of work as it brings out the very best. My favorite at present is his version of "Funny how time slips away".As GT notes frequently...funk gets it done!

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You guys are awesome. Yeah, I be diggin' ma' funky stuff. However (I'm speaking in a proper British accent now), I've actually been trying to branch out a bit and expand my musical horizons, so right now I'm listening to... Wait for it... The Eagles "The Long Run".

I ride the fringe, man... For real... Bank that sh*t.

Highway Patrol - love this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_wLVCLPx0M

Will try it on my W70B's for sure.

El Cavano said:

Highway Patrol - love this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_wLVCLPx0M

Will try it on my W70B's for sure.

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I saw Junior Brown live back in like 1990. He opened for Buddy Guy. Brown was AMAZING, and Guy, at that show, proved to everyone there why he was the headliner. When he did that thing where he imitates a bunch of other guitarists (SRV, Hendrix, etc.), he WAS Jimi that night. Best I've ever seen him play. Jaw-dropping. He's all like, "You wanna' see me do Jimi?... I can do Jimi.". And let me tell you, he DID Jimi. Blew everybody away. Awesome show.

I love that "guit-steel" that Junior Brown plays. He was a tinkerer like Danny Gatton. I LOVE "Highway Patrol". What a guitarist he is. As good as the best Nashville session guys, but way too much soul and personality to simply hide in the shadows.

One of my favorite albums for my Wharfies is Can's "Tago Mago" (What a peculiar band they were). It's like Floyd without the psych meds. Completely-off the chain. Sounds great through my W90's. I have a great hi-res vinyl-rip of the UK LP. When I put that one on at a decent volume, I achieve liftoff.

OK, I'll throw another one at you. Santana's early stuff, particularly their debut. I have gone from hating the sound of that album (back when I first got back into hi-fi) to totally-loving it. W90's and W60's both put that band in the room, so I know it's true for W70's. That recording was probably mixed and mastered through Altecs, but it sounds perfect through vintage Wharfies.

And the Bar-Kays' "Too Hot To Stop" is indeed too hot to stop. Talk about gettin' the funk out. Love those horns (Same goes for the Commodores' "Too Hot To Trot", but that's just a song, not an album.. The Bar-Kays and Commodores must have been vying for the same position on the R&B chart in 1976... The albums are VERY-similar, even down to the mix... Actually, the Bar-Kays were copying Earth Wind & Fire as well... The song "Too Hot To Stop" is a total ripoff of EWF's "Shining Star... This was CLEARLY a band in need of a leader... But unfortunately, Isaac Hayes was trying to find himself at that point).

Here's something you don't see that often. A Wharfedale integrated amplifier. And in their tradition of using confusing model names, this one, introduced in 1968, is called the Denton.


Nice-looking amp though. Beautiful veneer on the wood case in the video I posted below (That one has a better-looking case than the one in the pics above). They DID talk about this amp in the book I have, but I can't remember whether or not it was SPECIFICALLY-designed to be paired with those original 2-way Dentons (or the 3-way Denton 3's). There WAS also a Linton integrated amp as well, so perhaps that was the idea, as both were only like 15-20wpc. Cool-looking amp though. After Gilbert Briggs retired in 1965 to run their publishing dept., Rank at that point was looking to branch out and expand the Wharfedale line to include complete systems, a move which never quite-fully-materialized, though there WERE a few back in those days.
https://m.youtube.com/?reload=7&rdm=1n5muz7bh#/watch?v=G71OjBvqNvU

I raised the woofer levels on my W90's. I like it better than the settings I was using before. I brought up the woofers quite a bit. Sounds pretty-righteous. Listen for yourself if you got some headphones. I forgot how much of the midrange is handled by those woofers. Anyway, check it out: https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=AehcNN_-1jY

That is a smoking recording. Who is that?

El Cavano said:

That is a smoking recording. Who is that?

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Scott Henderson. Big history as a jazz-fusion guitarist, but a blues player at heart. He's been around since the early '80's when he formed a jazz-fusion band called Tribal Tech, and in more-recent years, he was part of a fusion supergroup with Victor Wooten (bassist for Bela Fleck) and Steve Smith (classic session drummer), but oddly-enough, he's only released 3 blues albums, which is wild because he's a better blues player than 99% of the blues guys out there.

That song's a good one for big Wharfedales. It's got the horns, guitars, AND a Hammond organ. The CD is from 1997 ("Tore Down House"), his 2nd blues-based release (His first album came out like 3 or 4 years earlier). The song is called "Dolomite". The title is a tribute to the early '70's movie of the same name (That's why you hear a dialogue sample at the end).

W35's

Picked up a pair of W35's last week to pair with my Dynaco ST70/Pas2 set. These are very nice sounding bookshelves. That is a Janis subwoofer I am using with them to help the bottom end a bit. Beautiful jazz, vocal, acoustic etc. Have not really tried any rock or pop yet.

I liked these so much, I went out and scored me some W70's tonight. Posts to come.

:thmbsp::thmbsp::thmbsp::thmbsp::thmbsp::thmbsp:

So my W70B's came with an in-line fuse connector. Original owner bent it so that it no longer takes a fuse, just passes thru. Should I put a replacement in-line fuse on these speakers?

El Cavano said:

So my W70B's came with an in-line fuse connector. Original owner bent it so that it no longer takes a fuse, just passes thru. Should I put a replacement in-line fuse on these speakers?

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Boy, that's a first. Never seen any W*0 models before that had factory fuses. You said it's bent, so I assume it was installed into the rear panel somewhere?

I dig those W35's. Shows the kind of skilled engineers they had in place at the time, despite the Rank Group's idiotic decision to make Wharfedale an upper-mid-fi brand for a few years following their purchase of Leak... This happened merely because they felt that it was wrong to own two competing high-end brands at the same time (The even weirder aspect was the fact that Leak's biggest seller was their "Sandwich" speaker, a name that should really have belonged to Wharfedale, who was much more-well-known for it's loudspeakers and had been using a type of sand-filled sandwich panel construction with their speakers for at least a good twenty years).

Ken Russell was the Technical Director at Wharfedale at that point, as was John Collinson, formerly of Quad (He made his bones in amp design at Quad back in the '50's, but he eventually got the itch to try his hand at designing loudspeakers, and this led to his move to Wharfedale in the mid to late '60's). The two of them were responsible for the Dovedale III, which was very-well-reviewed following it's introduction. Supposed to have beautiful-sounding mids. That's another model that's on my list, along with a few others. I wish I had like another $2000 and 20 more feet of floor space so I have enough room for all the speakers I want. Good thing I'm not really big on the usual JBL/Altec/EV/Klipsch-type stuff, as I can't afford to go that route anyway.

The fuse wasn't mounted on the panel, just an in-line connection to the speaker binding posts, with a spade type connector. Just wondering if I need one, speaker safety and all.

Will be picking up a pair of W60's Sunday. Supposedly in great shape, they seem early. Can anyone give me an idea as to date estimate for serial numbers 55324 and 61051?

sberger said:

Will be picking up a pair of W60's Sunday. Supposedly in great shape, they seem early. Can anyone give me an idea as to date estimate for serial numbers 55324 and 61051?

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I've had a similar pair for about 7 months, and would also like to know their approximate age. One of mine has the sticker around the speaker terminals missing, but the other has the serial number 61225. Also, does anybody know why two of the screws on the back are red?

The best way to get the age is to open them up and check the woofer cone. There will be a date hand written in wax pencil on the back of the cone.