Phase700b
AK Lurker & Kinsman
I just acquired a nice little pair of Wharfedale Linton XP2s off of CL and have been trying to search out details about them. It turns out there were apparently several different iterations of this model and other Wharfedales in general. What is surprising is that they seem to garner little respect and I find them to be a great, if rather large, 3-way bookshelf speaker. I'm hoping there are some here on AK that can share and shed some additional light.
From what I have found so far is that the ones I have were probably made in 1976 according to a pair I found for sale on Ebay UK. I also found out the Linton XP2 was apparently made in both a 2-way and 3-way configuration with differing speakers depending on the year made. It was surprising to me that these little gems with only an 8" woofer were made into a 3-way with a midrange. Also, while I haven't opened mine up yet, the crossover is apparently fairly complex. These XP2s actually seem more closely related to the larger Denton(?) model which has a 10" woofer I believe. I bought these in sad external shape, but the original grill cloth is fine as are the speakers behind it. So I am refinishing and the picture here are of the cabinets after some light sanding.
I've always wanted some Wharfedales ever since I worked part time in an audio shop in the late 60s and drooled over the W60Ds (?) with the sand filled cabinet wall enclosures. I had to place them in the auditioning room and those things were heavy and sounded fabulous driven by a Marantz.
Anyway, after lightly sanding and some cleaning, I could not resist giving them a listen. I had my Pioneer SX-780 pulled out so quickly set it up along with a Kyocera DA-310cx CD player I recently purchased. I put on some classical guitar with orchestra tunes and these XP2s are a delight. Very good imaging. . . the sound seemed to emanate from around the speaker area not from the speakers. And very subtle tinklings of both the orchestra and guitar strumming were clear and transparent. Next I put on Scott Joplin: The Red Black Book and Elite Syncopations from the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble. Very enjoyable foot tapping treats again delivered with a warm, clean, intimate sound. Details in the bass drum and cymbals were clean and distinct. The whole production must have been recorded in a rather small studio because it sounded as though they were performing just for me in my living room. I highly recommend this last CD as it was originally a high quality recording on vinyl.
All this is why I don't under stand why this era of Wharfedales does not seem to garner the respect or appreciation of other English or American made speakers. Perhaps some of the other iterations had some serious short comings, but not these as I far as I can tell. I can report that these are rated to accept up to 35 watts from 60hz to 20KHz. I must say, that based on m first listen with the SX-780 that a good 50 watts is not too much for them. If the power meters are to believed on the SX-780, I was at about a 5 to 10 watt bounce of the needles for just a pleasant listening level. No speaker break up was apparent. So the speaker sensitivity of a rather low 86db is probably about right.
If there is a trade off with the Linton XP2 is may be that it does exhibit a bit of upper bass hollowness when I played some popular and rock music from FM radio. I did read a post on another forum where an owner was rebuilding his crossover on a 2-way XP2 and had difficulty with choosing a good crossover point from bass to treble. Perhaps that is why Wharfedale (Rank?) later added a 4" mid range to relieve the woofer of handling too much mid range.
Well, here are a few pictures and I look forward to comments, opinion, and others who may own these.
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