Impressive Wharfedale Dovedale 3 Speakers

BilboBaggins

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Last week, I found a pair of Wharfedale Dovedale 3 speakers for a price I was willing to take a chance on after reading a couple of reviews on them.

I brought them home and hooked them up to my Yamaha M-40 connected to a Sony TF-2000F pre-amp. After I got the polarity right (there are no indicators on what is positive or negative on the speaker connectors), all I can say is wow! These speakers take a lot to drive them, but the imaging and staging are bang on! My only complaint is that I would like them to have a little more low end, but from what I’ve read, that is normal with the Dovedale’s. I wonder if it is because the Bextreme surrounds on the woofers are getting stiff! Is there anything I can do to help loosen bextreme surrounds up if they start to stiffen?

I don’t understand why they get so little attention. These are really great speakers! The mids and highs are comparable to my Kef Concerto’s.

Does anybody have any experiences with the Wharfedale Dovedale 3’s? I would be interested in hearing your viewpoint, and also what kind of amplifier you were using to drive them.
 
Your pictures

Pictures please.

Here are some pictures. Sorry about the poor quality. Best I can do at the moment. I have removed one of the woofers, in order to check the polarity. Didn't take any pictures at that time. The woofer has the square wharfedale magnet, and the crossover looks like it is only inductors, unless the caps are under the crossover board.
 

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Great find! Very nice speakers,they originally came out in 1969.Their MRRP was £39.That was a lot of money back then.

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Caps?

I would think there have to be caps in those. I have some early Dentons with the same tweeters. I recall a 6 mfd (or 8?) in them. Don't think those tweets would survive long running "full range".
 
I keep hearing more and more about these. Kind of like the W60E's little brother. The tweeter looks identical to the one in the W60E (Looks like the W60E woofer and tweeter in a smaller enclosure... The mid looks like the W60D mid-woofer). Vintage, n.o.s. oil caps PCB-era) should make them really shine, something US-made, '50's to '60's, with a voltage rating of like 400VDC or higher, but if you don't want to go that route, then go with a modern cap with a smooth, musical sound. Personally, I would avoid Solens or Daytons. You want a cap that stresses warmth and musicality. Bright, clinical caps need not apply.

Tomorrow I get to fire up my alnico W90's after a month without them. Picking up my fully-restored Fisher 800C tomorrow. Can't wait.
 
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Pictures of Wharfedale Dovedale 3

:scratch2: Seems that the Dovedale 3 and the W60E share same woofers and tweeters. The Doverdale is a 45L box...

Now, here are some pictures taken this morning. :)

The pair I have now was given from a neighbour. The speakers were already misused and abused as someone tried to replace the drivers, apparently without much success.

A cheap 4" woofer was put were the mid-range is, and a 6 ohms JBL tweeter was forced into the square hole where the original purple tweeter goes...

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Both tweeters are broken, I have no idea how to fix them. It appears that one of the tiny wires that links from one connector is broken in both tweeters.
One mid-range seems fine...

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The woofer seems OK for the rubber surrounds but I don't know if is or became a bit stiff. Down the cone another tiny paper or fabric is not glued to to a ring. I don't know what kind of glue to use here without damaging that tiny paper, so I leave the woofers as they are for a moment...

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Mine have moved on to a good new home. Too many speakers and too little space meant they weren't getting the attention they deserve.

Interestingly, they loved my Yamaha M-40 amp, but they didn't like my Kenwood Supreme at all. No tube amplification here.
 
What stands could be used for speakers of this weight? I have a pair in beautiful condition but they're so bloody heavy!
 
They are kind of 12" woofer, 3-way "compact" bookshelf.
http://www.thevintageknob.org/wharfedale-Dovedale_3.html

They are very nice, but have now extremely unreliable BP caps that have to be replaced. Maybe the resistors, too.

I have a pair right now.

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Karl, I picked a pair up yesterday. They sound good, but not great. So I will try to get new caps. Can you open the speakers from the back ? Or only access form the front getting the drivers out? Which caps did you use for replacement?

Thanks !
 
Hi,

I remember they could be open only from the speakers (front). I used F&T bipolar caps rated 100V for them, but it was nearly 2 years ago and mine had loads of problems - original tweeters broken, missing one mid-range, woofer spider to repair, etc. If yours are in good condition, then they will sound very good.
 
Hello There Surfnsound,

I am looking at a pair of Wharfedale Dovetail 3 myself and was wondering how your recapping went? Are you satisfied with your choice of replacements?

Thanks.
 
Hello There Surfnsound,

I am looking at a pair of Wharfedale Dovetail 3 myself and was wondering how your recapping went? Are you satisfied with your choice of replacements?

Thanks.

Yes, very happy, they are keepers, it was definitively worth it. I changed caps an resistors as indicated. Now I cannot say how it would have turned out with other values.

The sound here is not that good as I do not have a good recording device. In realty its a very open and clean sound, you think the muscicians are just standing there.

 
Maybe my experiences with these speakers are of some use to someone. I absolutely love the sound of these Warfedales! I have owned a pair of Dovedale III since 1971. I can not remember exactly but I think I renewed a woofer in the 70s. No problem, the importer then was located in my town. In the 90s I had to replace the woofer in the other speaker also, but could not find a spare. I used a Visaton woofer of the right size instead and it sounds identical to the other speaker. Last year I decided to upgrade my system to 4 speakers and bought a used pair of Dovedales 3. I found out there are clear differences between a Dovedale III and a Dovedale 3. I believe the III is the bit older predecessor to the 3. The units share the same cabinet and drivers. The III cabinet is opened from the backside and the 3 cabinet is opened from the front. The real difference is in the crossovers. The III has a simple first order crossover. The 3 crossover is more developed and features two switches to adjust the mid and high range. My experience was that the 3 sounded distinctly different from the III, which can only be caused by the difference in crossovers. Of course I wanted a set of 4 identical speakers so I sold the pair of 3's after I managed to find a perfectly working pair of III's.
I had no experience of recapping crossovers but decided to do it anyway because the caps were now over 45 years old, it is generally recommended and it is not difficult to do. I used simple Jantzen Cross Caps, 5,60 and 0,39 uF in parallel to replace the 6 uF. 15,0 and 10,0 uF in parallel to replace the 25 uF. I chose these Jantzen Cross caps because they are not really special, not very expensive and because I did not expect the recapping to make a lot of difference. I was wrong, the difference is very clearly audible. The sound in the midrange has definitely become more pronounced and clearer, it always felt a bit muffled by the prominent, warm bass that the Dovedales typically produce. The high notes are also stronger and seem to have lost that bit of distortion I think I heard before. The Dovedales always sounded good but now they are absolutely great!. I will hang on to them as long as I live.

To get a similar frequency response to what I had before recapping I turned down the presence (mid range) on my amplifier by -2dB and the treble by -2dB also. My amplifier is a refurbished Revox B750 MkII (2 x 110 Watts at 4 ohms). Of course the Dovedales with their 6 Ohm impedance now put a load of 3 Ohms on each channel, but the powerful Revox handles that without any problem. At volume setting 1 you have a solid listening level. At volume 2 the wife starts complaining, At volume level 3 (which I have not tried yet) I expect the neighbours or police to arrive shortly.

So, my advice: look for Dovedale III's if you can find them (they seem to be much rarer than the 3) and do a recap. They are worth it.
 
Absolutely right! I am particularly fond of listening to live concert recordings and with my 4 Dovedale speakers setup it is really like being there. The dynamic bass response makes it feel like being at a live concert without drowning out the singers and solo instruments. You can clearly hear the actual position of the performers on stage (left, right, mid, front, back), plenty of depth. I have been gradually upgrading my system the last 3 years and the major clearly audible improvements have been moving from 2 to 4 speakers, changing my amp (from Hitachi HA-5300 to Revox B750 MkII, that made a huge difference!,) recapping the Dovedales and starting to listen to lossless audio more. On the Dovedales I can clearly hear the difference between compressed files such as mp3@320kbs (like Spotify Premium) versus lossless audio (Flac files from my MacMini, CD player or DAT recorder).
 
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